Whoops… I bought fish by accident… has this ever happened to you???

[Magnum Man]

I’ve been wanting a Pantodon buchholzi ( African butterfly fish ), and have ordered one twice, both times the order went through, I paid, only to have them cancelled off my order… 1st time I had other stuff ship, 2nd time I just cancelled the whole order…

the 3rd try I ordered from Wet Spot, I’ve been happy with fish from them in the past, but they are not one of my “go to sellers”, as I find their website more difficult to use…

well now I have a butterfly, and a couple plants coming, and surprise… it turns out from long ago, and not easily noticed I had 2 Steatocranus casuarius ( Buffalo heads ) in my cart, from long before I started adding the community of African dwarf cichlids to my African tank… I’m really happy with how things are going, in that tank, and not that I wouldn’t like the buffalo’s, but think I need to figure out another place for them…

guessing that has never happened to you guys???

I have one cool water tank that hasn’t really worked out like I have wanted… this maybe a signal for a time for a change in that tank… it’s a soft water tank, it’s got a lot of terrestrial plant roots and a white sand bottom, and 2 hang on back filters and a couple rolling large air stones… I could dial up the heat… is that a far stretch for the buffalos… I’ll have to do some search to figure out the best place for them… seems I now have a couple African buffalo heads…

 

[Magnum Man]

Steatocranus casuarius - Aquarium Glaser GmbH

The humphead cichlids (Steatocranus) are among the most interesting cichlids in Africa. In adaptation to their way of life in nature – they colonize boulder bottoms in the area of rapids – they have reduced their swim bladder and cannot float freely in the water without making swimming movements...

www.aquariumglaser.de

I’m thinking if I add several of the cichlid cave rocks I’ve been buying, placing them in areas of strongest water movement in the tanks, it should work for them… hmm buffalo daddy

 

[Magnum Man]

in this picture, the fish doesn’t have a typical cichlid shape…

 

[GaryE]

Buffalo heads, any of the related species, are on my wishlist. I've kept a lot of them, and bred a lot of them, and really notice their absence from my little collection.

I'm too much of a cheapskate to ever order fish by mistake. I usually do things like that on purpose, sometimes impulsively. I rarely order from sites as they're set up. My two main fish dealers are people I know, so I check the lists and contact them directly. Usually, they have fish not listed because the numbers are low or they were unintended by catches in the importations, so I get to add a few things. Shipping within Canada can be more expensive relative to what you guys pay, so I do one or two buys per year.

I wouldn't keep Steatocranus with your Nanochromis. The needs are different but the territories are the same. Buffalo heads swim badly and do little harm, but they would like to destroy anything that challenges their homes. They hate other fish but their reduced swim bladders make them unable to search and destroy as they'd like to. I have a feeling that once they get over hiding you will love them. You can see their eyes in the photos - they are good fish to consider as pets.

I like fish that can't swim well. Orthochromis are rarer arrivals, but are cool too.

 

[TwoTankAmin]

I have only ever made one ordering mistake. I accidentally put the wrong rasbora in my cart. As it turned out the fish came and died withing 48 hours.

I have a policy of not registering on most sites. Amazon is an exception. They are the only site where I can start a cart and have it be remembered if I did not buy and did not delete it. So, I never get something by mistake because it was still in my cart.

Also, I almost never buy fish from online sites. I used to buy on Aquabid for the first few years I kept fish. But I had issues With the owner there and walked away for it in early 2005. I have purchased more fish in dollar terms from Bellenz in Indonesia and then as imports which I would pick up at the transipper or have come to me airport to airport when I bought from an importer.

I should mention that, while I have not been limited interms of how many of any given species I have purchased, I have been limited in the number of species I have kept either in the past or currently.

 

[Rusty_Shackleford]

I've never accidentally ordered fish or anything else. But like you I do leave things in my cart as I shop other sites and comparison shop.

I think I remember you discussing buffalo heads previously in a different thread. They really are a unique amd neat fish. Definitely something out of the ordinary. You'll enjoy them I'm sure.

 

[emeraldking]

Whoops… I bought fish by accident… has this ever happened to you???​

Oh yes, for sure...! I haven't been any different...

 

[Jennet]

I have just been and ordered 8 Chili rasboras and 4 Celestial pearl danio's, but it was no accident.

 

[Innesfan]

The only unwanted purchases were accidents on the other end--vendors who misidentified a species or netted out the wrong fish. It's only happened three or four times over the decades.

 

[Magnum Man]

@Innesfan … I had that same issue with cupids several years ago now…

 

[Back in the fold]

What a lucky thing to have happen . That’s cool !

 

[GaryE]

Fish club misidentifications - yup, a few of those. I hadn't thought of that. I've bought bags of young Cichlids and had surprises. Some were back in the auction a few months later, with the right name. Somehow, a bag of tiny, rare South American "Biotecus" turned out to be hybrid Malawi peacocks. Everyone congratulated the breeder on succeeding with a tough fish, but it didn't take long until he looked pretty bad. I guess short term it was gratifying for the guy.

I've had a couple of lucky mistakes, where I got something very desirable instead of something just interesting. It's gone both ways.

 

[Rusty_Shackleford]

Oh I wish they were Biotoceus. Very rare or non existent in the hobby. I would love to have some in a blackwater tank.

I remember that I have bought some fish on accident. At a cichlid auction, just bidding to get the price up and I ended up winning.

 

[fishorama]

Well, I've bought fish on impulse a few times but not quite by accident. Some at auctions. Some I knew weren't labeled correctly or had almost useless common names. Usually on road trips too far to go home, research & drive back, all before smart phones to help. Once was on Aqua Bid for 6 or 8 tiny loaches with free shipping I got for ~$5. But no amount of research would have told me they were tiny jumpers! That ended my rimless tank experiment, never again!

I'm still? on the Wet Spot wait list for "peppermint" loaches for several years now. They were 1 of my impulse buys when there a long while ago & I loved them. I did order 8 later, got a note, they only had 6. Then they called & said 1 was not in good selling condition. Ugh, never mind.

That's the problem with some wild caught & farmed fish both. I really would like to see fish before I buy...& I really would like to know what the heck they are & if I have a suitable tank for them.

 

[TwoTankAmin]

When I was selling zebra plecos buyers wanted to see the exact fish they would be getting. This meant I had to break down the breeder tank to collect the offspring, then I had to out them into a photo tank to get the pics. I then had to set up a holding tank for the fish as once I showed them I had to be able to send those fish. I would do this on a Sunday and it took a lot of hours.

Then I had to wait for the buyer to say OK and to send the money before I sent the fish. This used to be a lot of work and I did not like having to do it. So I came up with a solution which made it possible to no longer need to do things this way.

What I did is to offer a second guarantee besides the standard live arrival guarantee. I began offer an "Unconditional Satisfaction Guarantee." I would send the fish I selected to a buyer unseen by them. If the buyer was not happy with what they received or for any reason at all, they could return the fish for a full refund which included the shipping cost. Moreover, I would pay the cost to ship them back to me. If the box came and the buyer had changed their mind, had found a better deal elsewhere, had a fight with their better half about how much they had spent and insisted the fish be returned, they could do so.

There were no questions asked if one wished to return the fish. Yhe only condition was they had to come back in the same condition they had been received. This removed any risk to the buyer that they would not get fish they felt re of good quality, the size advertise of larger. I sold 100s of zebras that way and I never had a box of them returned. I still offer that guarantee but, these days I am not shipping much as most folks want to take advantage of the 20% discount they can get by picking up the fish.

I take great pride in the fish I breed and worked very hard to earn of reputation of selling high quality fish. Last week I had a buyer drive 4 hours to get here to pick up true F1 L173 plecos and then drive home 4 hours. That saved him $300 for the fish plus about $125 or more for overnight shipping.

FYI- Planetcatfish lists only 3 members as having spawned L173. (They list 53 for zebras and I never filled out a breeder form for these.) The 173s are the only ones I did this for. Also, my report was for a spawn from my non-wild parents group which I acquired before I got the wild ones in Oct. 2015. However, I got both groups came from the same source,