If you were to ban one fish from the hobby what would it be?

[Piscans]

chromis, nobody knows how to keep them correctly. you need a ton of tabling sps coral and at least a school of like 50.

 

[Sink_or_Swim]

I personally feel things like sharks and rays should stay in the ocean... I can understand why people like to keep them, I just don't like seeing them in captivity other than rescues in large aquariums, etc. Just my opinion.

(Thought about it some more, and I'd also include octopus).

 

[92Miata]

I would agree with you but over this side of the pond getting Biota or ORA cb fish is a PITA. This would also get rid of many fish that nobody knows how to breed in captivity such as wrasses, many of the gobies (We don’t actually captive breed many of the gobies available in the hobby), almost every Angel and the vast majority of tangs.

Seems like there'd be a market for a captive breeder on that side of the pond then.


And I'm totally fine getting rid of all those species until we figure out how to breed them (and biota is breeding a species of wrasse now - Labroides dimidiatus). Most of the species you speak of, we know how to breed - it just isn't profitable with cheap wild caught fish.


If I could ban/restrict anything - it would be making any fish that gets bigger than about 8 inches have a waiting period and require some sort of permit. Not allowing LFS to sell fish that get 2 feet long to every unsuspecting newbie would fix a lot.

 

[92Miata]

If I could ban one fish from importers lists.... Mandarins.

99% of wild caught mandys starve to death. They are usually so emaciated when they get to our tanks, they just die despite having a large pod populations. Once they reach that extremely emaciated stage, they just refuse to eat, saving any energy they have trying to survive, and not wasting it on eating.

Captive bred in my opinion doesn't help, as my biota mandy reverted to pod only in my tanks that has a large pod population. He is fat and happy, but eats nothing but pods.

These truly are expert only fish, if only for their specialized eating habits.

My biota mandarins eat everything from mysis to pellets to flake. The fact that they prefer pods in big tanks isn't a problem. They absolutely have a higher survival rate, and they're super easy to keep.

And every biota/ORA mandarin is probably 2 dozen+ that aren't collected.

 

[Jared Bryant]

I would keep all fish available for trade and ban a bunch of reefers instead.

 

[Crustaceon]

Not a fish but... Harlequin shrimp. Not much in this hobby has such a specific and nearly unsustainable diet.

 

[Rmckoy]

Most butterflyfish .

but as everything has evolved over the years some are easier to keep , but many still should stay in the ocean

I agree with sharks and rays

 

[Tmrvstyle]

Mandarin
… too many die in our tanks

I hear that, but love what Biota is doing, and I've only lost one after many years in the tank, I've always had one in my tanks over the 20 years+ of saltwater, just lucky I guess, but I plan for them, refugium attached to tank with large amounts of love rock.

 

[keithw283]

I've banned Chromis from my own tank just because I have failed twice with them now. I had a copperband and a moorish Idol happy and healthy in my 180 for over a year before the ceiling caved in overtop of it lol. Both fish survived the ceiling caving in but the Copperband never started eating again after I gave it to a friend. The Moorish Idol is still kicking as far as I'm aware. For some reason I just can't get those dang Chromis to survive. From what I've noticed with Copperbands and Moorish Idols is that people that don't have success with them just don't feed them enough.

 

[Spare time]

None. Any of them can be kept if properly collected and maintained. Blanket banning of animals leads to banning of more and more until eventually they are all banned. It's a slippery slope.

Except slippery slope is a famous logical fallacy

 

[Mackey]

Except slippery slope is a famous logical fallacy

But if say that slippery slopes are a logical fallacy, won't we soon call all logic a fallacy?

 

[Slocke]

None. But.. I think more difficult fish should come in way lower numbers and be charged a premium price.. there should also be serious penalties for poor collection methods. LFS should be WAY more responsible and heavily advise against certain species of fish and at the very least offer full QT to customers willing to pay or who can’t do so themselves. There is more profit in a long term customer than a quick sale so no excuses.

Strongly agree.

My biota mandarins and court jester/Rainfordi goby are both doing well. I think it would be nice if the wild caught (dragonets and sand sifting gobies) were more expensive. That could push more people to captive bred and hopefully provide more captive bred species (and hopefully make them available in more places like the UK). Of course there are a bunch of other fish with finicky diets that could also be added to this though some may be very difficult to breed.

 

[Mackey]

yeah the fact that on liveaquaria, about 3 weeks ago, mandrins were like 20 bucks. I thankfully didn't take the plunge (although God knows I was tempted) and listened to the advice on here. but many people I'm afraid didn't.

 

[Piscans]

yeah the fact that on liveaquaria, about 3 weeks ago, mandrins were like 20 bucks. I thankfully didn't take the plunge (although God knows I was tempted) and listened to the advice on here. but many people I'm afraid didn't.

the wild mandarins are possible to keep if you have a large "dirty" tank, but if you dont have that, you need to have the cb ones.

 

[cancun]

That is a giant leap for mankind…as in you expect too much.

LOL! You are probably right.....sigh....one can always hope....I never 100% trust a LFS. I am friends with the owners and employees where I shop, but that doesn't mean they don't give iffy advice to newbies.

 

[cancun]

But in the case of the chromis, no one, has figured out what to do to fix Uronema, we have ways to maybe prevent it, but we have no way of curing or treating it, also with chromis aggression, we have no fix. most reefers (even experienced ones) say that they whittle themselves down to 1.
And this might be a doomsday tangent but if we ever got a strain of Uronema that was as dangerous to other fish as it is to Chromis and Anthias, that really could end the hobby.

Definitely a great point! I have never owned Chromis, especially with the chance of Uronoma.....but before that I just never was into schooling fish so I never tried them.

 

[MaxM]

Tomato Clowns. Mine is as mean as Mama Fratelli, tries to bite my hand whenever possible, and loves to use her tail to blow my sugar sand all over the place.

Can't be any worse than my maroon, plus she was ruthless killing her mate. Still, she's front and center and loves her nem and leaves everyone else alone.

 

[Spare time]

But if say that slippery slopes are a logical fallacy, won't we soon call all logic a fallacy?

What? Is this supposed to be ironic?

 

[Mackey]

What? What are you talking about?

Sorry, dumb joke
was using a slippery slope fallacy to say why slippery slope fallacy is wrong in jest.

 

[CincyReefer07]

I wouldn’t say ban, but I wish it were harder or had some form of requirements through most or all LFS to sell certain species, especially, sharks, eel, and rays. Too often I see these posts of 18, 19, 20 year old kids bragging about this shark egg they just bought or an eel they bought with no knowledge or experience, just for the sake of being cool and throw it in a 40 gallon aquarium and think it will be fine