Very exciting fish post!!!! [Update]

Oh my god!! the discus made eggs!!




This is actually something I didn't think I would ever see in my own tank with my own eyes in my life. The filters are filthy, the CO2 tank ran out two days ago. But the one thing I did on purpose was raise the temp by a couple degrees. Guess it worked, huh?

So in those two pictures the dad (I'm pretty sure the male is the blue one) is tending the eggs. Discus are apparently very good parents, as one of them is always tending the eggs while the other is chasing off the bad guys. The one tending will circulate water over them with either their fins or their mouths. Once it is apparent which eggs are viable and which are dead, the dead are picked off and eaten. Then when the magical days comes, the little fry swim up and cling to the body of a parent, feeding off the slime coat of the "host". It is totally cute, and I am just so happy an excited to see this in my own tank!!!

[UPDATE] When we got back from Knoxville Tuesday, the animal situation was a total mess:

1) cats couldn't figure out how to get the food out of the bag (that I left open in the floor) into their bellies, so they were hungry.

2) there were no more discus eggs. There are a few possible reasons: a) eggs were not viable so were eaten; b) the discus are bad parents and left the new hatchlings to starve; c) the discus are bad parents and left the new hatchlings to be eaten. Doing some reading, it seems that a batch of eggs not working out is not unusual at all. But the two parents are still in the same corner hopefully prepping it for another try.

3) the CO2 tank that I had replaced Saturday morning was empty! But I was wondering why the fish weren't dead after an entire bottle emptied into the tank over the course of a couple days. I just hooked up the new tank, and discovered a loose fitting*! So the tank just emptied into the air, thank god. I was trying to figure out why I couldn't get a consistent flow, and that explains it. So, problem fixed, and I don't need the new solenoid I thought I needed.

*I should remind myself to check this regularly, because the solenoid gets pretty hot, the fittings probably loosen over the heating/cooling cycle of the block.