What's your worst livestock purchase?

[CHUBAKAH]

I really wanted my display to be pristine clean, which means I wanted spotless sand first. I started off with crabs, and snails, and more snails. It just wasn't quite good enough, so I decided to get a sand sifting gobie. This guy is hands down the biggest mistake. He covers all of my corals on the sand, digs around them until he can bury them, and is slowly working his way around the live rock, which I feel is going to fall eventually.

 

Why the stores would even sell this creature is beyond me. Needless to say, I am going to remove all of my rock, and corals this weekend to catch this guy, along with a few trouble damsels I have not been able to catch.

 

Who else has a story about a livestock item you regret?

[reefhunter]

My two dumbest purchases thusfar:

 

Queen Angel (traded for frags)

 

Eibli Angel (currently terrorizing my tank)

Edited June 27, 2008 by reefhunter

[treesprite]

My orchid dottyback (Fridmani psuedochromis), because getting it led to the death of my beautiful blue and yellow azure damsel friend, which I had for many years and was a saint with my clowns (only other fish at the time).

 

Did the dottyback kill the damsel? Not exactly, but it's the dottyback's fault that I had to remove the damsel, which in turn makes the dottyback the cause of the damsel carpet surfing from QT the day before I was to put it in the work nano, which I ONLY set up to have a home for it (had to strip the silicone and re-seal, put in the divider with the overflow, and all that stuff). I miss my damsel :( Stupid dottyback :(

[jason the filter freak]

every damsel and chromis i ever bought

[davelin315]

Arabian pseudochromis. Killed off all of my crustaceans, then my smaller fish, then my snails and other inverts... saw it and thought it was cool, looked at the price tag (mistakenly tagged at $6-$10, can't remember as it was YEARS ago), and couldn't pass up the great deal, then it made up for its price tag by eating 100x its weight in other livestock.

 

By the way, the sand sifting gobies serve a purpose. I specifically bought them because they are sand sifters. They do a fantastic job turning over my shallow sand bed and keeping it clean and detritus free. They do stir up the sand a lot, but I knew that going in and knew the problems associated with them. They are definitely a cost/benefit analysis type of fish and shouldn't go into a tank without first weighing the purpose and the result of their presence. It's like all else, research before buying so you don't end up making a mistake! Oh, and they will dig under your rock and make burrows. Mine have done that already which is why I did my best when setting up to make sure the rock was actually on the tank bottom versus resting on the sand. In my system, they are one of the most interesting fish in there, despite the fact that they are somewhat plain and boring looking.

[MisterTang]

A small blue wrasse I had during my first iteration in this hobby 11 years ago. I brought him home, and he promptly burrowed a hole under a rock and it squished him within two hours.

 

I did my part in weeding out rubbish in the fish gene pool

[bamainva]

Oh boy..there have been a few...but the worse had to be the bi-color psuedochromis. I knew they were aggressive but still had to have the purple/yellow fish for the kids. Basically made my neon goby want to spend time in the back filtration. Had to remove all my rock and corals to get him out and...thanks Chris for taking this one. Hope he is doing well by the way. Once the bi-color psuedo was gone the fish decide he could enjoy the main tank and jumped back into it.

 

As for the kids..they are happy now with a yellow blenny, neon goby and a fire shrimp.

[yauger]

urchin for my nano... this guy picked up every single snail and coral frag he came across, I had 2 frags of SPS that he thought would be better under the rock in the shade... didn't find them until they were white. Sad to say but he ended up moving the wrong piece of rock which collapsed on him thus killing the poor guy.

[davelin315]

I'll add in a lunare wrasse. Bought one of these for fish only and he proceeded to methodically rip the stomaches out of my other fish until I traded him back in to the store.

[yagerboy]

Snowflake Eel! Told was as peaceful an eel as their is. Maybe at 6 inches when I bought him, but grew into a 2'+ monster that would routinely attack my other aggressive fish (triggers, wrasses, etc) and drag them under the rocks. The triggers and wrasses were able to fight him off, but a few of my tangs were not so lucky. Thanks to John at BRK for RELUCTANTLY taking him off my hands.

[davelin315]

So that's where that snowflake came from! I was wondering how old it was? I was thinking of picking it up for a school tank.

[extreme_tooth_decay]

Snowflake eel. Most boring animal I ever had. Always sat in his hole, would stick his head out and take food once ever few days and go back in his hole. I don't think I saw his whole body one time until I fished him out and traded him for nothing a year later.

[fishcam]

Oh boy..there have been a few...but the worse had to be the bi-color psuedochromis. I knew they were aggressive but still had to have the purple/yellow fish for the kids. Basically made my neon goby want to spend time in the back filtration. Had to remove all my rock and corals to get him out and...thanks Chris for taking this one. Hope he is doing well by the way. Once the bi-color psuedo was gone the fish decide he could enjoy the main tank and jumped back into it.

 

As for the kids..they are happy now with a yellow blenny, neon goby and a fire shrimp.

 

2nd! I had one in my 12gAP at the time and it lived fine with my clown, but would pick on him and any other fish I put in. I gave him to Txaggies for his aggressive tank, and he met is match I hear.

 

Also, 2nd on the pencil urchin. That guy has not only knocked things over in my display, now that hes in the sump, hes clogged the ATO once and kept it on. Very amazing, but what a PITA...

 

Finally, I've got to say Banggai Cardinals. It's no wonder they're endangered! I've had 4 and I've tried QT'ing, feeding several types of dried and frozen food... nothing. They're absolutely beautiful, but I don't think I should try to keep any more!

[davelin315]

The bangaiis are notoriously bad shippers. They often get lock-jaw from what I have seen and understand. I think the best way to get them is from a local store that has had them for longer or locally bred as babies. I have never been able to keep one for more than a few weeks because I have always had them mail-ordered (at least that's why I think).

 

Tim, the snowflake we have at school currently (at a student's house for the summer) is awesome - got it from phisigs a few years back. He comes out all the time to search for food because we feed it once per week or so. He likes to give chase to the damsels when he smells food, although he doesn't want to eat them (as far as we can tell).

[extreme_tooth_decay]

Tim, the snowflake we have at school currently (at a student's house for the summer) is awesome - got it from phisigs a few years back. He comes out all the time to search for food because we feed it once per week or so. He likes to give chase to the damsels when he smells food, although he doesn't want to eat them (as far as we can tell).

 

Sounds great, thats exactly what I wanted back when I had my FOWLR (which was actually in the 75 I gave you). Guess I got a dud.

 

tim

Edited June 27, 2008 by extreme_tooth_decay

[BeltwayBandit]

I have not had one of these, but thought I would throw it in the mix.... Sea Apple aka Reef Tank Hand Grenade. They look pretty, but tick them off and they can take out an entire tank! AKA Cuke Nuke

[lawnboy]

Cooper band buterfly. Good bye claims and feather dusters

[fishcam]

Cooper band buterfly. Good bye claims and feather dusters

 

Yeah mine took out my worms population, but is luckily staying away from my sps... if he does though, I'm putting him up FS. Pretty fish though!

[GaryL]

I have not had one of these, but thought I would throw it in the mix.... Sea Apple aka Reef Tank Hand Grenade. They look pretty, but tick them off and they can take out an entire tank! AKA Cuke Nuke

 

didnt you have a cone snail at one time? (hitchhiker?)

[lanman]

I really wanted my display to be pristine clean, which means I wanted spotless sand first. I started off with crabs, and snails, and more snails. It just wasn't quite good enough, so I decided to get a sand sifting gobie. This guy is hands down the biggest mistake. He covers all of my corals on the sand, digs around them until he can bury them, and is slowly working his way around the live rock, which I feel is going to fall eventually.

 

Why the stores would even sell this creature is beyond me. Needless to say, I am going to remove all of my rock, and corals this weekend to catch this guy, along with a few trouble damsels I have not been able to catch.

 

Who else has a story about a livestock item you regret?

 

It's love-hate... I LOVE my gold-headed sleeper goby. I HATE having to clean up after him every night. Would I purchase one again? No... For starters, I had no idea he would get so big so fast. When he was a little 2" cutie - he just moved a bit of sand here and there. Now at 6" (in only about 4 months) - he moves vast quantities of sand, digs holes, and basically makes a nuisance of himself. Do I plan to harpoon him? No... he's really cute - and really different, and I enjoy watching him.

 

bob

[Sikryd]

I did buy them, but I don't really care for them much since they remind me of fresh water angel fish - pajama cardinals. And they pretty much just hang out outside the reef and munch tons of food before my clowns and royal gramma can drag it down to their hang outs. Not to mention the guy we got the tank from bought 4 of them. So it would limit my ability to have other fish.

Not for long though, I am going to bring them to SeaSave and trade them in on something else.

[blaze98]

That would have to be the striped hermits from Petco, I got 3 of them for $3 when I first started the hobby....little did I know that they get huge.....they killed nearly every snail I had in my tank and grew to the size of a golf ball. They knocked over every frag I had and basically terrorized my clown fish. I ended up trading them to my lfs for credit.