Tanks from yesteryear
- Thread starter Mako
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Wat was done in the days wen there was no mh lights and t5's no reactors and dsbs were not thought of how was there ne success and wat was kept as in livestock
http://http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2004-09/rv/feature/index.php
http://http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2004-09/rv/feature/index.php
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Howzit guys. I started this hobby in about 1990. When I started, the only skimmers around to my knowledge were the airstone type. We had built-in overflows that trickled trough filter wool and then, some type of filter media into a sump we called a mini reef. In the the sump there were various grades of crushed coral and a return pump pumping water back to the tank. Evaporation was controlled with a manual type float valve supplied from a reservoir higher than the sump. There were no RO units. The lights we made in glass trays above the tank using T8/12 flourescent lamps. No pulsing pumps. No decent skimmmers - no reactors etc. We did regular water changes to cope with pollutants. And so it goes! Times have sure changed. Its so much easier now with technology and the gadgets available.
Mako - this is a VERY good idea. To teach people how the time has progressed, and what how marines were kept alive in much older ("read cheaper" 
ways than today! Today we "need" HO T5's, or MH's.... we "need" 3 MH's per 6 foot tank, etc....
In the yesteryear, that "we need" was COMPLETELY different than that of today......
This still makes me think of the link which someone pasted to one of the American reef-keeping sites, of the old guy who has had his reef for 35 years. He gathers "cold water" stock when diving, and puts it in his tank, together with some tropical marine fish and corals.... etc... he has NO SUMP, only a tiny home-made (DIY) skimmer, does not use RO water, and only does water changes once every few months or so.....
ways than today! Today we "need" HO T5's, or MH's.... we "need" 3 MH's per 6 foot tank, etc....In the yesteryear, that "we need" was COMPLETELY different than that of today......
This still makes me think of the link which someone pasted to one of the American reef-keeping sites, of the old guy who has had his reef for 35 years. He gathers "cold water" stock when diving, and puts it in his tank, together with some tropical marine fish and corals.... etc... he has NO SUMP, only a tiny home-made (DIY) skimmer, does not use RO water, and only does water changes once every few months or so.....
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very interesting i read on a site the other day about an aquarium overseas in the states that was started in 1904 which is over 100 years ago and they kept all sorts of marine life but nothing was said about the equipment they used or had only about the aquarium itself and its history ill try find it and post the link.My whole point here is that if people were doin it then with the little knowledge and hardly no equipment they had is that we could learn some very basic tips that could help us today surely they had some succsess if not alot after all aquariums have been around a long long time or so it seems
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Lmao shane imagine waking up in the morning with ur mother screaming into ur ear "What have u done with my curlers ive gotto go shopping today"
I started with a 3m x 0.5m x 0.5m system in 1992, I was only about 10 years old so I don't really remember all the details...
I had 3 MH Pendants, not sure of the wattage or Kelvin of them...
I ran a UV, reverse UG filter and a Eheim Canister... Although the UV filter was only connected for a very short while before it blew and ended up being a dust collector in the garage...
The end... hehe
How times have changed, by the looks of it overflows and sumps were around back then, but with no internet I was very limited with knowledge...
I would guess I had Live Rock back then, but didn't know it was live...
Everything lived all the way through except a Shrimp I lost after about 2 years... I remember fighting a never ending hair algae battle... I had test kits, but they just showed me numbers and if they were within acceptable levels, I had no idea what these numbers meant though and thankfully they always looked to be alright, if one was out i wouldn't have known what to do... I did however know how to measure the salinity and that was good enough for me...
I mixed salt water in buckets that had been used for cleaning, because of the size of the tank I would change between 80 and 100l a month using plain old tap water... It was a mission being 11 years old and trying to carry massive buckets of water through the house, then having to lift them almost as high as my head to pour the water into the tank... My parents have since changed their carpets...
I had 2 sea horses, a blue ribbon eel that would eat out of my hand, a domino, a copperband, a pair of boxing shrimps, a green brittle star, another redish star and a few corals which I had no idea what they were as well a few other small fish, wouldn't be able to tell you which one's though...
Everything got on with one another, as far as I know... I fed blood worms to the fish and small grey frozen fish to the eel... I had some additives that i would dose once a week, memory also gets the better of me here and I have no idea what additives they were...
Anyway, I could talk forever about my tank, but basically that's how I started...
10 years later, it's about time I got back into the hobby, seeing as I can actually understand what's going on with the system if something goes wrong... Guess I was just a lucky kid to have been able to keep a healthy marine setup back then... Or maybe marines aren't as fagile as we think...
I had 3 MH Pendants, not sure of the wattage or Kelvin of them...
I ran a UV, reverse UG filter and a Eheim Canister... Although the UV filter was only connected for a very short while before it blew and ended up being a dust collector in the garage...
The end... hehe
How times have changed, by the looks of it overflows and sumps were around back then, but with no internet I was very limited with knowledge...
I would guess I had Live Rock back then, but didn't know it was live...
Everything lived all the way through except a Shrimp I lost after about 2 years... I remember fighting a never ending hair algae battle... I had test kits, but they just showed me numbers and if they were within acceptable levels, I had no idea what these numbers meant though and thankfully they always looked to be alright, if one was out i wouldn't have known what to do... I did however know how to measure the salinity and that was good enough for me...
I mixed salt water in buckets that had been used for cleaning, because of the size of the tank I would change between 80 and 100l a month using plain old tap water... It was a mission being 11 years old and trying to carry massive buckets of water through the house, then having to lift them almost as high as my head to pour the water into the tank... My parents have since changed their carpets...
I had 2 sea horses, a blue ribbon eel that would eat out of my hand, a domino, a copperband, a pair of boxing shrimps, a green brittle star, another redish star and a few corals which I had no idea what they were as well a few other small fish, wouldn't be able to tell you which one's though...
Everything got on with one another, as far as I know... I fed blood worms to the fish and small grey frozen fish to the eel... I had some additives that i would dose once a week, memory also gets the better of me here and I have no idea what additives they were...
Anyway, I could talk forever about my tank, but basically that's how I started...
10 years later, it's about time I got back into the hobby, seeing as I can actually understand what's going on with the system if something goes wrong... Guess I was just a lucky kid to have been able to keep a healthy marine setup back then... Or maybe marines aren't as fagile as we think...
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Hell at that age i was playing pinball and climbing koppies i had no idea wat a marine tank wasI started with a 3m x 0.5m x 0.5m system in 1992, I was only about 10 years old so I don't really remember all the details...
I had 3 MH Pendants, not sure of the wattage or Kelvin of them...
I ran a UV, reverse UG filter and a Eheim Canister... Although the UV filter was only connected for a very short while before it blew and ended up being a dust collector in the garage...
The end... hehe
How times have changed, by the looks of it overflows and sumps were around back then, but with no internet I was very limited with knowledge...
I would guess I had Live Rock back then, but didn't know it was live...
Everything lived all the way through except a Shrimp I lost after about 2 years... I remember fighting a never ending hair algae battle... I had test kits, but they just showed me numbers and if they were within acceptable levels, I had no idea what these numbers meant though and thankfully they always looked to be alright, if one was out i wouldn't have known what to do... I did however know how to measure the salinity and that was good enough for me...
I mixed salt water in buckets that had been used for cleaning, because of the size of the tank I would change between 80 and 100l a month using plain old tap water... It was a mission being 11 years old and trying to carry massive buckets of water through the house, then having to lift them almost as high as my head to pour the water into the tank... My parents have since changed their carpets...
I had 2 sea horses, a blue ribbon eel that would eat out of my hand, a domino, a copperband, a pair of boxing shrimps, a green brittle star, another redish star and a few corals which I had no idea what they were as well a few other small fish, wouldn't be able to tell you which one's though...
Everything got on with one another, as far as I know... I fed blood worms to the fish and small grey frozen fish to the eel... I had some additives that i would dose once a week, memory also gets the better of me here and I have no idea what additives they were...
Anyway, I could talk forever about my tank, but basically that's how I started...
10 years later, it's about time I got back into the hobby, seeing as I can actually understand what's going on with the system if something goes wrong... Guess I was just a lucky kid to have been able to keep a healthy marine setup back then... Or maybe marines aren't as fagile as we think...
Hehe... neither did I...
It was one of the walls in the house when we moved... I had kept FW for a year or two before that though...
The more things change, the more they stay the same. The first marine tank I saw was a mass of algae. Long and green. Waterlife used to sell an algae fertiliser to speed up the growth. The theory being that the algae would "scrub" the water of nitrates etc. Today instead of algae we are using Caulerpa and Chaeto.
If one was really advanced one would reverse flow ones undergravel filter.
The tanks were all fish only, corals were a definite no no.
If one was really advanced one would reverse flow ones undergravel filter.
The tanks were all fish only, corals were a definite no no.
looking for my first tank i had 20 years ago i know i still have because i saw recently when we moved house. will not explain it but will send a pic as soon as i find it. The system was great ran of only a airstone, and weekly waterchanges, only had 4 fish in it but it was cool to look at, will search for the tank to post a pic.
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heres some reading
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marine_aquarium#Marine_fishkeeping_history
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marine_aquarium#Marine_fishkeeping_history
Mekaeel
Moderator
+-15 years back,3ft tank,sea sand as substrate,little hangon filter 1 white t8 and 1 blue t8 and some LR.pretty high tech hey
Hi Mako,I got my first marine tank in 1979 ,I was also just 10 years old. The tank was only 45cm x 30 cm x 30 cm ,in those days we used undergravel filters powerd by an air pump and we only used natural sea sand which we would collect from vigina beach because it was corse and when you put it in the tank there would be thousands of tiny white worms. We also dived for all our fish ,like convict surgon,sergent magors puffers,butterfly fish and sometimes the odd striates or semicirculatus.lighting would only be t8 or t12 or even sunlight. And as for corals they weren't heard of.
PS:We thought it was cool to have an air stone in the centre of the tank.
Mekaeel
Moderator
same here.only used NSW,and caught all the fish in rockpools,butterflies, etc..
Hi everyone. I had my first marine tank when I was 18 (moved to Margate after finishing matric). I "built" my own tank, from some scrap glass I found (I think it was 8 or 10 mm glass even). Was a cube of sorts - unfortunately I did not know enough of anything at that stage, and the one panel I siliconed together from 2 seperate smaller pieces of glass (without any bracing whatsoever)..... I also collected NSW, sea sand, had/used both a little carbon/glass-wool filter (as per f/water) as well as underground filters (I had 2 u/g filters in my tank). I had a "normal" 60 watt globe supplying lighting.... Also had some collected rock - whether it was "live rock" or not - no idea..... (can't remember the whole lot though - a while back)....
I can remember catching nearly ALL my fish/life-stock in the tidal pools of Margate/Ramsgate/Manaba Beach....
You would not believe what fish I had at the time (all juveniles):
- lion-fish
- tangs
- seargeant majors
- cleaner wrasse
- butterflies
- emperor angels
- tiny ribbon eal
Unfortunate thing though - one day I got home, and the tank burst - right at the seam where I bonded the two smaller pieces of glass together to make one panel....
All the fish were one the floor in +-5cm of water...
At that time I moved to Durbs and decided to return all the fish to the sea... :-(
Knew nothing of nothing then.... BUT I never lost a fish, though.
Did NSW water changes about 2 to 3 times a week.... (easy then - VERY close to the sea) (also did tiny water changes, i.e. 4 liters - used old 2 litre Coke bottles)
I can remember catching nearly ALL my fish/life-stock in the tidal pools of Margate/Ramsgate/Manaba Beach....
You would not believe what fish I had at the time (all juveniles):
- lion-fish
- tangs
- seargeant majors
- cleaner wrasse
- butterflies
- emperor angels
- tiny ribbon eal
Unfortunate thing though - one day I got home, and the tank burst - right at the seam where I bonded the two smaller pieces of glass together to make one panel....
All the fish were one the floor in +-5cm of water...
At that time I moved to Durbs and decided to return all the fish to the sea... :-(
Knew nothing of nothing then.... BUT I never lost a fish, though.
Did NSW water changes about 2 to 3 times a week.... (easy then - VERY close to the sea) (also did tiny water changes, i.e. 4 liters - used old 2 litre Coke bottles)