Thanks for the warm welcome, ya’ll.
A bit about me:
I’m 50 years old, a father to three teen/tweens (15, 13, 11), and live in Coastal California. When I was a kid in rural Idaho, my family had a 20 gallon high aquarium with an undergravel filter we bought from a local mom-and-pop fish store. We had the usual fish store fish in it. I spent a lot of time next to that aquarium in an easy doing my junior high and high school homework. I think that’s a big part of my love of fishkeeping now: wonder. It’s a big driver for any of my other hobbies too. I’m into grafting and discovering forgotten apple varieties. Into gardening/composting. Also into pottery (yes, I’ll make my own discus breeding cones).
I first discovered SimplyDiscus way back in its founding days in the early 2000’s. My younger brother had gotten me into bigger tanks and single-fish raising. At the time, my fish addiction was breaking even financially by raising and selling angels and corys to LFS’s at ridiculously low prices. I was really into breeding wild-phenotype angelfish, corydoras (pandas and sterbai), and had some discus I was growing out and hoping for a pair or two. During this time I also build a large plywood fishtank and wrote my experiences up for SimplyDiscus. Back then I was wall_o_fish, and you can still see my earlier posts and my writeup (but no pics; I guess the internet ate them). I understand that uarujoey is on this forum now? He’s the aquarium DIY king, as far as I’m concerned! I’ve watched hours of his YouTube channel.
Right about the time I started forming a discus pair, I had to move several states away for school. It broke my heart to sell all my discus for the move to Iowa. I kept my plywood tank, some corys, a few sturisoma, and some geophagus altifrons, which seemed hardy enough to endure the move.
Not long after moving, I married a bright-eyed, cute woman from suburban Southern California. She didn’t care for my aquarium hobby (well, any of my hobbies, really) or my course of study. I was foolish to do so, but I eventually gave up far too much in an effort to preserve my family. You know how this one ends, but I didn’t at the time. Hopefully the divorce will be final by the end of this calendar year; none of it was my idea. Cross your fingers ya’ll, it’s been dragging on for almost three years.
I was considering calling my homesteader section “Scott’s Registered Therapy Fish” because that’s really the way I see them. I finally have the freedom to really pursue this hobby, so I’m going to do it. I’ve found that lots has changed online since I left the hobby, so I welcome all recommendations for reputable suppliers of fish, food, and equipment/supplies.
Right now, I have ZERO discus. My dream discus has always been the iconic one in SimplyDiscus’s header. Some names that match up are Santerems, Cuipera, Jacarecappa . . . that whole vibe. I understand the foibles of geographically named discus, so I put the emphasis on the look. My ideal situation would be to buy a proven pair of these from someone -- either wild caught or F1 from different parents and raise this line for the next five or so years with appropriate outcrosses to keep the genetics robust. I’m less excited at the prospect of growing them out. That’s over a year’s worth of water changes. :-)
So, this will be a journey. I'll post photos of tank setups and fish as they come in. I'm not in a hurry, and I'm sure you're not either.
Best,
Scott
