Best success and worst failures with your reef fish

[Big G]

Had a yellow tang, coral beauty angel, golden head sleeper goby, 2 neon cleaner gobies all die from velvet in my qt. in 5 days . . . :confused::mad::(

 

[GWHouston]

Had a yellow tang, coral beauty angel, golden head sleeper goby, 2 neon cleaner gobies all die from velvet in my qt. in 5 days . . . :confused::mad::(

Ouch...that's a lot to recover from. Hope this didn't continue in your Show Tank.

 

[Big G]

Ouch...that's a lot to recover from. Hope this didn't continue in your Show Tank.

Nope. Never made it into my DT. That was the only positive. That was a very bad week though.

 

[ca1ore]

I think the OP was asking about fish .....

I put all new fish (maybe one acquired from a known local reefer excepted) through a quite extensive QT process. Most make it, but not all. Occasionally something nasty comes along for the ride. I have, on three occasions, had uronema or marine tuberculosis on anthias that wiped them out. Ich, velvet and flukes almost always treatable. Bacterial infections a mixed bag. Recently I treated what I feared again to be uronema in a batch of anthias with antibiotics in the hope it was bacterial. It seems it was and 3 of them 5 survived. Was able to treat mouth infections in pyramid butterflyfish a few years ago. Wins and losses.

 

[Chris Villalobos]

Worst Failure: Not understanding that low nitrates were killing my hard corals until it was too late.

 

[Kremis]

failures:
removing eel from tank due to attacking tank mates, he later jumped out of holding tank and died
removing blind triggerfish from tank, later died
continuing to attempt to keep acanthurus tangs in ich management system
adding skunk clowns to my tank (ocellaris beat 1 to death, got other 1 out)
unknown crash resulting in the loss of 3 grapefruit-basketball sized birdsnest colonies
flatworm exit treatment killed half my corals

successes:
removed 4 year old leopard wrasse from DT into a 10 gal after it got one of its pectoral fins 90% ripped off by the eel from the above story. it hid for 3 days straight in the sand but eventually made a full recovery and is still doing well today
added harlequin tusk without it killing any snails
when I frag frogspawn corals and the cut is clean and the head does not require me supergluing it together to survive, thats always nice

 

[don_chuwish]

Worst failure is hard to pin down - too many! But the one that made me FEEL the worst was a beautiful Foxface Lo that I absolutely killed with stupidity.
Best success definitely the easiest fish - captive bred percula clown. The matron of the tank. Longest lived fish I have, and the first in after cycling my first tank.

 

[Zack K]

failures:
continuing to attempt to keep acanthurus tangs in ich management system

https://www.reef2reef.com/ams/ich-and-acanthurus-tangs-years-of-experience-and-ich-management.106/
Bad idea unfortunately. I have been working with difficult to keep Butterflies trying to get them to eat, and not eat corals. As well as Velvet management. I am unfortunately learning the same thing @4FordFamily did and that is it is not fair to the fish.
-Zack

 

[Kremis]

https://www.reef2reef.com/ams/ich-and-acanthurus-tangs-years-of-experience-and-ich-management.106/
Bad idea unfortunately. I have been working with difficult to keep Butterflies trying to get them to eat, and not eat corals. As well as Velvet management. I am unfortunately learning the same thing @4FordFamily did and that is it is not fair to the fish.
-Zack

yea I figured it out after the first year of trying to keep the tangs
only 2 I have right now are blue hippo and sailfin
havent tried to add another tang in over 3 years

 

[kdc]

Losing my tanks in a fire. Wasn’t my fault, but neither are flukes, ick or velvet.

 

[Daniel@R2R Verified Admin]

Great thread! Lots of good comes from sharing our stories like this. It's both encouraging and educational.

 

[Grey Guy]

Worst idea: I thought I could buy success by getting all the latest DooDads. Had them in place, thought I was ready, then watched about $500 dollars worth of SPS slowly die.

Best idea: I gave up and left my tank alone, and now it is thriving. No SPS, but LPS and fish doing great and the sand stays white, without cleaning.

 

[XNavyDiver]

Worst idea: I thought I could buy success by getting all the latest DooDads. Had them in place, thought I was ready, then watched about $500 dollars worth of SPS slowly die.

Best idea: I gave up and left my tank alone, and now it is thriving. No SPS, but LPS and fish doing great and the sand stays white, without cleaning.

I've been there with SPS. I'm doing much better now also.
Best success; performing surgery on a purple fire fish to remove an external parasite, and he lived! (the fish that is)
Worst failure; housing two citron gobies that proceeded irritate and molest every acro I placed in the tank. They were eventually captured and re homed to my LFS.

 

[GWHouston]

Worst idea: I thought I could buy success by getting all the latest DooDads. Had them in place, thought I was ready, then watched about $500 dollars worth of SPS slowly die.

Best idea: I gave up and left my tank alone, and now it is thriving. No SPS, but LPS and fish doing great and the sand stays white, without cleaning.

I’m guessing this is common, at least the gadgets. If someone would just offer a degree or at least a class, we’d all save money.

 

[Jesterrace]

Worst Failures: Tie between my Green Mandarin and my Male Melanurus Wrasse. The Green Mandarin learned to eat Frozen Mysis and Reef Frenzy, I regularly stocked pods and spent hundreds of dollars on them and she still died from Starvation in less than 3 months. The Male Melanurus Wrasse got ich and died within a week (Never add a fish to your DT straight from the shipping bag).

Other notable failures: Purple Firefish had a run in with an Aiptasia anemone and died, Scissortail Dartfish ran into an aiptasia anemone and died (killed the aiptasia deader than dead after that). Also removed the following aggressive fish: Flame Angel, Solar Fairy Wrasse (aka Red Head Salon Fairy Wrasse), Snowflake Occ

Best Success: Juvie Melanurus Wrasse, fought off ich and was the first fish I added in months that didn't cause aggression issues, but it didn't take any crap from that Snowflake Occ that tried to bully it (stupid clownfish deserved everything the wrasse gave it), I would also say my Diamond Watchman Goby. Very durable fish