Another newbie alert!

irmuddled

irmuddled

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Jan 4, 2009
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San Diego, CA
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Real Name
Maria
Ello, nice to meet you all! My name is Maria, I'm 20, and I live in San Diego, CA. I work for Petco on their data entry department at their corporate offices, and I'm also in college, hoping to be a Web or Graphic Designer one day. ;]

I've been keeping fish for a few years, and this year I made it a resolution to take it up a notch and finally do either a very large Discus tank or step into the world of saltwater fish, most likely with a FOWLR tank for starters. I'm inclining more about the Discus tank because I don't really know much about saltwater fish and it seems scary to start all over again, but I'm sure that it's more rewarding too...

Last year I had around 7 freshwater tanks (yarly) running, the largest being a 75gal, but I was forced to sell most of them, so right now I only have: A 30 gal planted community tank with neons, panda cory, a bristlenose pleco, 2 bolivian rams, and a betta. I also have a 5 gal hex on my desk at home & a 6 gal eclipse on my desk at work... both with a betta and one with a snail infestation. >.>

Anyway I get to keep one more tank that I want to be grandoise, so I thought I'd start off by doing research, research, research... so here I am researching you fish keepers. :D

Sorry for my babbling!
 
Welcome to AC!

Honestly, discus will be the same amount of difficulty as starting a saltwater tank.

For FOWLR or fish only, the only real differences are that you're adding marine salt and need a hydrometer. Everything else is pretty much the same as freshwater.

For discus, you're dealing with hit or miss as to whether they'll like your water or not, whether they'll eat for you or not, and a number of other mysterious things that happen with them. Once they are settled in, they are just like any other cichlid in regard to care.

Whatever you decide, there will be new challenges, but none that can't be conquered with a little bit of reading and all of us fish nuts lending a hand.
 
Thank you Nolapete!

I've heard many horror stories about Discus, and my new years resolution for 2008 was actually to start a tank for them as well... but I've been postponing it for a long time just because of that. The PH in my area isn't the right one to start, the tap water even has a slight trace of ammonia sometimes even, and overall I'm just not sure if it's worth the hassle but I can't get the plan out of my head just because I've been waiting for so long for one. >.o

Saltwater seems great to me too, but I guess the reason why I haven't even done proper research is because I don't know where to start. Usually when I make a new tank, I have a fish in my head and I just build the tank around that certain fish... all I know right now is that FOWLR are the easiest tanks for beginners and that reefs are expensive, lol. :p

Either way, I'm hoping I'll finally finish my debate here and thank you so much for the help and opinions!
 
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Hi there!
 
Hi .............:welcome:
 
There's an easy solution to water woes if you are set on discus. Purchase an RO/DI unit. I can refer you to a post on which ones to get and which not to if you want to go that route.

Don't worry about having everything perfect though with either type of tank; discus or FOWLR. Keeping fish is an art not a science. What works for one person may not work for someone else and vice/versa.

I've kept discus successfully in just dechlorinated tap water, as well as, unsuccessfully. Some people swear that you have to have soft acidic water for them to thrive. For wild caught discus, most likely, but I don't believe that's the case with captive bred discus. There's just too many generations of acclimated to more normal conditions discus out there.
 
Thank you, thank you for the welcomes and nice to meet you! :D

I've heard of those products to change the PH, but I'm kind of skeptical on going to that direction, especially since PH tends to change once the water's settled for a while... at least in my experience. And if I'm going to invest on something or put so much effort, I figure that I might as well try that effort on saltwater and go another level! And fear not... all of this I'll bug you guys about once I'm slightly more convinced on going on one side or the other... or maybe even both!
 
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