I was pulled back into fish keeping by a marine tank I saw in my local pet store.  I was picking up some treats for my Chihuahua and found myself lost in the small biocube sitting next to the register.  A friend of mine had recently given me their 90 gallon acrylic tank, and my imagination ran wild with the possibilities.

I began doing some research, and decided it would be far too complex and too expensive to simply play around with a saltwater setup.  Since it was the vibrant color that attracted me to saltwater, I decided to imitate the look with tropical fish.  Cichlids are incredibly colorful, but I find their body shapes a little unappealing and decided against them.

Already having the danio from my fish-in cycle, I decided another schooling fish was in order.  I went to my local pet store to browse their wares and came across some glofish tetra.  Considering my want for vibrant livestock, these seemed like an obvious choice.

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It turns out they were incredibly territorial and became aggressive toward one another.  I added a few more, hoping to blur the territorial lines but it only resulted in the new fish huddled in a corner, corralled by the current inhabitants.  I took them all back.

After all was said and done, I had accumulated 18 various danio, 6 red wag platys, 6 yellow guppies, four Dalmatian mollies, two blue dwarf gourami and 3 peppered cory cats.

In my head, I thought the Dalmatian mollies would look better, but after I added them I realized they reminded me too much of goldfish… don’t ask me why.   One of the mollies had babies.  I lost several fish in the two days afterward, and I can only assume they choked on the fry.  After the dust had settled, I lost 4 yellow guppies and 3 danio.

I had been doing a lot of research on discus.  So much research in fact, that I was starting to scare myself out of trying.  But after some deep thought I decided I just have to take the plunge, but that would mean downsizing my tank load.  I sold the remaining danio, guppies and Dalmatian mollies on craigslist.  The fry are still in the tank, but once they’re big enough to catch, they’re gone too.

I found a pet store specializing in fish geared toward the hardcore hobbyist with a huge supply of discus.  Everything I had read online suggested straying from pet stores to buy discus, but these were in extremely good condition and the tanks were pristine.  I bought three.

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The discus are actually what inspired me to start this fish journal.  The greatly varied opinions online are confusing and intimidating.  This will be my step-by-step trial and error.  As it turns out, we’ve hit a possible bump already.  I’ve noticed one of the discus has cloud eye.  The other two are fine, and from what I’ve gathered on the computer webs, cloud eye can be brought on by stress, poor water conditions, or worse, parasites/infection.

Eek.