Saltwater Aquarium Blog

Five Starter Fish Every Saltwater Hobbyist Should Avoid

 Starting up a saltwater reef tank can be an intimidating venture.  You may experience some sticker shock from the prices of the fish, and perhaps awe at the seemingly endless array of choices in front of you.  There are many opinions about what makes an ideal starter marine fish, but this article is intended mostly to help steer you away from a few pitfalls that some hobbyists fall into when starting out. I can tell you that I fell into many of these pitfalls first-hand. The purpose of this article is to provide you with 5 Saltwater Starter Fish Every Beginner Should Avoid.

A cold, hard fact of starting a new saltwater reef tank is that there is a good chance that the first few fish you add first may not live.  New tank syndrome often takes the lives of some of our most prized piscine friends. The reason for this is ammonia toxicity.  New filters are not able to adequately process the waste (ammonia) that  fish produce–from normal excretion and excess feeding.  That ammonia quickly becomes toxic in a new tank and takes the life of the fish you so thoughtfully selected from the local fish store.

So what typically happens? Well, someone at a local fish store will frequently recommend you purchase a ‘starter fish’, a fish that is supposed to be so tough they can tolerate the sub-par chemistry of your newly initiated biotope.  They are generally recommended mostly because of two factors–price and hardiness.  Beauty is sometimes a third factor, which can lead to a trade-off in price and/or hardiness, and also causes saltwater aquarium beginners to make poor choices for starter fish.

Below is a list of 5 saltwater fish that should NOT be purchased by beginners.

 5) Mandarinfish–These psychedelic-colored fish are some of the prettiest little reef fish you can find at the store.  They are slow-moving, gentle creatures with a moderately low price tag–that makes them a popular fish for newcomers to purchase.  They are disease resistant, with a thick mucus coat, but the biggest problem with these fish is that they often starve to death in captivity.   Mandarine fish typically eat copepods, are docile/slow eaters (so they get out-competed for food by damsels, clowns, etc.) and often times flat out refuse to eat anything except live copepods.  As such, they often die in all but the largest, well established tanks with mature refugiums.  Please don’t buy this fish if you have a new tank.
4) Cleaner Wrasse–Add this to the list of saltwater starter fish that generally starve in newly established tanks.  These fish are frequently
‘spontaneous purchases’ because they are high energy, exciting fish with an ultra-low price tag, by saltwater fish standards.  These fish WILL buzz around your tank, with seemingly endless energy, and they will pick parasites and dead scales off of your other reef fish.  The problem is, in a normal tank, there is generally not enough food to keep them healthly. And even if you had enough parasites–the question is–why do you have so many parasites? Frankly, that’s a much bigger and scarier issue.  So you see, the cleaner wrasse must fail for you to succeed.  So why buy one in the first place.  Save yourself the $8, spare a life, and a chastise your local fish store for buying the fish, to begin with.  While cleaner wrasse will eat other food than just external parasites harming your other fish, they are considered to be finicky eaters and are not recommended at all as a saltwater starter fish.

3) Groupers (panther grouper, etc.)–these fish are gorgeous. Absolutely stunning.  And when purchased as a saltwater starter fish, they are  usually small and cute.  They are also hardy. Typically, members of the grouper family are brought into fish stores at an extremely cute and diminutive size–perhaps no more than a couple of inches in length.  However,  they will grow to be a gynormous (yes, I used a non-existant word there) size.  They are cute and cuddly when you buy them, but watch out–they’ll eat anything they can get their mouths around–including tankmates.  They should only be kept in the largest tanks, and they should be kept with suitably large, aggressive fish–that is not generally the case for the average saltwater starter tank–so I don’t recommend it.  Also, there is a myth that seems to perpetuate that fish will only grow to the size their tank will sustain.  Um, how can I put this delicately…..WRONG….it’s simply not true.  While sub-optimal conditions may stunt the growth of a fish slightly, the size of a fish is determined mostly by genetics. So a genetically big fish will be a genetically big fish–even in a small tank. So, while these critters ARE cute. Don’t do it. 

2) Mollies/Guppies–Mollies and Guppies are staple fish in the freshwater aquarium hobby (I like to think of it as low-sodium).  In the wild, however, they often inhabit estuaries or other areas which can become brackish.  As such, they have a natural ability to tolerate and acclimate to water with salt in it–even at full-strength seawater.  While there needs to be a proper amount of time to acclimate these fish, they will tolerate full-strength seawater, no problem.  And they’re cheap. Super cheap, by saltwater fish standards.  And they’re hardy.  So they technically meet all the key requirements.  The problem is this–once your tank is up, running, cycled and somewhat stable–you’ll be adding some of the most gorgeous and vibrantly colored fish in the world–most likely you’ll add live rock and perhaps coral and try to create a reef of your own, under intense lightly–and you’ll have gorgeous reef fish….and a few guppies.  The bottom line is this–it’s unnatural, it’s not all that attractive, and quite frankly, you’ll regret the decision once the fish are in there–and you’ll either spend hours trying to fish them out (which isn’t really an ethical thing to do), or you’ll leave them in there until they live out their golden years on your transplanted reef….and you’ll always wonder why you didn’t take my advice.

1) Damsels–almost any kind–to be safe, if it has ‘damsel’ in the name, stay away.  These fish, much like the guppies and mollies listed above, are almost bullet .  They are also cheap, and widely available. So, they are probably the saltwater starter fish most frequently used.  And for what it’s worth, they may live through the most difficult of tank conditions.  What you may not know, however is that the majority of damsel species are aggressive–and they will hassle and torment the ‘prized’ fish that you add down the road.  They’ll bully fish much larger than themselves, declare sole ownership over their territory in the tank and be a royal pain.  I can also testify, first-hand, that they are FAST.  Extremely difficult to catch in a tank with rock-work, and smart enough to cause serious heart-burn while trying to catch them with a fish trap.

I know what you’re thinking–I’ve ruled out most of the inexpensive options at your disposal.  Here’s the deal. The first thing to consider–is that for my advice to work, you have to decouple two things: cycling your tank, and adding livestock.  A lot of times, out of haste or spontaneity, we try to add saltwater starter fish as a source of ammonia to actually create the cycling process in their tank.  This causes a problem because the fish can’t live in the conditions they create–because the filter isn’t established enough yet.  So because our chances of loss are high–we want to purchase cheap fish, which can tolerate the conditions–but here’s the deal–if you cycle the tank, using non-living ammonia sources (I’ll detail that in a later article), then you don’t have to worry as much, about tank conditions.  As long as you add fish slowly, your biological filtration and protein skimmer will take care of the rest, and you can spend your time adding only fish that you really want. 

What I’m advocating is cautious, well thought out saltwater starter fish purchases.  Spend a little more than you ‘have to’, get the fish you really want.  Add the fish one at a time, and create a masterpiece display tank.  I can testify personally, that those old-standby saltwater starter fish which get purchased in huge numbers at every local fish store, every month.  Can cause a lot of heart-ache and problems down the road.  Avoid the species listed here. 

For recommendations on which fish you SHOULD consider adding first, see my other article:

Five Saltwater Starter Fish for Beginners      

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