This fish wasn't all it was cracked up to be.....it was a let down?

Have you ever gotten a fish that you were so excited about but it ended up being a bust?

  • Yes (please tell us what in the thread)

    Votes: 161 60.1%
  • No

    Votes: 96 35.8%
  • Other (please explain)

    Votes: 11 4.1%

  • Total voters
    268

Appoloreefer

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Have you ever gotten a fish that you were so excited about but it ended up not living up to your expectations? Let's talk about those fish today and why they weren't all you wanted them to be!

1. What fish were you excited about but turned out to be a let down?

2. Why did this fish not meet your expectations?



Huma Picasso triggerfish, Rhinecanthus aculeatus This is a royalty-free image from Pixabay.
reef-triggerfish-2274544.jpg
Yes, when they say the fish is really good at eating algae and then you purchase it and find out it does nothing.
 

Appoloreefer

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Snow flake eels. They hardly ever come out except to eat and then go back into hiding.
IMG_3551-L.jpg


When I do get to see them it is fun so I wouldn't call the a complete bust though.
IMG_3560-L.jpg

I had hoped they would become more active but it hasn't happened in months.
I had a snowflake eel and he was very active and never bothered anything or anyone and I had small fish, I kept him fed and he was a model citizen
 

Appoloreefer

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Meanest saltwater fish you can buy. Intelligently plans out how to bite you and draw blood

Gold-Stripe-Maroon-Clownfish.jpg
I had a Maroon clownfish and he was not very aggressive but I guess it all depends, sometimes you can get lucky with fish and then sometimes they are really bad
 

hhaase

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For me it was simple Green Chromis. All my research said they are easy to care for, peaceful, and hardy fish. I thought it would be quite nice to have a bunch of them in the tank to really liven things up. But as I found out later on..... many of us have a lot of trouble keeping these suckers alive at all.

6 Chromis went into the tank, and things were fine for the first couple days. Then they slowly dropped off over the next three weeks. No signs of injury, no signs of illness, no issues with any other livestock. Not a single water test was out of place. Everything would be fine going to bed, the next morning one of them would be hiding under a rock, and by the next morning it would be somewhere dead in the tank. I started digging on the forums here too see if anybody else had a problem with "chromis keep dying". Turns out there's a BIG number of experienced reefers that suffer with mass die-off of green chromis.

So they quickly when from being high on my preference list to now being on my 'never again' list.

-Hans
 

kcschwabe

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My blue crabs they’re always getting out of the tanks .. a few months ago I was still using an over the rim style diy overflow , they would always push it around and cause it to lose siphon I came home to a flooded living room three times in a month I finally drilled the tanks and installed proper overflows ... hmmmf sure showed them
 

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HawkeyeDJ

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I'm new to the hobby as well. My first purchase was 3 fire fish. They were great as long they were the only fish in the tank. Once I added a couple of cardinals (not aggressive at all) the fire fish now hide all day and only come out occasionally to eat. Fortunately, their life expectancy is only 2-3 years and needless to say, I won't be replacing them.
 

Crevalle

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My lawnmower Blenny was devoured by the sebae nem in the tank. Got rid of the sebae and got a new lawnmower only to find my bristletooth tang is completely anti Blenny so returned the Blenny.
 

HawkeyeDJ

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If I had to complain about a tank inhabitant, it would be the "peppermint shrimp." . . . Mine learned quickly that if they annoy corals with their poking and prodding those corals will regurgitate their food. They treat them as Pez dispensers.
lol!
 

Kevin Finocchiaro

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Have you ever gotten a fish that you were so excited about but it ended up not living up to your expectations? Let's talk about those fish today and why they weren't all you wanted them to be!

1. What fish were you excited about but turned out to be a let down?

2. Why did this fish not meet your expectations?



Huma Picasso triggerfish, Rhinecanthus aculeatus This is a royalty-free image from Pixabay.
reef-triggerfish-2274544.jpg
Many years ago I purchased a tiny bat fish, it was so small that any of the other fish in the tank could have easily swallowed it. However, In what seem to be a very short period of time this fish grew over a foot. My tank is 7 foot long and 2 ft high and this fish was outgrowing it. Sadly one evening there was a thunder storm hit close to the house and that spooked him which caused him to dart from one end of the tank right into the wall at the other end of the tank and he was unable to recover from the nerve damage 12 hrs later. A very cool fish that grows very large, very fast.
 

Mr Krabbs

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Archeye Hawkfish-death from above! This dude was deadly accurate and beat everyone in the tank up before I was finally able to catch him and trade him in for some supplies. His name was Zero.
 

reeftivo

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black three spot damsel that hated me. maniac terrorized everything in the tank, got up to 4 inches and would bite me any time i would put a hand in the tank. i'm not talking nibble either. relentless biting! Yikes!

Gave him to the LFS along with a restraining order.
 

twiatr2001

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I would have to say, definitely any damsel, because of aggression, also lightning maroon clowns are so territorial with each other that they will kill the other one off just to be the only one in the tank, I think I went through 3 of these before I said no more, and finally the great diamond goby, great for cleaning but very dumb, would get to close to the anemone and get stung and die, if of course he wasn't to busy jumping out of the tank and drying up on the floor fish stick style, LOL
 

Low Tech Reefer

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Not a fish, but a pistol shrimp was the worst purchase I ever made and a big mistake
I had one for YEARS that was a hitchhiker on some live rock. Every night for years pop...pop...pop...The tank is in my bedroom. One day the popping stopped. That was a good day!
 

Tyler Flynn

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Tangs and wrasses mostly. 180 gal sps dominant reef. I would catch a glimpse once every week or so. Just a very shy fish. I fed heavily so I guess it never really had a need to come out of the rocks. Traded it when I upgraded the tank.

The wrasses and tangs would have been too fast moving for the goldens liking. I’m looking at adding a pair to my tank with all small peaceful fish. And i have nowhere for them to hide that i can’t see them
 

blaxsun

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1. What fish were you excited about but turned out to be a let down?
Purple dottyback.

2. Why did this fish not meet your expectations?
So pretty, but what an a#$@#%@# of a fish lol
Mine spends 99% of his time in the “bat cave”. So not an a**hat, but we rarely see him these days.
 

Sam816

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Diamond gobies just making a huge mound at the base of my middle rock structure.

Just picked up a blonde naso that I'm worried about...he ate at the lfs but won't touch anything I put in the tank.
I had similar issue with my blonde naso. I tried frozen mysis, brine, baby brine, bloodworms, hikari seaweed extreme, aquaforest pellets, vitalis pellets, seachem marine, green seaweed, purple seaweed, nori, masstick..... Didn't eat for 8 days. Mine started eating after I put in some caulerpa in the tank. Now eats frozen too. Still won't touch pellets/flakes though. At one point I thought that this fish is gonna put me on blood pressure pill
 

A worm with high fashion and practical utility: Have you ever kept feather dusters in your reef aquarium?

  • I currently have feather dusters in my tank.

    Votes: 66 37.5%
  • Not currently, but I have had feather dusters in my tank in the past.

    Votes: 59 33.5%
  • I have not had feather dusters, but I hope to in the future.

    Votes: 25 14.2%
  • I have no plans to have feather dusters in my tank.

    Votes: 26 14.8%
  • Other.

    Votes: 0 0.0%
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