What type of fish would you never touch again?

What's your favorite part of the fishkeeping hobby that you keep coming back to?

After 36 years in the hobby what keeps me going is the satisfaction of a clean, pristine and thriving aquarium.

Discus. I raised them for 28 years in my 40 tank hatchery. They're beautiful but when all the different color patterns started showing up and I realized you had to feed hormones to get some of the more exotic ones I began to lose interest. I had many phone conversations with Jack Wattley and he pretty much felt the same way. His original blue and red turquoise are still some of the prettiest discus available. No matter if I had 10 strains people always wanted the one's I didn't have. Raising the fry can go wrong 100 different ways and keeping the adults healthy and vibrant just plain old required too much work. I wish I had all the hours doing water changes back plus all the money I spent on water bills, RO filters, conditioners, etc. I've always had aquariums since I was about 7 years old but got really burnt out when I was trying to keep and produce discus. It's been about 7 years and I've just now been looking at the smaller planted tanks with shrimp and small tetras. Keeping aquariums has to be one of the most rewarding hobbies on the planet. I just burned myself out.

Long Tail Bettas. They are very personable so you get attached, but they don’t age gracefully.

It is refreshing when a person of Cory’s experience and knowledge admits that even while loving a section of our hobby admits that he has not the time or wishing to face a particular type of fish. I agree that fancy goldfish are beautiful. But with the combination of selective and over breeding. They are essentially fancy carp with their own problems, and issues. My step mom loved seahorses. We got a batch and I looked after them for her. Every morning she would stand by the tank waiting for them to out from cover so that she could see her babies. One morning she saw nine seemingly dead seahorses on the bottom of the tank. She started to cry until the freshly moulted seahorses swam by. She kept every moult in a folder for years. I did get them to breed and managed the raise several batches of fry. My fondest memory when she saw one give birth.

Im really liking this format. Reminds me of the tangents that always happened during the daily dose videos years ago, but a little more focused.

I will never go back to fancy goldfish as well. Spent thousands of dollars on beautiful fish and pampered them with excellent water conditions, but still had incurable illnesses that ended up killing them all over time. I think if you're interested in them, you should buy them as babies and raise them in your water. However, I found my love with Mbuna cichlids. Extremely easy to breed, fun to watch, and I haven't had one illness in over a year. Started with a group of thirty from Tampa Bay Cichlids and now I have close to three hundred thriving fish that I will be selling to my LFS for credit.

I’m loving these sit down videos! It feels like you’re hanging with a friend! Thank you for all you do for the hobby!

Livebearers! They multiply very fast and it becomes a constant nuisance trying to give them away.

I’m loving this style of content. Feels more personal

Almost certain I'll never do bettas again. The only exception is if I decided to try a wild betta, but for the most part I think they were fun as a gateway fish, but they don't fit my style of fishkeeping.

My first fish tank was a 10 gallon, and I was 4 I'm now 64 so I have had a fish tank in my life for 60 years and still love it the new fish from around the world that are coming in all the time I love my fish tanks and will have one till the day I part from this wonderful world we live in BIGLOVE Cory

Neo Cardina shrimp and Fancy Goldfish were two of my biggest failures in the hobby lol. Add live plants and you have my top 3. Sometimes watching Aquarium Co-op videos are depressing lol.

I kept reef tanks for about 20 years and don’t think I’ll ever go back. My fish room now is filled with large tanks. One with a single Umbee, one full of Columbia tetras uaru and cories, and a planted tank with gourami. But my favorite fish recently is my two sarasa comets on the floor in 100 gallon trough. Never thought I’d get into goldfish. Bought 75 as feeder fish years ago when pellet training my Umbee and the two I was left with are now somehow my favorite fish.

Unlike a lot of comments discuss is something I plan on doing again. For a reef aquarium keeper they are actually quite easy to take care of as long as you use RODI water. Especially if you have wood to also make sure the water stays at 7.0 or less. But then again. Us reefers don’t like any changes more than 0.001 on any number. Why we got all the high tech gadgets.

Unfortunate about the fancy goldfish. I just got into to them recently, and you're absolutely right about the lack of information. I've had to resort to learning from chinese and japanese goldfish keepers/breeders but I'd imagine communication becomes an issue at a certain point. Most of the old heads with the knowledge don't speak english and most of us don't speak mandarin or Japanese.

No more mbuna cichlids. They were always fighting no matter what I did. And after realizing how much I enjoyed my planted community tanks, I wanted to switch out the cichlids to a planted tank. Makes keeping water parameters in line much easier. Favorite fish? I love my celestial pearl danios and harlequin rasboras.

I really like these vids. Not too long like a podcast, not too short like a 5 min vid.

Since the 60’s I’ve had aquariums off/on. Most times it was the constant upkeep, all the chemicals, etc that got me discouraged . I started with guppies and have kept most community fish in diff setups over the years. Game changer was learning the deep substrate dirted/sand cap/heavily planted way. I am retired now and have 8 tanks and am loving how healthy and lively all my shrimp, fish, plants are. My water parameters stable with no fiddling with chemicals. Rarely do water changes, top offs with my well water. Like you, cherry shrimp in all but 2 tanks(male betta in his own, breeding colony of orange eye blue tigers in own tank). I’ll always have red cherries and tetras and Cories. I still have guppies-all males😆 But I am considering trying glass belly guppies, maybe😁 This is my last betta, they are wonderful, beautiful and personable, but I’ve never had one that would allow any other fish in with them (nor shrimp nor snails). And longest lived one I had 2 years. I somehow only know how to pick the mean ones😅 thanks for the stream Cory and congrats on the newer warehouse and all that entails 😊☮❤🐠🦐🪴

I'm never going near Dwarf Chain Loaches again. They are great at taking care of snails in your tank, however they also bullied all my other fish, to the point where they couldn't even eat. The local fish store said they were like playful puppies and I would love them. I didn't.