Fish We Regret Putting In Our Tanks!

Damsels!!!!!!

Damsels!!!!!!

All damsels I have had have been very agressive, especially a red honey damsel who is now in my sump. He would bite me everytime I went into the tank. As far as gobies go, I have loved all the ones I have had, two engineers (in different tanks) and just recently got a diamond goby that is now in a FOWLR tank. I always wanted an eel but didn't want to worry about them carpet surfing so I got the EG and he has gotten very VERY big, but stays hidden and doesn't tear down the rock work. I also agree about the Lunare wrasse, they fly by very fast and knock stuff over.

Great Thread!

Will
 
Not too many inhabitant mistakes ......but-

1. choc chip starfish...no matter how much you feed them by hand when they go to the top of the tank and stick out two arms...they will still catch and eat fish and all your clams, mussels and scallops.

2. blue damsels- luckily they are not larger or they would be worse than shark attacks

Now the good-

1. my kole tang has been priceless in keeping down unwanted algae in my 90g...you can see the stuff where he can not reach it and it is great how his constant grazing makes a difference

2. coral beauty...pretty fish and after a week of territorial displays by my tang..they get along fine. she even nips the algae and has not tried to touch any of my soft corals or my clams.

3. white sand sifting goby (faint blue spots on head and single black spot on dorsal)....stirred up sand quite a bit first two days as he found a home in the substrate...now he does not dig anymore and only sifts the top layers. worried about him getting enough to eat but on his second month and seems to be fine. have not noticed a significant drop in pod population either...they are everywhere.

4. cleaner shrimp...love it...getting 2 more for the tank. used to steal food from my open brains until he tried it with my anemone in another tank. this one is great...

5. 2x captive raised ocellaris clowns...no anemone but have two nice frags of toadstool leathers I am hoping they will move into when it grows larger. read and told toadstools do not mind the clowns in them...

6. will likely only get one more fish for the tank...but not sure what else is going to fit in...maybe this is enough and I will concentrate on compatible corals and a couple more clams.

Biggest mistake of my reef keeping is going with a DSB and obviously I did something incorrect because it crashed terribly...back to a 2 inch bed and all is great since January 02.
 
Great thread!

1) Bicolor blenny - he's ok, I would just prefer something with a little more color - when I got something w/more color, a royal gramma, the blenny promply killed him - very spunky though: he makes his home in maroon clown territory - gotta love that!

2) Maroon clown - I like mine, but people should know what they're getting into. The problem is you buy a sweet wiggly juvenile/male that looks at you lovingly in the LFS who gradually turns into "big bad momma fish" Wouldn't trade her and her mate for anything, but people should know what they are in for

3) I love my Valentini puffer - very well behaved with the corals...but ate my gorgeous red dictyota macro and could not be kept with a mandarin as he eats all the pods, worms etc

4) BLUE CHROMIS!!! Sorry for shouting... but if I could hate any fish, these would be it - they are obnoxious...totally wrecked the feng shui of the tank - before they came , I fed everyone by hand/stick - now you wouldn't believe the algae bloom from my making sure everybody gets enough.... Oh well since they are just so hard to catch, ...guess they won't be able to make the move to the 150 -ha ha ha ha ha ha ha (evil laughing):furious:

5) Any jawfish - for some reason these "hardy" fish just aren't hardy in my tank - which is sad cause they are one of my favorite fish
 
#1- Bicolor angel. Beautiful fish, but definitely not reef safe
#2- Atlantic blue tang- Couldn't keep it alive
#3- Maroon clown- Mean SOB- I would rather have a pair of ocellaris clowns but need to get the maroon out first
#4- Yellow damsels- Just a waste of bioload in my tank. One is so mean he chases the cleaning magnet, and I do think the magnet is actually scared !
 
I noticed there is a lot of negativity on the damsels, which is probably justified. However, I did my research before purchasing and my first fish was a small blue green chromis and he's a very nice fish. He doesn't bother anybody and always minds his own business. The percula clown sometimes swims with him, and then for no reason will chase the damsel away, a behavior I can't understand since most of the time he won't. The damsel is great at eating the tiny food bits that the other fish won't eat (like my huge pajama cardinal, another great fish.. he eats all the big food pieces and leaves everyone alone!). Anyone who has a damsel should try feeding baby brine into the tank at least once, they got ABSOLUTELY NUTS sprinting left and right eating them.

The bicolor I have right now I might be regretting soon (mostly because I'm worried about his life span), he's SO active (hyper active alot) and is getting quite nippy. I saw him take a nab at a black nassarius snail and the snail fell to the bottom :-) I think he's also pecking away at my starfish! ugh. Luckily I only have a star and button polyp which he mostly ignores. He's JUST taken to the ocean nutrition pygmy angel 2 food. This IMO is one of the most beautiful fish to own, but like most pretty fish you have to put up with their behavior. Too bad I didn't get a nice calm one.

Another thing I regret getting are the zebra and blue leg hermits. They crawl around a little too much with their pointy little legs. If I had to do it over I would stick with one or two fighitng conches, a couple of TRUE NASSARIUS (not the bad fake black ones that I ended up with), and other various snails and only keep the scarlet reef hermits because they are less aggressive and less active. The mithrax I am iffy on. The small one is fine.. the larger one is not very polite.

The cleaner shrimp is one of the most fun. They are so unafraid of everything and doesn't seem to damage anything, although he's a greedy sucker when feeding.
 
DOMINO FROM $?*%

I once bought a used 75 gal. complete with fish. This was my first dip into SW. It housed a beautiful majestic, green chromis, 2 pink skunks, and 3 domino damsels. One of those dominoes was the fish from $#*%!!! Anytime I put my hand in to clean the tank he would ambush me. Truly a vicious fish. Left huge red marks like mosquito bites all over my arm. I HATED having to put my hand in, and I was always really "jumpy" when I had to. Watching for that &%$# domino and trying to clean. One day he sneaked up on me, and bit hard. I jerked my hand out...let me pause to say this had been a diy tank and the fans, etc. in hood were not "aquarium stock"...anyway, my index finger went into the industrial strenghth fan. I ended up at the ER with a broken finger and in need of 3 stitches! The first thing I did when my finger was healed was remove ALL the rock and remove the domino. BEWARE THE DOMINO DAMSEL!
 
Too Funny!!LOL Jaten...did you tell them at the ER that a 2 " fish was responsible!!LOL
I need a domino...maybe I wouldn't have my hands in the tank so often!!:D
 
1 Mandarin.
He was healthy until a RIO went nuts and sent oil and electricity through the tank. The poor mandarin went nuts and committed suicide by forcing his way through a plastic mesh grill guard and processing himself in the filter pump. He was a favorite and one of the rare ones that ate live brine. (Actually was a SHE). The real damage was that the mandarin was my wifes favorite fish. After she got processed my wife won't look at the tank and keeps pressuring me to pull it apart and get rid of "that death trap" I HATE RIOS
 
Chicki,
Well, I gave the ER an abbreviated version. I had red marks on my arm, and a broken index finger also in need of stitches. I had to tell them something, and I wasn't quick enough in my pain and frustration to be too creative. The abbreviated version....I didn't tell them that it was a 2" fish. I'm sure the dr. and nurse envisioned something more akin to Jaws and I didn't tell them otherwise.:strange:

..................$*&% domino:hammer:
 
Well I see many have had the same problems with fish as I have. Wish this post was here a couple of years ago.

My list:

maroon clown - would bite the f$#% our of your hand no matter how much you fed it.
Dominoe Damsel - now in my refegium. When maroon clown left to LFS, he took over.
Eel - don't know what type, but GF decided this was the first thing she wanted when we first set up the tank. Any smaller fish except for the damsels it ate. Now in refegium.
Flame angel - was fine for 1.5 yrs, but when I got clams and a GOB, it would not let them open.
Lemon peel - same as flame

I now have a sand sifting goby that does the same to the tank, but can't get rid of it. She will not let me. " It's too cute." I think it does do a great job on the sand.
 
Damsels

Damsels

I totally regret adding my damsels to a tank. They grow really fast and are so agressive to the other "peaceful" reef fishes. They aren that good lookign either.
 
it wasnt a fish, but i once bought a large crab. i still dont know what type it was but he was huge. about an inch and a half. well a few weeks later i bought ten snails and put them in. when i got home from work he had flipped all of them upside down and killed them all. i kinda lost my cool when i saw him eating them and grabbed him out of the tank and threw him out the window as far as i could thow.
 
Of course damsels! Dreadful murderers.

One in particular stands out. He was horribly tormented by another fish, all nipped and sick so I quarantined him, fed him, gave him lots of TLC and took his tormenter back to LFS. I nursed him back to 100% bright yellow health and he thanked me by taking over as the tank bully even worse than his predecessor.

So I made him a little clear plastic jail inside the tank and made him watch his tormentees swim about feely and get first helpings of food while he darted around angrily in the pokey. After a sentence of one week I gave him a day on the outside to see if he learned a lesson.... but no, back to the fish store.
 
Mine was a small Strawberry Psuedochromis. Really pretty and fun to own. Until 1 year later. EVIL, MEAN, PHYSCOTIC MONSTER!!! Nothing was safe.

Makes you wonder about this species of animal. Imagine one the size of a shark!

zimmy
Oh let me not for get long ago about that super colorful glowing in my actinics Electric Blue Damsel. YYEEESSSHHH!:eek:
zimmy
 
I've got this pseudochromis with black body and a bright orange head. Forget the name. TOOOOOO aggressive. kills shrimp, and won't allow for any type of critters to survive in my tank ( bristle worms etc).

I actually like my fiji damsel. Now almost 8 years old. perhaps he has mellowed out in his old age.

I love my 8 line wrasse, but it too is very hard on the critter content.

Unfortunately, seems like a lot of the nice looking fish really don't work well with a reef tank.
 
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