Well, now that my purposely vague title has intrigued you enough to check this out, hopefully it be will interesting enough for you to post. 
Have you ever bought a species or several species to put in a setup that you had been told wouldn't work? What I mean is, say you asked for advice and were told by one or several people that they wouldn't work, maybe your tank was too small or the species you wanted wouldn't be compatible with your existing fish. I'm not talking about people new to the hobby that went on the advice of their LFS or just started putting fish in their tank, but something that you knew probably wouldn't work, but you decided to do it anyway. Maybe you figured whatever you were warned about wouldn't happened in your tank, or you just REALLY wanted the fish. And what ended up happening, did work out or did you have to re-home them or upgrade?
Here, I'll start it off. I've been keeping fish for around 13 years, mostly community fish for the first 8 or 9. My first several tanks never did very well, fish died mysteriously, and I didn't know a thing about water chemistry (I mean really, it's just water
), or proper stocking. After awhile I just got tired of scooping out bodies and decided to pack it in.
About 4 years ago, I wanted to try again and decided to do it properly this time. I got on the internet and started researching everything from water to decor and of course fish. I had a 29 gallon (~110 liters) bowfront tank that had been sitting empty for a couple of years, so I figured I'd start with that. I really wanted a saltwater tank, but always heard they were really difficult and I knew they were expensive, so I decided to start with freshwater. Then I came across a tank of fish at the pet store that looked just like the saltwater ones! There were all different colors and they were labeled African Cichlids. I was hooked, so I started looking around on the internet and found cichlid-forum.com. I lurked on there for several months, and decided I really liked yellow labs (labidochromis caeruleus), so I finally posted to ask how many fish I should keep in my tank. I was told again and again that my tank was too small and that they would eventually kill each other, but I was determined, I mean after all how aggressive can a FISH be!? Well, since I got such a negative response there, I started looking for another forum (yes, I was searching for someone to tell me what I wanted to hear
) and I came across TFF. I was still told it wouldn't work, but everyone was so nice about it, and there was so much information on here I decided to stick around (thank goodness!).
So, I set up the tank, did my first ever fishless cycle, and finally it was time to buy the fish. I decided to go with 5 l.caeruleus, and a couple of other cichlids from the "Mixed African" tank (the horror). Everything went great for around 3 months, then suddenly one of the labs started attacking and killing the other fish. Pretty soon I ended up with 1 male and 2 female labs; I tried adding more fish, but the labs kept killing them. Then they started breeding. Fry were usually left alone until they would reach around 3/4-inch when I assume the adults started seeing them as competition, so they were killed as well. This went on for a couple of months until the male and larger female started picking on the smaller female. Finally I had to admit my tank was a failure.
I was irritated and embarrassed, but I got over it, besides there were so many other species I was now interested in. So I started looking into a larger tank, and thanks to the great advice from the folks here (whom I'm glad to say never once said "I told you so"), I ended up with a 75gal.
I fishless cycled that one too, and when I moved over the labs you wouldn't believe the change in behavior. My evil fish killers soon dropped to the bottom of the pecking order and became perfectly docile. 
I had my 75gal running until last year when I sold off my tanks since I was trying to find a job out of state and wouldn't be able to take them with me. (And guess what, I finally found a job, it's still a conditional offer, but as long as I pass the background check, polygraph, and psych evaluation I've got it! I should be moving in June or July
). I never had any serious aggression problems in the larger tank, my two male metriaclima callainos would get into some fairly nasty fights, but they finally calmed down when I added a female pseudotropheus crabro who tended to break up any fights.
So, hopefully you're still with me, and hopefully you are interested enough to share your story, if you have one.
Note: This is not intended to insult or shame anyone's choices, and I sincerely hope there will be no name calling or "I told you so", just something I've been thinking about for awhile, and finally decided to post.
Edited for bad spelling/grammar.
Have you ever bought a species or several species to put in a setup that you had been told wouldn't work? What I mean is, say you asked for advice and were told by one or several people that they wouldn't work, maybe your tank was too small or the species you wanted wouldn't be compatible with your existing fish. I'm not talking about people new to the hobby that went on the advice of their LFS or just started putting fish in their tank, but something that you knew probably wouldn't work, but you decided to do it anyway. Maybe you figured whatever you were warned about wouldn't happened in your tank, or you just REALLY wanted the fish. And what ended up happening, did work out or did you have to re-home them or upgrade?
Here, I'll start it off. I've been keeping fish for around 13 years, mostly community fish for the first 8 or 9. My first several tanks never did very well, fish died mysteriously, and I didn't know a thing about water chemistry (I mean really, it's just water
), or proper stocking. After awhile I just got tired of scooping out bodies and decided to pack it in. About 4 years ago, I wanted to try again and decided to do it properly this time. I got on the internet and started researching everything from water to decor and of course fish. I had a 29 gallon (~110 liters) bowfront tank that had been sitting empty for a couple of years, so I figured I'd start with that. I really wanted a saltwater tank, but always heard they were really difficult and I knew they were expensive, so I decided to start with freshwater. Then I came across a tank of fish at the pet store that looked just like the saltwater ones! There were all different colors and they were labeled African Cichlids. I was hooked, so I started looking around on the internet and found cichlid-forum.com. I lurked on there for several months, and decided I really liked yellow labs (labidochromis caeruleus), so I finally posted to ask how many fish I should keep in my tank. I was told again and again that my tank was too small and that they would eventually kill each other, but I was determined, I mean after all how aggressive can a FISH be!? Well, since I got such a negative response there, I started looking for another forum (yes, I was searching for someone to tell me what I wanted to hear
) and I came across TFF. I was still told it wouldn't work, but everyone was so nice about it, and there was so much information on here I decided to stick around (thank goodness!). So, I set up the tank, did my first ever fishless cycle, and finally it was time to buy the fish. I decided to go with 5 l.caeruleus, and a couple of other cichlids from the "Mixed African" tank (the horror). Everything went great for around 3 months, then suddenly one of the labs started attacking and killing the other fish. Pretty soon I ended up with 1 male and 2 female labs; I tried adding more fish, but the labs kept killing them. Then they started breeding. Fry were usually left alone until they would reach around 3/4-inch when I assume the adults started seeing them as competition, so they were killed as well. This went on for a couple of months until the male and larger female started picking on the smaller female. Finally I had to admit my tank was a failure.
I was irritated and embarrassed, but I got over it, besides there were so many other species I was now interested in. So I started looking into a larger tank, and thanks to the great advice from the folks here (whom I'm glad to say never once said "I told you so"), I ended up with a 75gal.
I fishless cycled that one too, and when I moved over the labs you wouldn't believe the change in behavior. My evil fish killers soon dropped to the bottom of the pecking order and became perfectly docile. I had my 75gal running until last year when I sold off my tanks since I was trying to find a job out of state and wouldn't be able to take them with me. (And guess what, I finally found a job, it's still a conditional offer, but as long as I pass the background check, polygraph, and psych evaluation I've got it! I should be moving in June or July
). I never had any serious aggression problems in the larger tank, my two male metriaclima callainos would get into some fairly nasty fights, but they finally calmed down when I added a female pseudotropheus crabro who tended to break up any fights.So, hopefully you're still with me, and hopefully you are interested enough to share your story, if you have one.
Note: This is not intended to insult or shame anyone's choices, and I sincerely hope there will be no name calling or "I told you so", just something I've been thinking about for awhile, and finally decided to post.
Edited for bad spelling/grammar.
i went to the fish shop thinking this will be fun and easy
