Most difficult fish to keep....

[Videl]

Hillstream Loach AKA Borneo Sucker.

 

[jfrancho]

This is a difficult poll. Discus are time consuming, expensive (not just the fish themselves), and enigmatic. I had a pair of wild brown discus that reproduced easily. Many of the tank raised varieties seem prone to disease, yet others were very hardy. I made several tries with wild Heckels, it never worked out. Chocolate gouramis (wild) are a crap shoot, you really cannot compare them to other (aquacultured) gouramis. They aren't real keen on being shipped, or moved for that matter. I had good luck with altums. Neons (aquacultured) were never problematic either. Cardinals and Rummy-noses (wild), now that is another story. Many Central American Cichlids come to mind; my Trimacs gave me all kinds troubles when they got to about 6". Very, very violent, even in an 150g tank. The keyword for them is "target fish". Any of the brackish fish are difficult when recently imported, especially four-eyes and archers.

Basically, any wild caught fish pose a great amount of difficulty getting them "over the hump', meaning acclimated to aquarium life. These are the fish that need the most hiding places, the slightest, yet most frequent water changes, most exotic foods, and the greatest attention to water chemistry.

 

[CFC]

There are fish that make discus and angels seem like keeping mollies, a shop near me had Altums that are now being kept and bred in hard alkeline tapwater and selling for £10 each, non descript Discus can be picked up for under £20.

Hydrolycus scomberoids (vampire tetra) are impossible to keep alive in home aquariums past the juvinile stage, i tried and they keeled over as soon as they grew over 8 inches as is found by everyone i've ever heard of trying to keep them.

Some stingrays will practically drop dead if you miss a water change or your nitrates rise above 10ppm, they also tend to die very quickly if they recieve any damage to their disc.

The paradise threadfin (Polynemus paradiseus) is said to be so fragile that if it breaks a whisker it will die shortly after, this may just be a urban myth people made up to try and reason why theirs died but i'm not going to try it to find out.

Some catfishes (Meredontotus zigrinus, Goslinea platynema) are highly sensative to any nitrates or slight changes in pH, newly imported specimins have a 60/40 chance of dropping dead within the first few months in captivity, not good odds for fish that will cost you at least £150.

 

[SirMinion]

Not speaking from experiance, but from what I read, freshwater rays are real expert fish.

They're buggers to get to feed at first, incredibly sensitive to water quality, ultra suseptable to disease (edit: except ich!) and cannot be medicated, not even with salt!

Personally, I cannot seem to keep livebearers alive for more than a couple of months. Dunno why.

 

[dwarfgourami]

There are fish that make discus and angels seem like keeping mollies

Oh dear, and I always had problems keeping my black mollies healthy.... Just goes to show I am wise not trying anything really delicate... )

 

[CFC]

I forgot the bit about medicating rays, its true they cannot be treated with any standard aquarium medications though there are now some extreemly expensive ray safe meds available for things like fungus. On a plus Elasmobranchs (rays and sharks) are immune to ICH so you never have to worry about that. They are also very sensative to heavy metals in the water supply so you must use a good conditioner when doing water changes.

I cant keep Corys alive for more than a couple of months, i would by a small group and then slowly lose one a month until they were gone.

 

[Ben]

Personally, I cannot seem to keep livebearers alive for more than a couple of months. Dunno why.

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Maybe its because they find there way into Marthas tank when you run out of cash for her food




Lucky for me, all the extremly hard fish to keep are illegal in Australia

DD

 

[OohFeeshy]

Umm, that I've kept, tetras. They all succomed to NTD after a few weeks, not fun . But hey, I can't get anything that's likely to keel over, so I'm okay

 

[Fella]

No fish are hard to keep if you do your research and look after them appropriately

But Discus are pretty notoriously difficult to keep, and if you want to keep goldfish to the point where they thrive (fancies, not commons) then I'd say they're pretty difficult fish to keep. They're genetic mutations that have weak immune systems.

Rays are also meant to be hard from what I've read, and keeping anything alive in a nano-reef tank seems like a bother.

 

[OohFeeshy]

Oh yeah, that reminds me, guppies. Used to be the hardiest fish around, now it can be hard to get them to live past a few weeks . I dunno why people can't be happy with slightly less coloured ones

 

[Fish_Mike]

I've actaully read that Discus are a lot hardier now then they once were when they were first imported, but the legend still lives on. I read in an article that things like R/O units, Bare bottom Tanks, are all myths. Technically, Discus are just another Aquarium Fish now. I mean, come on, what's the point of having a bare bottom tank with Discus? Easier to clean? Maybe. In that case, it can be better. But i've heard absolutely rediciulous things like they'll be stunted with gravel. And R/O units? well it doesn't matter unless you have serious tap water problems.

Also, Discus are much less sensitive to PH changes than most other fish.

They may not be a beginners fish, but if you have some experiece, they really, really aren't that hard.

 

[sylvia]

Chocolate gouramies are more difficult than discus but, IMO, easier than altums. So I'm voting altums. It's true that a lot of gouramies are very hardy but these are mostly of the trichogaster and colisa genus - the realy common species you see at your LFS. The chocolate is considerably different and has specific requirements. If you meet it's requirements, it's fine. In a similar way, discus used to be realy hard to keep without meeting rather specific requirements. They are no longer that difficult but prices have remained high because of the reputation, popularity and the fact that certain varieties need to be given hormones to spawn. Altums are the only fish out of these that is almost exclusively wild-caught. That also means it goes through the most stress and the biggest changes to its environment. It needs its tank to be as close to the wild as possible to thrive and can be ridiculous to breed. The fact that it gets big and is susceptible to many parasites, that our tank-bred fish don't mind as much, doesn't help either.

 

[WILDER]

Guppys been to interbred.

 

[Kopix Nation]

ahhhhh are there any more voters?

claire

 

[andywg]

Have to go other.

You can go for the obvious giant fish that require huge tanks, or you can go for more dilcate SW tanks that require constant tank params and will only eat microscopic food that grow on live rock.

I'd echo what's beens aid about rays, and also some cats (such as the tigrinum Zebra shovel nose).

Not sure if it counts as a fish, but Octopus are regarded as the hardest thing to keep alive in a tank. You have to keep them entertained (like giving it food in a jam jar) an escape proof tank and ultra filtration. All for an organism that will not live beyond 2 years.

Again, keeping the selected fish in the poll is as easy as pie compared to some in the trade.