Not crazy about them ?

[Sparx]

I have a new found love for corys. Since hubby got them in his tank I can’t stop watching them. They’re so active, and playful, they love to play in the bubbles from the air stone. They’re such great little characters and will follow each other around in their little group.
The catfish in my tank are boring. I have two Synodontis and they just hide all day and I’m pretty sure they have a hand in digging up the plants at night lol. This doesn’t mean I don’t like them anymore, they’re just not as cool as the corys
Im not really fussed on tetras to be honest..

 

[gwand]

I dont care for the Kissing gourami fish. My mother used to make me put them in my aquarium when I was a little kid. The kissing used to gross me out.

deworm them

Interesting. Infertility is a symptom of worms? I did deworm the tank in April with flubenzadole.

 

[gwand]

To be fair, most aquarists have never seen livebearers as they evolved in nature. We just see the breeder modified gumdrop coloured products sold in pet stores. Even that nice sailfin is totally unnatural, and in my opinion nothing beside a Poecilia velifera or petenensis out of Mexico. Natural livebearers can be dull looking, but a lot of them are extremely cool, and simply never available outside of livebearer hobbyist groups like the ones @emeraldking is part of in the Netherlands.

I'm not a fan of the linebred and hybridized creatures at my local store, anymore than I'm a fan of glo-fish (and yes, the processes involved are different). But some of the Poecilia/molly, and Xiphophorus/swordtail/platy species I've kept have been really cool. It's like Bettas - fancy splendens are boring to me, but some of those wild Betta species are very cool. You generally have to have a great fish store around you to ever see them, and great fish stores are rare in the hobby.

It's like saying you don't admire wolves when you've only seen pugs and wheezing French bulldogs...

I have, however, seen healthy loaches, and they are still boring.

When you are new to the hobby like I am, your like a child. Eye candy is more appealing. The lollipop is preferred over caviar. I assume my taste will evolve.

 

[Colin_T]

Interesting. Infertility is a symptom of worms? I did deworm the tank in April with flubenzadole.

No, infertility is not a sign of worms but with livebearers who are fat but not giving birth, it can be lots of worms in them making them fat. However, if you dewormed them a couple of times in April they should be free of worms. In which case it's probably just a matter of time and waiting until she gives birth.

 

[GaryE]

When you are new to the hobby like I am, your like a child. Eye candy is more appealing. The lollipop is preferred over caviar. I assume my taste will evolve.

I don't think that's it. If you could see the big mollies with scarlet fins I saw in Belize, or sky blue bodied smaller mollies, with bright orange fins as are found in Mexico, I don't think an over-all orange fish is eye candy. That's a handsome sailfin, but the wilds can be just as eye catching.

I think the hobby took a direction with livebearers back in the 1940s, and the results became the line of least resistance for the trade. The mainstream push is for fewer species and easy mass production. We see it with glofish too, where the most easily produced tetras and danios get the treatment.

Big sailfins aren't the easiest to breed. They aren't automatic like the smaller sphenops based types. Poecilia velifera is largely brackish, P latipinna can be brackish or hardwater fresh, and P petenensis are hard freshwater. All are sailfins, and all have been used to varying degrees to create the hobby sailfins. P latipinna is found in the US, and was the basic fish linebreeders played with when Florida was a major source, but inter-species mutts abound now.

 

[MuddyWaters]

I don't like mollies and platies, I couldn't even tell you why! Any time I see them on a video or whatever I'm just like meh. They just don't grab me or excite me at all. Ironically I think both would do well in my natural tap water but I prefer making my life hard with soft water fish that need RO!

I like black mollies- I got them for their love of algae, but they grew on me. They are just so beautifully black.

 

[JackGulley]

Loaches. I know they should be interesting, but to me, they are just... weird guys with sad little moustaches.

I always thought I would like loaches, but after actually being around them now that I work at the fish store, I feel the same way as you. Especially, we have a bunch of albino dojo loaches in the goldfish tank. Those guys look like demon spawn. Maybe a good fish to buy on Halloween.

 

[JackGulley]

Fancy goldfish. The comets are ok, but the blobby ones with the popeyes and double tails just turn me off. Plus, with the giant protruding eyes, it’s really easy for one eye to get infected/pop/fall out. Plus, the tank is so dirty and you have to commit to pretty much just goldfish.

 

[MuddyWaters]

There are a few- I've listed them in order of boredom from Most boring to just meh.
1. Plecostomus - for reasons already described
2. Corydoras - i have 5 of them, but I just don't find them interesting. I have looked and looked for a catfish that will come out during the day. Haven't found one. So I have Corys. For some reason, they run and hide when I approach the tank (which I do constantly)
3. Platties - just boring. I would say Mollies too, but I love black mollies
4. endlers - just too small to really see and they are like duckweed. I just took a ton to my club's swapmeet - thought I had gotten them all - only to come home and see 2 BIG females and at least 2 males, plus a bunch of fry that I missed LOL.
5. Swordfish- I loved them years ago, so I bought some. They attack each other**, attack the mollies and just aren't as cool as I remember. I like peace and quiet.

**as usual, if I had bothered to read before impulse buying I would have saved myself the hassle of discovering this (and other revelations) about behavior. I, unfortunately, just can't learn the easy way

 

[MuddyWaters]

Fancy goldfish. The comets are ok, but the blobby ones with the popeyes and double tails just turn me off. Plus, with the giant protruding eyes, it’s really easy for one eye to get infected/pop/fall out. Plus, the tank is so dirty and you have to commit to pretty much just goldfish.

OMG yes- those ones with the bulging heads and all those other weird freak-of-nature kind of things. WHY? Folks love them, though. ...takes all kinds...

 

[JackGulley]

There are a few- I've listed them in order of boredom from Most boring to just meh.
1. Plecostomus - for reasons already described
2. Corydoras - i have 5 of them, but I just don't find them interesting. I have looked and looked for a catfish that will come out during the day. Haven't found one. So I have Corys. For some reason, they run and hide when I approach the tank (which I do constantly)
3. Platties - just boring. I would say Mollies too, but I love black mollies
4. endlers - just too small to really see and they are like duckweed. I just took a ton to my club's swapmeet - thought I had gotten them all - only to come home and see 2 BIG females and at least 2 males, plus a bunch of fry that I missed LOL.
5. Swordfish- I loved them years ago, so I bought some. They attack each other**, attack the mollies and just aren't as cool as I remember. I like peace and quiet.

**as usual, if I had bothered to read before impulse buying I would have saved myself the hassle of discovering this (and other revelations) about behavior. I, unfortunately, just can't learn the easy way

No I love all of those fish stop it! Lol I used to not like plecos because of their reputation, but they’ve really grown on me. I’m planning on getting a clown plec for my new tank.

Sold someone a $90 Blue Phantom Plec the other day. That one was a real beauty.

 

[BigBurgassio]

I would say Angel fish, just never really liked them.

 

[Magnum Man]

I’ve never been a guppy guy… though I have a tank full of common feeders, that came in with a colony of scuds… lots of cool colors, and pretty fish out there, they just have never found a place in my community tanks… I also never really had Molly’s, except when I had sea horses years ago, and had a 55 gallon dedicated to breeding them, to feed sea horses… I have a few Platy’s right now, but seemed to never get into the live bearers, as anything but feeders… also I’ve never owned a beta… I’ve been tempted lately, but not made that move yet….also never had many danios or barbs, over all the years… I do have Denisons and Tin Foils right now, but when I had tanks before, those didn’t really fit in the tanks I had

 

[Back in the fold]

@JackGulley $90 bucks for a sucker ? ! ? ! ? That blows me away . I have my hard and fast rule of never paying more than $5 bucks for any fish but on the rare occasion I’ve popped for ten .

 

[Back in the fold]

I’ve never been a guppy guy… though I have a tank full of common feeders, that came in with a colony of scuds… lots of cool colors, and pretty fish out there, they just have never found a place in my community tanks… I also never really had Molly’s, except when I had sea horses years ago, and had a 55 gallon dedicated to breeding them, to feed sea horses… I have a few Platy’s right now, but seemed to never get into the live bearers, as anything but feeders… also I’ve never owned a beta… I’ve been tempted lately, but not made that move yet….also never had many danios or barbs, over all the years… I do have Denisons and Tin Foils right now, but when I had tanks before, those didn’t really fit in the tanks I had

I like guppies . Platy’s never thrilled me because they wouldn’t produce for me and now after reading @GaryE posts #15 and #20 I’m rethinking my attitude toward live bearers in general . Of all fish I’ve ever had my very favorite is guppies probably because they were the first aquarium fish I ever saw and the first I ever had and nothing gives me a warm fuzzy feeling more than finding new baby guppies unexpectedly . Same with mollies . There is absolutely no cooler baby fish than black Molly fry . I haven’t had any livebearers in a long time and I think it’s now time to do something about that .