What Fish Do You Regret Buying?

[OliveFish05]

Well back then my parents spent alot of money for me and now I kinda feel bad about using their money as a kid and early teen buying unwanted stuff, I should’ve bought live plants and sells (like what I do with my elodea now) back then so parents would just stop supporting me with their money, that’s what I always feel bad about

Ohhhhh I see. I have to pay for all my own pet things as well. Perhaps you could try to resell the old fake ones? I am sure your parents didn’t mind

 

[Sgooosh]

Ohhhhh I see. I have to pay for all my own pet things as well. Perhaps you could try to resell the old fake ones? I am sure your parents didn’t mind

you can SELL PLANTS???
my plants never grew because they kept dying..
only one species of stem plant survived the extinction,. i used to have 4 T-T

 

[ArmchairAquariest]

Not a fish, or even a creature, but I have regretted a duckweed purchase before. In some of my "closed ecosystem"(ish) setups where they are appropriately being controlled via being eaten it works out well. But I have bought it and put it into tanks where that was not properly balanced and it shortly works out to an "... oh ... oh dear, that was regrettable."

Only fish I had that was a little bit regrettable was a velvet swordtail. He was beautiful but he just kept getting bigger until one day he reached a size where he decided he would devote every moment of the rest of his life to terrorizing everything in my community tank, and I had no other space to move him to, and was far too young and poor at the time to fix that. If I just had a new appropriate home for him it would have been fine.

"And kind of a half regret, clown loaches."

Yah, I love that fish, but they just keep growing. Similar story when I bought one when I was young and didn't realize how much bigger it was eventually going to get ... and only slowly but surly requiring rehousing all along the way at each stage. Great personality and coloration though.

"You've obviously never had MTS, lol"

So much MTS hate here I love those guys and have never regretted buying them. If they are multiplying like wild in your tank it means there is an imbalance in something somewhere and they are feeding on it. When things balance out they will drop down to normal numbers. Or you can get assassin snails, or snail leaches, those clear out your MTS if you don't want them. If you go buy fancy MTS you can have pretty looking ones that will squeeze out all the un-interesting and ugly brown/black MTS, bladder or other "pest" snails. In one or two tanks I have that seem well balanced and perfectly fed I don't even see the MTS at all. The few in there sit under the substrate until lights-off and then they pop out of the substrate and do a little after-hours "roomba work" before disappearing again.

"A channel catfish ... " wow, lordy. That is like one step down from putting a great white shark in a large Jacuzzi. Was he at least interesting as a pet before he filled the container completely?

 

[Sgooosh]

Not a fish, or even a creature, but I have regretted a duckweed purchase before. In some of my "closed ecosystem"(ish) setups where they are appropriately being controlled via being eaten it works out well. But I have bought it and put it into tanks where that was not properly balanced and it shortly works out to an "... oh ... oh dear, that was regrettable."

Only fish I had that was a little bit regrettable was a velvet swordtail. He was beautiful but he just kept getting bigger until one day he reached a size where he decided he would devote every moment of the rest of his life to terrorizing everything in my community tank, and I had no other space to move him to, and was far too young and poor at the time to fix that. If I just had a new appropriate home for him it would have been fine.

"And kind of a half regret, clown loaches."

Yah, I love that fish, but they just keep growing. Similar story when I bought one when I was young and didn't realize how much bigger it was eventually going to get ... and only slowly but surly requiring rehousing all along the way at each stage. Great personality and coloration though.

"You've obviously never had MTS, lol"

So much MTS hate here I love those guys and have never regretted buying them. If they are multiplying like wild in your tank it means there is an imbalance in something somewhere and they are feeding on it. When things balance out they will drop down to normal numbers. Or you can get assassin snails, or snail leaches, those clear out your MTS if you don't want them. If you go buy fancy MTS you can have pretty looking ones that will squeeze out all the un-interesting and ugly brown/black MTS, bladder or other "pest" snails. In one or two tanks I have that seem well balanced and perfectly fed I don't even see the MTS at all. The few in there sit under the substrate until lights-off and then they pop out of the substrate and do a little after-hours "roomba work" before disappearing again.

"A channel catfish ... " wow, lordy. That is like one step down from putting a great white shark in a large Jacuzzi. Was he at least interesting as a pet before he filled the container completely?

hmm, i have 2 neon swordtails, they dont seem to terrorize the small guys?

 

[Stan510]

A pink glo fish that I thought the GD would love- and she did. But I'm stuck with a long finned pink glo fish to look at every day over 2 years later. Darn thing is always healthy too. But,no,no trading or re homing. Just let it be.

 

[Wells]

4 Female guppies, I thought it would be a fun project to get some cool colours, the first female dropped around 40ish fry and then I realized what a stupid idea this was.

 

[ArmchairAquariest]

hmm, i have 2 neon swordtails, they dont seem to terrorize the small guys?

They have to get big. I had a whole school of sword tails in a 75 gallon that was self-reproducing and self maintaining. But only that one velvet sword, which was one of the ones I actually bought instead of had spontaneously breed in-tank, grew to some fantastical size where he decided everything else in his world needed to bow before him or die (... or both). It was literally only that one swordtail I ever had problems with, none of the others.

Asking around I have heard similar stories, once in a while one swordtail out of many just gets much bigger than the others and turns into a vicious beast and bully. Why just that one? No one seems to know.

 

[Stan510]

A guy on youtube posted a vid of his guppys he kept outdoors in Hawaii and one strain was GIANT..double the size of normal Gups. Eventually he lost the strain and says he's never seen anything like that again. They were huge..red.

 

[ArmchairAquariest]

A guy on youtube posted a vid of his guppys he kept outdoors in Hawaii and one strain was GIANT..double the size of normal Gups. Eventually he lost the strain and says he's never seen anything like that again. They were huge..red.

That's sad, those sound interesting.

... of course maintaining a tank with giant live bears also sounds kind of hard and high-maintenance.

 

[Vass_sCo]

Angelfish.
Beautiful and totally mesmerising fish such a pity it was so aggressive wouldn't allow anything near it.

 

[Ellabee]

Hi! Thought I would join in and give my regrets. The little puffer fish. I tried so hard 3 separate times. Followed guidelines, etc. No luck. Also, I admit I’m not that fond of Buenos Aires Tetras. They aren’t social, they pick at anything smaller than they are. They are eating machines. They are very hardy fish. I’ve had mine for a few years now and they’re still going strong but I won’t be buying any more.

 

[Ellabee]

Thats actually really interesting, I have an albino Bristlenose and he's constantly out eating algae! Hahaha do you at least like your snails?

Plecos can be shy in general. I have several P.M.

My bristle nose plecos. They are hardly ever seen and just another thing to feed. Although they aren’t fish, I also bought Malaysian Trumpet Snails in my early days. Who does that? A normally reputable guy on another forum told me to get them since I had added sand as my substrate in a tank. Now they are everywhere!

Plecos can be shy. I have several different kinds. My Bristlenose is the boss in my 40 gallon. There are 4 Cory cats, 3 Hill Stream Loaches and him. It’s hilarious when I feed them, and he nudges and bumps all of them. All of mine have really good personalities. But it could be because I spoil them and give them treats. LOL

 

[ArmchairAquariest]

.... The little puffer fish. I tried so hard 3 separate times. Followed guidelines, etc. No luck.

What type of puffer? Was it one of those pea puffers? What was going wrong, aggression or just inability to thrive?

 

[Ellabee]

What type of puffer? Was it one of those pea puffers? What was going wrong, aggression or just inability to thrive?

It’s the little bitty ones in the pet store I’m not exactly sure the type. It wasn’t any kind of aggression. It was exactly an inability to thrive. I had difficulties finding foods that they would eat. I tried everything from frozen to flakes, freeze dried. The last one that I got I had finally started to eat a little bit but then he died anyway. I know that they have to have certain types of food to keep their teeth worn down. Their teeth never stop growing.

 

[Lynnzer]

My biggest regret of all was also in getting 3 small pea puffer fish to eat the snails that had taken over the tank. They nipped the tails off everything they could sneak up on.