# Biggest Mistakes?



## Hedgewitch (Feb 12, 2008)

Purely out of interest, what was the biggest mistake of a fish (or other aquatic creature) you've ever bought?

Mines not that impressive to be honest, just an angel fish that in 12 hours killed 3 other fish and then as found stuck to the filter inlet dead the next morning...


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## Moosmoo (Jul 21, 2008)

We had 4 guppies once, and then there was 3, then 2, then finally, the killer was revealed!


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## Esfa (Apr 15, 2007)

probably a "tulip eel"

woop, 3ft monster with jaws powerful enough to bit my fingers off


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## mike515 (Sep 12, 2006)

my first green terror.

several hundred american cichlids down the line and I'm a full blown cichlid nut. Plus large catfish, general oddballs and a pair or arapaima.


Theodore (that green terror) is possible the most expensive fish ever lol


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## Pliskens_Chains (Jun 8, 2008)

hmmm i havent kept fish for a long time.

i think it had to be a beautiful orange koi carp,
the purchase wasnt a mistake in itself its the problem that it came with a nasty fungicidal problem, i forget what kind it was now, but it didnt matter what it was being treated (vets products) with it kept deteriorating and half its face had rotted off and it was still alive.......
i had it euthanised in the end. it was very upsetting.


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## Hedgewitch (Feb 12, 2008)

Trust Matt, you couldn't have a normal or minor mistake could you...


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## Esfa (Apr 15, 2007)

Hedgewitch said:


> Trust Matt, you couldn't have a normal or minor mistake could you...


haha, no. :blush::blush:


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## Evie (Jan 28, 2008)

A clown knife fish - beautiful but totally unsuitable :bash:


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## alpharoyals (Nov 21, 2007)

Where do I start LOL

I foolishly bought 4 tiny little Silver Dollars once, stripped my tank in about 3 weeks and they were about 4-5 inches in about 6 months!

I also had some Silver sharks (Bala Sharks) and one got stuck in the whole of a flower pot and shed its fins and scales off!

oh, and I bought some fish from pets at home. BIG MISTAKE :blush:


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## piglet79 (Jul 24, 2008)

Siamese fighting Fish 

used to go round and suck the eyes out of my cardinals and Neons:censor:

Then went onto marines and got some damsels - back in the day you were told they were the best starting out fish bullied and killed all the other fish I tried to put in:devil:

Just Got Beardies and a dog now much easier :lol2:

Piglet79


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## Hedgewitch (Feb 12, 2008)

Wow, I've had siamese fighters juts looking sad and being beaten by near enough every other fish before

Mine used to steer clear of the neons...


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## RasperAndy (Sep 21, 2007)

Pseudotropheus demasoni 

i bought 2 as juveniles, they were the smallest fish in my tank.............

few days later, i started loosing fish, 1,2,3,4

in the end i found this little fish terrorising my tank and attacking everything in site


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## mike515 (Sep 12, 2006)

RasperAndy said:


> Pseudotropheus demasoni
> 
> i bought 2 as juveniles, they were the smallest fish in my tank.............
> 
> ...


 
Your biggest mistake was buying african cichlids lol


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## RasperAndy (Sep 21, 2007)

mike515 said:


> Your biggest mistake was buying african cichlids lol


don't start that again :bash:


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## mike515 (Sep 12, 2006)

At least yours are tanganyikans rather than bloody malawis lol


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## RasperAndy (Sep 21, 2007)

mike515 said:


> At least yours are tanganyikans rather than bloody malawis lol


thanks :2thumb:

you love african cichlids really :whistling2:


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## mike515 (Sep 12, 2006)

RasperAndy said:


> thanks :2thumb:
> 
> you love african cichlids really :whistling2:


Just frontosa really. And maybe a couple of the more Americanised ones. Egyption Mouth brooders for example and Mozambique Mouthbrooders to. But not many others


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## Hedgewitch (Feb 12, 2008)

^how do you americanise a cichlid? like change the spelling and culture?

seriously i have no idea what that means though

also; hells yeah MK


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## mike515 (Sep 12, 2006)

Hedgewitch said:


> ^how do you americanise a cichlid? like change the spelling and culture?
> 
> seriously i have no idea what that means though
> 
> also; hells yeah MK


 
Basically american cichlids (at least the larger ones) have a lot of character to them. Quite intelligent and each has a different personallity. Stuff like tetra, small cichlids, most african cichlids just don't have anything to them. It's like comparing a rock to stephen hawkings lol.


And yeah for MK. whereabouts in MK are you?


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## RasperAndy (Sep 21, 2007)

you've started him off now............

this will turn into the American cichlid appreciation thread now


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## Hedgewitch (Feb 12, 2008)

^^aaaah, rite, gocha

^nothing wrong with them, not a fan myself but i like a tank to have real plants in it myself.... though all my fish are a bit boring to be honest

and i don't live in MK anymore, live in buckingham (only like 15 miles away, bit less actually), probably only another 10-20 years before Buckingham is a district in MK


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## mike515 (Sep 12, 2006)

yeah I know where buckingham is. Can do it in 10minutes on a good run in the early hours of the morning. But of course Speeding is wrong :whistling2:


rasperandy, Im not gonna do that here. But I am gonna go start a new thread lol


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## AshMashMash (Oct 28, 2007)

RasperAndy said:


> Pseudotropheus demasoni
> 
> i bought 2 as juveniles, they were the smallest fish in my tank.............
> 
> ...


But, they are gooooooooooooooorgeous fish. I had a pair too. 

Errrrrrrm, not sure what my biggest mistake was. *thinks*

oooh, maybe feeding the cute little anemone I found in my marine tank when I first got it. As you can see in the pics in the aptasia thread, it got big, and spread... and I didn't know at first it was aptasia


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## Esfa (Apr 15, 2007)

I WANT A TANG TANK!   

which is strange, cause i've always hated them with a passion... =(


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## Bradders100 (Feb 3, 2008)

Red tailed shark ^^

HORRIBLE FISH!!!!!

The siamese have always been amazing in or tank ^^

We have two (one male and one female) Blue Dolphin Cichlid!
They were fine until they set up camp in the middle of the tank, they bully the other fish like our rainbows (tis all we really have left in there now, there is a few other different fish though) And they pick on them back which is good as it helps them all stay calm, the only fish that noone else bothers is the plecostomus!

We are getting a seperate tank now for cichlids so they can breed in peace!!!!!


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## Hedgewitch (Feb 12, 2008)

oh christ, i forgot about my dads redtail... was only too pleased when the cat got it

and the buenos aires tetras, they juts bullied all fish adn ate every blasted plant i put in the blasted tank

man i was glad when teh last one of them died

took years


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## Xhrissy (Feb 15, 2008)

I had a tiny frog that somehow got out and we found him dried up behind the tv. Also we had a guppy that we found one day without any fins, dont know who was the culprit for that one. And one fish that was basically shagged to death by an over eager male haha.


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## snickers (Aug 15, 2007)

I gave a few baby synspilum to a friend. I warned him to put them in a tank by themselves, and that they would eat anything and everything, even each other.
He put them in his planted community tank and they stripped it over a weekend.


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## Juggernaut (Aug 10, 2008)

i thought common loaches would be a good idea to keep the area clean, got 3, bad move, all they did was scare my tetras to death 

also tried to keep elephant noses, but i couldnt keep them happy and they died in a week, beautiful fish tho


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## HABU (Mar 21, 2007)

my brother came by to pick me up and have me stay for a few days at his house...i had a very nice salt water setup with live rock and various fish including a flame angel and some nice tangs... i absent-mindedly told him to turn off the light and pull my front door closed... he hit the light switch on the wall.... well, that controlled the power to my tank...everything shut down...i came back a few days later to a stinking cesspool of a tank.... my beloved fish were rotten.... one simple mistake that day...it cost me so much money not to mention all the time and effort that i had put into the tank........


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## Ruby Rue (Mar 21, 2008)

not remembering to cover the hole for external filter on tank for delhizi, well luckly he jumped at 7am and I woke to find him casually strutting his stuff across a leater chair and remote controls, at first I thought I was dreaming. caught him in a pint glass.

needless to say they have two glass sheets over the most of the tank now with inch think accrilic to stop any escapologits. doesn't stop me worrying every now and then.


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## Tehanu (Nov 12, 2006)

My biggest fishkeeping mistake was hoping I could ever keep Blue Rams alive!

They've always been one of my favourite fish and I have despaired at my inability to keep them alive. I've had three, all at seperate times and each died of septicaemia or columnaris in the first 2 weeks 

Just couldnt keep the stress off them 
Oh well!!!


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## soupdragon10 (Jul 27, 2008)

My biggest mistake was not realising that a 12" cigar shark could jump through a tiny hole and end up flapping about on the floor under the armchair!

Luckily we found him in time, and dusted him off. After a few days to recuperate he was happily swimming about again with a much more secure cover on his tank.


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## pigglywiggly (Jul 19, 2008)

finding out why a pair of 12" clarias catfish are called "walkingcatfish"
forever washing the fluff off and chucking them back in the tank!

and i lied to the parents that the baby catfish i bought was fine for the 3`tank
:devil:
----neglected to mention he`d turn into a 28 inch tiger shovelnose and do massive tidalwaves in his 6x2x2 tank to come fetch his rainbow trout tea!


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## mike515 (Sep 12, 2006)

new mistake today.

Trying to take babies away from an over protective dad.

My dovii have bred again and I've decided to raise these babies. But yeah I didn't seperate off my male as he seemed ok for once. Put my hand in, had a net full of babies and then boom. My little finger is now covered in plasters as the big brute managed to draw a fair bit of blood


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## NikkiB (Aug 10, 2008)

i brought some peguin tetras, and they dominate my tank big time !! They are also the worst ever fish to try to catch when you need to, literally takes hours and lots of swearing to get them lol :bash:


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## mike515 (Sep 12, 2006)

NikkiB said:


> i brought some peguin tetras, and they dominate my tank big time !! They are also the worst ever fish to try to catch when you need to, literally takes hours and lots of swearing to get them lol :bash:


 
why do you need to catch them?


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## NikkiB (Aug 10, 2008)

mike515 said:


> why do you need to catch them?


I changed tanks from a med size to a large one when i moved house , and since ha\ving the big one changed the sand over about 6 months ago....

and i dont like changing the sand when the fish are in there as i feel it stresses them alot less to catch them and take them out whilst bashign around in their house :2thumb:


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## Pleco07 (Aug 15, 2007)

alpharoyals said:


> I also had some Silver sharks (Bala Sharks) and one got stuck in the whole of a flower pot and shed its fins and scales off!


 
I had a couple if silver sharks yrs back, one of them got its head stuck in an ornamental skull, took me 3 hrs to get it out. A lot of its scales were shaved off but it seemed fine.

No more novelty ornaments after that lol


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## Tehanu (Nov 12, 2006)

Not turning the RO unit off properly and waking up to swimming in the kitchen...:whistling2:


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## Esfa (Apr 15, 2007)

Saedcantas said:


> Not turning the RO unit off properly and waking up to swimming in the kitchen...:whistling2:


haha... i had a pair of tights covering my filter to stop shrimplets being sucked up, but the tights slipped while i was at school... they were sitting over the bit where the water comes out, and it squirted 5gallons of water around my room. :bash::lol2:


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## inkyjoe (Mar 31, 2008)

I think my biggest mistake(and the one i feel really guilty about) was buying a rainbow snakehead that was far too small for its tank mates to be!
Fish always look a lot bigger in the shop! He was terrified of everything that came near him and i found him dead a week later. Hed already started decomposing, but that didnt stop the bichir eating him!


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## Doogerie (Jul 6, 2007)

not me but some people i knew baught 2 fish small one's 2 without a filter or any pond weed for oxgen and also neglected to get a hide or anything thay lasted about 2 weeks poor things


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