Your most unwise catfish purchase....

Chrysichthys · Post by **Chrysichthys** » 19 Mar 2003, 14:53

Let's hear frank confessions of those impulse purchases, mistaken identities, looked-cute-when-it-was-small cats and ones you couldn't check out because Planet Catfish was down; not that that often happens.

I freely admit that my worst mistake was Nemesis, my Asian red tail (Hemibagrus nemurus; see the threads in the Asian catfish section). I don't know what came over me. There was an early warning sign. When it was bagged up for me somebody else accidentally took it. It was too late to bring it back, so they put it in their community tank. There, it had a midnight banquet of neon tetras.

Sid Guppy · Post by **Sid Guppy** » 19 Mar 2003, 18:56

I dunno, other worst mistakes happen too; for example, me paying money for a couple of Phractura/Belonoglanis thingies, that just laid on the sand till they were dead.
Took them about a day or two. That ranks fairly high on my 'stupid catfish mistakes' list; because I should have known my tank wasn't suitable for a fish like that.....

Zack · Post by **Zack** » 19 Mar 2003, 20:19

My worst purchase ever was a tiger shovle nose i baught last spring i had just emptyed out my ten gallon tank that was previously a hamster cage and had guppies in it we went to the lfs one day and i noticed a neat looking catfish with long whiskers we baught him and within two months he went from the ten to the thirty five to the fifty five to the 125 at the lfs and then to a guy who now keeps him in a big fish toat around three or four hundred gallons. Another bad purchase was my recent purchase of two pimelodella grassilus, They both looked healthy except one had what i thaught was a bite on him from the other one on their way up here, i took them home and thought nothing of it, i looked in yesterday and one was dead and now the remaining one has the red mark on his stomach to. And its not a bite or a sting. I think im gonna post in the southamerican forum about it, see if i can figure out what is before it kills the last one.

jscoggs27 · Post by **jscoggs27** » 19 Mar 2003, 21:31

The walking cats. This is the second one I have kept, and I still havent learned my lesson. bad tempered, obnoxious, greedy, and grow too bloody fast!! Continually having to look at larger tanks in order to house the little monsters. I hope this one stops growing soon or i'm going to have to heat the boating lake opposite my house! Apart from that, how could I possibly regret such an adorable creature.

I wish I could resist.
jason

Sid Guppy · Post by **Sid Guppy** » 20 Mar 2003, 11:50

Zack your fish has Flexibacter columnaris; a very bad bacterial infection.
Dose the tank with an aquarium antibiotic asap.

Zack · Post by **Zack** » 20 Mar 2003, 18:04

didnt mean to take this off topic so i'll be quick. I talked to silurus on the chat last night and we decided that i should just take him out of the tank and dispose of him properly. Thanks for the help though.

Astro · Post by **Astro** » 22 Mar 2003, 01:27

I did buy not 1 but 2 redtail cats..........man was that a MISTAKE

T · Post by T » 22 Mar 2003, 14:18

My worst was a mango pl*co that was pretty thin.He was pretty cheap(probably because he wouldnt last much longer).I thought I could get him back on his feet(fins)but he only lasted a week and I couldnt get him to eat....it really pained me to watch him waste away.Especially because my other mango is the picture of health(see sig).

vulkoq · Post by **vulkoq** » 29 Mar 2003, 05:24

"Iridescent Shark" in my first ten gallon.
'Nuff said.

Mika · Post by **Mika** » 29 Mar 2003, 05:48

Oxydoras niger

Taratron · Post by **Taratron** » 31 Mar 2003, 06:44

Striped rapheal cat in a 10 gallon.

With a crayfish.

Assured that such a spiky creature would never end up as dinner.

You know how this story ends.

stibolt · Post by **stibolt** » 02 Apr 2003, 09:11

- Bought a tiny dwarf bristlenose for one of my aquaria - in wich there lived a big fresh water lobster - that poor little thing

- and the one time I got about 20 neon fishes for my birthday. . I accepted them and put them in my tank - BUT they had all white spot disease and all of my fishes got sick. . I never accept fish as a gift again. .

Post by **Dinyar** » 02 Apr 2003, 17:29

1) Four "S. nigriventris" that turned out to be baby S. eupterus.

2) Quarantining expensive new fish in a not yet fully cycled tank! Not exactly a fish, but a huge booboo none the less.

Dinyar

NickWalters · Post by **NickWalters** » 03 Apr 2003, 21:40

I work in a fish store and should know better, but I saw this cute little guy they sent us as a 'dwarf marble cat' I'm guessing he is what they commonly call the bumblebee cat. He was really small when I got him (about an inch I guess), he is now over 2" and has managed to slowly eat all the neons in the tank (about 13 when he was introduced). He's a nice looking fish though, and very well fed (unfortunately).

Graeme · Post by **Graeme** » 03 Apr 2003, 22:39

When i was 14 yrs old i got 5 Oto's for my Fathers tank with Pim's!!!

Sid Guppy · Post by **Sid Guppy** » 04 Apr 2003, 11:34

Another real stupid thing I did was to release an Ochmacanthus in a tank full of different catfishspecies, among them fairly big Dorads, Callichthyds, Pleco's and Schilbeids. (I sort of hoped it was non-parasitic; I kept Ituglanis and Trychomycterus then too, these are very peaceful)

I learned REALLY FAST that this tiny cretin was the Tazmanian Devil on 78 rpm; well able to terrorize even 15" Pterodoras.....
It was also a real bugger to get him out

Toirtis · Post by **Toirtis** » 07 Apr 2003, 09:53

Asian Red-Tail cat, Hemibagrus wyckioides...not so much a purchase as a rescue....they were 2" when I got them...one got a little bigger than the other, and when he hit 8", he murdered his three tankmates- his 6" sibling and two 18" tiger shovelnose cats. He now lives in a local indoor pond.

SorubimLima · Post by **SorubimLima** » 11 Feb 2006, 17:31

Mine was a pl*co, a blue crayfish, and 4 pirahna in my 75. The pirahna chowed through(count them!), 3 tiger barbs, 1 eel,the crayfish, 2 rasboras, each other's fins, my plec's fin, and several other things I can't remember. It was a year long nightmare. SorubimLima

sidguppy · Post by **sidguppy** » 11 Feb 2006, 18:34

WOW!

You must have had to dig real deep and use jumpercables too, to revive such an old topic

Amazing.....

flash · Post by **flash** » 11 Feb 2006, 20:28

Hi all
i once bought a 2 inch long psudoplatystoma fasciatum. boy can they grow and eat and grow and grow
flash

smiffertins · Post by **smiffertins** » 11 Feb 2006, 21:57

One of my good friends used to have a problem living her fish tank wishes vicariously through me... She bought me an Asian Upside Down Catfish Mystus leucophasis which was the most beautifully graceful, curious thing I'd ever seen. I totally fell for it, yet once I read about it here I realized I could never keep it the way it should be kept. Not to mention all my lil' fish were disappearing. Maybe my first hint should have been it burping up a lil' fish the second she handed it to me... heh heh

Unfortunately, I haven't found a non-vicious smaller breed that is anywhere near as graceful.... bummer!

DizTheFreak · Post by **DizTheFreak** » 11 Feb 2006, 23:38

I just learned the oto/pim lesson last night, when I came home and could only find 2 of the 3 otos i had put in the tank the night before, then noticed my pictus cats stomach was oddly shaped... needless to say, I moved the remaining 2 imediately!
When I first got my fist tank, my ten gallon (Actually, only a few months ago, still learning lots the hard way!) I made two mistakes... I didn't know about cycling, so I put a cat in the day after I set it up, and mistake number 2, the cat was a columbian shark! When it died, I did some research, learned about cycling, cycled the tank properly, and...... bought a new columbian shark! And a pictus cat... I'm still suffering the reprecussions (Sp?) from this as I can't put them in my 50gal because I have too many small guys in there, and I have an un-set-up 55gal, that I don't know if I should make freshwater for my pictus and the big guys in my 50 (3 striped rafaels and a spotted dojo) or set it up brackish/salt water for my Col. Shark! (If you haven't notice by the 1 fish vs. 4 fish tie, I'm very fond of my CS). Also, If I set it up salt, I'm eventually gonna have to sell him once he outgrows the 55gal anyway. (Picture this: The non-master bedroom of a little apartment with a bed, a ten gallon fish tank on an end table, and two desks, one holding a 50 gal, and the other a 55, lmao! not to mention the 10 gal in the living room... I CANNOT get a big enough tank for this guy once he out grows the 55... Every time I go to the petstore, my roommate reminds me: "Don't bring home a fish tank!!!")

snowball · Post by **snowball** » 12 Feb 2006, 04:24

I put a 2" in a nicely planted tank once. For a few months it was content to frolic amongst the lush forest of crpypts, until one day the algae wafers ran out. "I'll get another pack at the end of the week" I thought to myself. The next morning the crypts had be decimated, barely a leaf left. The re-christened "Panzerman" made a quick exit to a more suitable tank, where it mocked me by ignoring the few soft plants that were in there, but the crypts in the other tank never quite recovered.

pictus_man_77 · Post by **pictus_man_77** » 12 Feb 2006, 16:00

1. Putting 2 common plecs in my 60X30X30
2. Taking them back to the LFS after a nine month stretch

drpleco · Post by **drpleco** » 12 Feb 2006, 17:21

I tried L-182's on two different occasions but couldn't get either to eat. Each died in about 10 days. Since then I've been nervous about wild-blackwater fish and have stuck to BN's and chaestoma's. Successfully so far (knocks on wood)....

I also tried a pair of small gibby's in my 65 but they soon gained a taste for goldfish fins. I planned to trade them in eventually, but not as soon as 7 days.

I'm now experimenting with three-striped african glass cats (sold as debawi cats) as dithers in my BN breeder tank. Also a success so far as they haven't looked twice at the young and my male BN is keeping fry in the cave an extra week.

bronzefry · Post by **bronzefry** » 13 Feb 2006, 18:08

One of my first fish purchases was Boeseman's Rainbows. I didn't put them in quarantine. They had Ick. I had no business with that species in the first place. My tank was too small.

They all died. The Cories I put in with them lived, no thanks to me.....I hope I've learned a bit since then.
Amanda

Your most unwise catfish purchase....

Your most unwise catfish purchase....

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Your most unwise catfish purchase