What was your most painful loss to this day???

[ChadHorn]

My 7 year-old cowfish named Cheese. I raised him from a tiny 1/2" block into his final size of 8". He was my pride and joy. Cheese was trained to eat from my hand and would "beach" himself like a whale in it to feed (it kept the more nimble fish away from him). When he'd see me come to the tank, I swear he acted like a puppy with excitement.

He would sleep at night and glide down to the bottom of the tank. My carpet anemone decided to move that night for some reason and was covering Cheese's usual corner. He was half-consumed by the time I found him the next morning, but didn't nuke the tank thankfully. To this day, I absolutely refuse to keep anemones because of that incident.

 

[Paul B]

My Hair

 

[Claus84]

By far my worse was Malcolm my captive bred mandarin, had him 2 years and hatched BBS everyday so he was fat and happy, he was the main reason I bothered looking in my 90g. Lost him to what I am now suspecting was uronema when I transferred to what was going to be his new 300g home.

That and the £400 worth of captive bred flame angels I nuked in a QT mishap, one tiny cute baby and one I had for 2 years that I was planning to pair up, bad times....

 

[Empire]

Hurricane sandy. Lost over $5k worth of corals. Made me quit for a year.

 

[Radman73]

Orange back fairy wrasse. Gorgeous fish that I'd had for close to 5 years. I heard the emergency drain pick up so knew there was a clog. Opened the gate valve all the way and he came out, already passed. That one hurt as he was one of three fish that I moved from Georgia to Florida with. Now, when the two clowns that are 9.5 years old now go, there will likely be real tears.

 

[Jon Fishman]

Lost my Quoyi Parrot yesterday

 

[Jon Fishman]

My 7 year-old cowfish named Cheese. I raised him from a tiny 1/2" block into his final size of 8". He was my pride and joy. Cheese was trained to eat from my hand and would "beach" himself like a whale in it to feed (it kept the more nimble fish away from him). When he'd see me come to the tank, I swear he acted like a puppy with excitement.

He would sleep at night and glide down to the bottom of the tank. My carpet anemone decided to move that night for some reason and was covering Cheese's usual corner. He was half-consumed by the time I found him the next morning, but didn't nuke the tank thankfully. To this day, I absolutely refuse to keep anemones because of that incident.

Wasn’t Cheese the name of the cowfish from all those youtube videos I watched?!?

 

[huckjai]

So far my most painful loss would be my ruby red scooter. Spent time to quarantine him. After quarantine, I only saw him in the display tank for about 1.5 days, and have never seen him since. This was last week. I still try to look for him, hoping he will just pop up. =(

 

[Sailfin11]

Got 2 mochavinci clownfish with the hopes that they would eventually pair up and be the center of attention. QT them and everything, eating well with no signs of disease.

I acclimated them both at the same time and within 15 seconds they swam up to each other and started spazzing out and rubbing all over each other. Love at first sight! Since that moment they would follow each other everywhere! They even snuggled with sleeping. My wife and I were delighted and everyone said it was pretty uncommon for the pairing and mating to happen so soon. 1 week later I woke up to find the smaller (male) trapped in the power head on low setting. I was able to rescue him from it but he literally died in my hands. Last gasps of air... So sad I want to introduce a new one in hopes of the same results but I am afraid of aggression and rejection

I have a similar story. I bought a beautiful established pair of clowns from a fellow hobbyist and put them in QT. One day I switched the powerhead out for a different one for cleaning. The next morning I found the male suctioned to the side of the pump. It was such a disappointing loss and I have yet to find a mate for the female.

 

[Pau Hana Reefer]

My tank is only a year old and so far, I've avoid losing any fish that I've grown attached to. I did lose my third fish (a royal flasher wrasse) to ich or velvet within 10 days of buying him.

So my most painful loss was due to cost... lost a big frogspawn that I spent $180 on.

 

[ChadHorn]

Wasn’t Cheese the name of the cowfish from all those youtube videos I watched?!?

I haven't seen her, but she was was probably in diapers still when I had mine. It was back in 2005ish.

 

[Crabby48]

Male Rhomboid