Been there when you realize your monster aquarium is not.

[Stan510]

I feel for this guy. Its going back around 40 years when I tried in my 240,Arowana,Redtail cat and Pacu,Distichodus sexfasciatus and some kind of Barb was albino and yet grew to 18" I to this day have never seen another like it. Bought as a 2" albino TinFoil Barb but it was not.
35,40 years ago..240 gallons was huge. Then like DW here,I realized 2' fish could barely turn around..and that their whole world was just 8' long. These days,I know to keep those size fish you need an aquarium the size of a room..and even then it should be a large room!
Not to be the Fish Police,but facts are facts. I was lucky I found homes for those fish. I mean,how many places want a 10 pound Pacu?..that could get to 50 or more in a public aquarium.

 

[xxBarneyxx]

Yeah. Even in the more common groups of fish you see there are quite a few that aren't suitable for most of the tanks we have at home.

Clown loaches spring immediately to mind. They are normally nice and small in the fish shop, they are pretty to look at and work great in a community tank when they are little. But they grow massive and are pretty active fish. I know some people say a 100g is fine for these but I don't feel like a fish that is basically the size of your average ornamental carp has any place in a tank that small.

The amount of times you see people say "its ok, I can re-home it or buy a bigger tank when I need to". One if you can buy a bigger tank that is suitable do it now. Two trying to find someone to take in these monster fish is not easy.

 

[Stan510]

I think a large aquarium set up in a room..looks gigantic because it takes up so much of that room. You feel like you have a public aquarium sized tank and so,you can now keep Alligator gars or Arapaima.
It took me years to go down to Cichlids and Red Hooks..then I stopped. When I came back,the internet and youtoobies showed how nice a large tank can be with even smaller fish..more to scale. A big plus too is now I can keep live plants for the first time in that big aquarium. All my previous setups were never going to grow plants.
Only,I now know that Rainbowfish grow larger than I thought. Still not too big.but not hard to find like a tetra would be..