Over my lunch break yesterday, I went by Aquarium Center, a fairly large fish store here in Owings Mills. I was interested in seeing if the had any CO2 regulators (they had 2 nice kits, but they appears a tad expensive from what I've seen online.) and I wanted to check out their selection of plants and shrimp (both were very nice.)
Then I saw this:
You can't really tell in this picture, but each of those fish is about 5-6 inches long, and covered in a diamond pattern. I'd never seen anything quite like it. it looked like a giant tetra covered in a very detailed pattern. The tag above the tank read that these were "Tatooed Tetras." I thought it was maybe a species I hadn't heard of, and did some googling.
No one's heard of it. What they have heard of are painted tetras and tatooed fish, both of which are very bad for the fish. The article above I linked to mentions that some places have started laser branding fish. that's the only thing I can think of that was done to these fish. I was on my lunch break, so i didn't get a chance to go back and ask if those were natural markings or not, but if they were tattooed or branded that's a shame.