Most disappointing Livestock Purchase?
 

Reefcentral has a cool thread going right now where people are discussing their worst live stock purchases in their reef keeping careers. A lot of cleaner shrimp and fancy shrimp purchases are being mentioned and also mushrooms for corals.

I wanted to hear some of your guys most disappointing live stock purchases? It could be because of the price, the interest level of the livestock you bought or whatever.

I havent bought any yet so I cant comment haha

Mine was my most recent purchase from a local store. I bought some zoanthids that I thought were cool looking had some cream/light green center and cool markings. Got them home into my tank with good water, they colour up and turn out to be regular green button polyps.

Also the SPS "colony" he sold me that was the size of a large frag. The price was right so I bring it home where it bleaches out on me in 48 hours. The real disapointing thing is a frag from that exact colony is growing like a weed less than an inch away.

When I first started out I bought a whole bunch of Damsels. They got really big and attacked most fish I put in. Had to remove all the rock to catch them all to give to the pet store. When I started up my new tank I stayed away from them. As for corals I would say Kenya Tree. That thing grew out of control. My tank was filled. I removed them all but they are starting to come back. Sold the first batch to LFS and got some good money :lol:

That's easy...bring home an SPS and have it rtn on you within the day

Whats RTN?

Rapid Tissues <something>...
Necrosis (Yay Google)

"Rapid Tissue Necrosis (RTN) is a term used specifically for the occurrence of tissue sloughing in captive corals (i.e. laboratory and aquarium corals)."

.....Rapid Tissue Necrosis

Hi,

Mine was a cool looking algae that i was told would be beneficial to the tank!

I couldn't understand why it would retract when i touched it?

Turned out that it was a colony of the hydroid "Pom Pom"......:doh:

Needles to say i flushed it and then had a few stern words with the LFS.....

Regards, Simon.

Mine was a Majestic Angel. Just bought him put him into the tank and he got spooked and ended up right in my previous large carpet anemone. I eventually got him out but then had to QT him with some medication due to all the tenticles stuck to him. Unfortunatly he didnt survive.

I bought a clam waaaayyyyyy too early in my tanks lifetime. I've kept the shell in my tank as a constant reminder to slow down and take my time. The shell is being used now as a home for one of my damsels, so at least it's being used.

ricordea yuma and any anthias (except squampini) - after many many years both I and the wife have given up on both

I have troubles keeping both as well. I have 1 yuma that does good and wont be buying another.

In time, say after a year or so, IME almost all yuma die. They are not ideal for the home aquarium, despite being eautiful. That is why I never sell them on the site...anthias are nice but generally just the squampinis, and sometimes the bartletts survive long term. Pricey and they do not live long-term, a combination to AVOID.

(Regal Tang) One of the first fish I had. The SOB was so mean, it even attacked me when I put my hand in the tank! Harrassed the other fish non-stop. It also liked to snap off pieces of coral and swim around with them in its mouth. It got so nasty with the other fish I finally placed it in the QT for a couple of weeks hoping this would calm it down. While in QT, the cheapo glass heater failed one night and I found the Regal dead the next morning in 97 degree water. Never had the slightest desire to own another one, and I've never cheaped out on heaters since.

I Got a local shop to special ordere in a black longnose tang from a well known Mac certified wholesaler out of LA, got a good prepay/pickup on arrival price.(Landed cost plus 10%,$400) It said 'small', but I wasn't expecting it to show up with the body the size of a quarter. It was maybe an inch and a half from the tip of the nose to end of tail and it also had some deformities to its fins. Poor little guy died two weeks later and lived in my freezer for months so I could look at him everytime I fed the tank frozen food. Makes me think twice about ever ordering in my dream fish, a gem tang.

My SOB flameback angel. This supposedly reefsafe dwarf-dwarf angel has killed several corals & clams for me. If it wasn't in the 210g fully stocked reef, I'd tear down my tank to catch out the B@stard!!!!

I had gold striped maroon clowns that would throw corals around. The big female could pull out & toss into the sand 15 head frogspawns & any other corals that it could grab with its mouth.

Love the look of these fish but what a mistake!!!

"ouch!!!"

I may have to get rid of mine for this reason.

Probably a flame angel that we paid $89.99 for back when we were first in the hobby. We saw it a few hours later in the belly of our lionfish. We could even see the red through his belly and the shape of the fish in his belly. Even we have never spent that much on dinner or ourselves.....ouch.

It sounds like a common theme is, "when I first got into the hobby.. " hehe, and on that thread.. yes, when I first got into this hobby, I thought them peacock mantis shrimp were the coolest things ever! Just had to have one. Didn't bother to ask questions about it, and for some reason the LFS store never bothered to tell me anything about them. Got him home and threw him in my "reef" tank at the time. Well, I'm sure you can imagine how the rest of this story goes. Let's just say it wasn't pretty.. :cry:

Hands down it would be frags, 2nd a Bicolor angel, 3rd a killer Tomato clown.

Bought a gorgeous purple and green plate coral and tissue started receeding on the way home!!! i was so careful with it too.

When I first started out reefing, I was so impressed with feather dusters, so I went to a LFS and bought one. When I got home I waited for it to open, and waited and waited, still it wasnt opening.
So i called a different LFS as I was kinda of embarresd to why the duster wouldnt open.
The better LFS, said it should have opened within a few mintues, check to see if there the worm is still inside the tube.
I held the tube up to a light, and there was NOTHING. I was sold an empty tube.
So my theory was that When the dealer took the worm out, he pulled to much and left the worm naked.

anyways, I havent been back to that LFS.

hahaha thats brutal lol. I actually love feather dusters too, I wanna get 4-5 in my tank but I dont know much about them so I'll have to see first if my tank is compatible!

I was a bit disappointed with the 1/4" $30 aptasia eating nudibranch that I bought. It simply disappeared after 2 days never to be seen again. However I should have set it up in a QT tank with some aptasia covered rock and allowed it to grow to a more realistic size before adding it to my display. Actually I should have bought and did that with several but the little things were pretty expensive and I didnt think they would solve my problem anyways.

Dave, it all depends who you ask. I have yuma colonies that I have had for years. Some for 3, some for 5.

You really have to know how to care for them.

well for a mantis lover like me that would have been an amazing show!

For me the most disappointing would be the new fish we bought (a few months ago) that died shortly after we bought it and to make matters worse that fish ended up killing 3/4 of the rest of my fish. :cry:

Thats the velvet incident right?

My Singapore Angel was one of my most disappointing purchases. they are such a timid fish, that they do not acclimate well IMO, they scare easy (easier than Foxfaces), and from what I have seen very prone to Ich... I never did get to enjoy mine because he was hiding all the time.. which meant he wasn't eating, which made the ich got worse, and then dead. :sad:

Buying a live rock infested with eggs of these worms.
they eat everything and anything ! corals, fish, and polyps too.
Very nasty.
Lesson learned:
Live rock Never again!

Next tank will be started with DRY Eco rock only !
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I have two....both powder blue tangs.....Ive tried twice and both times they only lasted a few weeks.....still dont know why, to this day...

worst purchase
 

about 14 years ago, put 4 camel shrimp into my 90 gallon lps dominated reef. Damn shrimps ate everything. Took me months to catch them. We didn't know any better at that time, as there wasn't much info on them.

Yep. But generally speaking it sucks whenever you buy something new (fish or coral) and it dies right away.

Powder blue tang....Died yesterday. Lasted about 2 months:cry:

Probably was cyanide caught. Was he eating well but just looked skinny?

worse buy ever
 

any critter that didn't last a week after i bought it.

It was eating, but was skinny. I will not add any other tangs to the tank. My large hippo runs the show.

Copperband Butterfly. Not disappointment in the fish, it's such a beautiful critter, but disappointment in my stupidity for purchasing one prior to proper research. I know there are a good number of success stories with these, but if you look at the recent poll related to Copperbands, the statistics are a good indication that these guys are best left in the ocean. It was quite tough watching my specimen slowly starve to death.

My most disappointing experience, 2 beautiful elegance corals. One had pink tones, the other greens. Absolutely stunning specimens. Both did great in QT tank, so we put them in the 180g after a week and a half. Two to three weeks later the green one started to deteriorate, and unfortunately whatever it was seemed to be contagious because about 2 weeks later the same happened to the pink one. Not sure why it happened, we had not had any issues with any other corals. They just slowly deteriorated. Very upsetting experience, not to mention a little pricey.