I crush all my barbs. On every kind of hook. Initially it was in self defense as I have twice been hooked badly enough to require professional help. However it has been a lot better for the fish. It's rare now that I can't get a hook out without damage.
Grem, what did you keep? In high school I had just about everything in the fish store and even raised swords to sell back to them for a while. Some years ago I went native and kept a redbreast sunfish. He died a couple of years ago and I haven't replaced him, but I always have the itch.
I kept all kinds of stuff. Never salt but had a Brackish reef system with Monos, puffers, archers, scat, eels, planted system, bunch of Monsters, Clown Knife, Polyupterus, oscars, Pacu, Jack D, Green Terror, probably a half dozen others in that one. My 9 yo has a Betta barracks for breeding and growing out about 50 bettas but his customers died with Covid so we are winding down the system.
