Sometimes I get the feeling that

[WyldFya]

Common names are terrible, there are some fish that have standard common names that everyone recognizes (neon tetra, oscars, tiger shovelnose, pleco, discus, angelfish, nemo fish, dory fish, etc.) but they are still just common names.



(I just had to throw the nemo fish and dory fish in there.)

 

[ThePBM]

HA! today at petsmart i was browsing for fish with my gf since she's going to be getting a tank in the near future, and there was this family also looking at fishes. the mom goes to her kid "look! it's nemo!" and i think i said to my gf "no it's not" a little bit loud that i'm sure they heard me.

you guessed it, they were looking at the false percula

 

[aropal]

Never heard of 'head and tail light tetra'. Is is some sort of Rasbora or torpedo shaped tetra?

Hemigrammus ocellifer

Classic example of the problem and the solution.

 

[Ophiuchus]

Working in a PS myself, I realized how someone asking about a "clownfish" could mean one of several fish...let's see, there's:

clownfish
clown barb
clown loach
clown knifefish
clown wrasse
clown trigger
clown tetra (is there a clown tetra?)

...and then there's anything that remotely "looks like the Nemo fish" which could include tiger barbs, comet goldfish and gold gouramis.

 

[Bogwoodbruce]

nothing beats "Slippery Dick Wrasse"

we used to label them as SD wrasse to avoid the laughter and strange looks LOL

Ha ha, now thats funny as hell.