Let the byer beware or be a fool

[doesdavid]

I guess a little about myself, I started getting fish for my pond, Gold fish, Koi and a couple of albino cats, about two yrs ago. With time i have started looking for exotic's mostly cats and pleckos with a few types of eel's and several other different, species, I now have a 1000gal pond,8 tanks totaling 560 gal, and approx 130 fish. I visit alot of stores, and most know me as a regular. Yesterday i was in a little Chinatown shop that I frequent(he gets alot of exotics) he showed me a pair of"bushymoth stone catfish"
These things were butt ugly, but cute, needless to say i was hooked, and bought them. I thought I reconized them from all my veiwing of the Cat-eLog. after many pics, searches, and finding nothing I tried a stone fish search. Yep you got I landed myself a pair of poisionus fish. Handle with gloves, take extreme care those kind of warnings regarding the freshwater breed. I wanted exotics, but this wasen't quite what I was looking for. Next time I think I will Look, wait, reshearch, then buy.

(A fool and his money are soon parted) PT Barnum (I think) but thats me a fool.

DAve

[Richard B]

Something similar(ish) has happened to a LOT of fishkeepers: you're not the first & you won't be the last!!!

A friend of mine had been pestering me to sell him my

Rhynchodoras woodsi

earlier this year which i eventually did. Not so long ago he bought me a tiny "unknown" doradid which he picked up, as a present. It was good of him but the tiny little mottled brown/black/grey catfish is growing at an alarming rate & is most likely to be

Pterodoras granulosus

- something i will be getting rid of in the near future!

[grokefish]

Check this out Richard,
A guy turned up at my door yesterday with a polybox containing a "present for me because he heard I kept catfish"
Inside the poly box: An unknown syno about 6" looking like one of the bigger ones, a rope fish, a 7" clarius type fish a 8" common plec and a 14" giraffe cat.
He was going to dump them in the river if I wasn't going to take them.
Unfunkin believable.

I put them in my 1500l tank overnight and my mate that has a fish shop took them off me this morning.
I am doing an almost 80% water change as i wrtite this as the new fish way overloaded the filtration and my fish room stinks.

Matt

[Richard B]

Check this out Richard,
A guy turned up at my door yesterday with a polybox containing a "present for me because he heard I kept catfish"
Inside the poly box: An unknown syno about 6" looking like one of the bigger ones, a rope fish, a 7" clarius type fish a 8" common plec and a 14" giraffe cat.
He was going to dump them in the river if I wasn't going to take them.
Unfunkin believable.

I put them in my 1500l tank overnight and my mate that has a fish shop took them off me this morning.
I am doing an almost 80% water change as i wrtite this as the new fish way overloaded the filtration and my fish room stinks.

Matt

Good grief!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Carp37]

Keeping stonefish will make tank maintenance or rearranging decor interesting anyway! It's amazing how many poisonous fish are in the hobby, but most of the time I wouldn't be overly concerned (the exception being that my Tetratec filters keep popping the plug off the spray bar- I'd need a net to retrieve that if I had more poisonous fish).

[doesdavid]

I'm keeping them in a separate 20gal tank, while I do some reshearch, there are many different opinions on how to keep them, and what communities to put them in, there is also many opinions of keeping them in freash water.
At least now I don't feel so dumb.

I got 2 ID sharks 12 & 14" for free from a store I frequent(at all the time) some jerk had brought them in to trade and when he was told that they didn't have any room he left and threw them in the dumpster. One of the store guys saw this, and they managed to rescue them, they them just wanted to give them a good home. Unfortumatly 1 died after a week of it injuries, but the other is a good companion to my otheres.

DAve