Back in the day. Yawn!

[LesMelling]

Back in the day.

Some of you will have Paul Bs book The Avant-Garde Marine Aquarists. I also bought the E-version as (I live in the UK and hard copies are not available) but when my hard drive on my laptop died I lost Paul's E-book and recently got another (no I didn't pay again I just emailed the company and told them what had happened and they sent me another), that was kind of them.

I have just been reading Paul's section on Pests and Manajo nems in particular. I recall back in the day encouraging them to reproduce and gave many away to other reefing friends. We didn't consider them a pest of course but welcome freebies. I don't recall having any Aiptasia nems either they seem to have been introduced much later and yes many cultivated them. I don't recall seeing flat worms either then, they were another later introduction as far as I am aware not that we tried to encourage them to breed, they did that fine without our help. They particularly enjoyed sunbathing under metal halides and they seemed to appear when HQI lighting took off X years ago.

Before HQI lighting we just had a couple of T12 light tubes over our tanks and all that was available then were northlight a kind of daylight tube, warm whites and growlux tubes and little else certainly nothing we could call daylight tubes of today. The blue of the growlux would help neutralise the yellowness of the warm white tubes many used. Most just had a tube of each over their tank but of course we had no SPS corals back then apart from white ones that never grew apart from growing hair algae on them. We didn't realise these white corals were already dead and we would try to bring them back to life by scrubbing them and bleaching them white again but despite our efforts they would died yet again.

Sometimes we would put baking foil under the tank canopy to help reflect light down but over time it would deteriorate and much of it would end up in the tank. We did lots of DIY then as much of the high end equipment, well what there was of it was extremely expensive with Thiel Aqua Tech being amongst the most expensive lol along with Tunze and Dupla. I recall paying £300 (about $400) or my first 250w HQI light which had a 4300k double ended bulb in it, later I exchanged it for a 5400K bulb. This would be around 25 years ago so in truth much of the equipment we now use can be considered cheaper. Not that I have given up on DIY far from it I still enjoy making filters and what not for my tank.

In many ways reefkeeping was so much easier back then as we had little in the way of fancy equipment, no skimmers but there were sander ozone reactors that were far from reliable and expensive with it. We kept few corals maybe a few softies and surprisingly the odd nem if you had the lighting for them. On the front cover of one of Alberts books entitled "Ten Easy Steps" and on some editions early ones I think there is a pic of my H.Magnifica nem hosting my common clowns.

Alberts book was bublished in 1991 by which time I was running 2 X 250w HQI lamps on my 6'6" tank along with a 120w 5' actinic T12 lamp. That nem was considered by the "experts" back then impossible to keep for more than a few months, Mine lasted me many years until I broke the tank down and sold it on. Happy pioneering days indeed.

The book by Albert has seen better days now but here it is.

[homer1475]

Back when I had a reef tank(basically FOWLR as no one kept corals back then) many many years ago(20+ now) wet/dry filters and skimmers were just becoming popular. I had a 60G tall with 2 fluorescent bulbs, a bunch of LR, and a HOB skimmer. Was never able to keep anemones alive(we didn't know they required high lighting back then), so when they died you just went and bought another. I kept fish like a panther grouper and a volitan lion simply becuase no one knew any better.

OOh it was definitely easier back in the day, but we also didn't keep corals like we see now.

Forgot to mention, under gravel filters were super popular and was the only source of flow in the tank.

[LesMelling]

Originally Posted by homer1475

Back when I had a reef tank(basically FOWLR as no one kept corals back then) many many years ago(20+ now) wet/dry filters and skimmers were just becoming popular. I had a 60G tall with 2 fluorescent bulbs, a bunch of LR, and a HOB skimmer. Was never able to keep anemones alive(we didn't know they required high lighting back then), so when they died you just went and bought another. I kept fish like a panther grouper and a volitan lion simply becuase no one knew any better.

OOh it was definitely easier back in the day, but we also didn't keep corals like we see now.

Forgot to mention, under gravel filters were super popular and was the only source of flow in the tank.

UG filters with a big 4 outlet air pump that vibrated the fillings out fo your teeth until powerheads came in like the Hagen 200 pump.

[vitodog]

Originally Posted by homer1475

Back when I had a reef tank(basically FOWLR as no one kept corals back then) many many years ago(20+ now) wet/dry filters and skimmers were just becoming popular. I had a 60G tall with 2 fluorescent bulbs, a bunch of LR, and a HOB skimmer. Was never able to keep anemones alive(we didn't know they required high lighting back then), so when they died you just went and bought another. I kept fish like a panther grouper and a volitan lion simply becuase no one knew any better.

OOh it was definitely easier back in the day, but we also didn't keep corals like we see now.

Forgot to mention, under gravel filters were super popular and was the only source of flow in the tank.

Well, I have had reef systems since 1986, and even back then I had a light fixture that was comprised of metal halide and T-5 bulbs. You are correct about the skimmers though.

[LesMelling]

Originally Posted by vitodog

Well, I have had reef systems since 1986, and even back then I had a light fixture that was comprised of metal halide and T-5 bulbs. You are correct about the skimmers though.

Yes HQI lamps were available back then and were in use back in the 60s commercially but are you sure about T5s being availble in 1986 as my sources say they didn't come into being apart from small 13w ones until the 1990s?

[Flippers4pups]

He might be thinking t-8's instead of t-5's.

[vitodog]

I always thought they were T-5's, but yes, its possible they were T-8's or 12's.

[homer1475]

Sure they were available, but expensive and according to many LFS's back then, not needed.

[Flippers4pups]

Throughout most of the early nineties all I could get was ether halides or T8's.

[Spslvr]

lets break out the pics....lol.

1st pic 1993 under gravel filter, shell grit and a lees airstone skimmer with 2x t8 flouros

2nd pic same tank 2 years later 1995 "upgraded" 250w 6500k halide and 2x Phillips 03actinics and a hang on filter as well as two really week powerheads for flow

[Spslvr]

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[Kevin Guthrie]

Wow, the Wayback Machine! OK... lets set it for 1970... exact years are pretty hazy... Fish only, crushed oyster shell gravel, under gravel filter with lift tubes run by bubbles generated from a piston pump, and a single fluorescent in a plastic hood. Absolutely state of the art stuff!

1975. 90 gallon tank, still fish only. Crushed coral gravel, undergravel filter lift tubes run by powerheads. They were not immersible and you had to clean the dust out of the cooling fan shrouds every once in a while and they burned out after a year or two. 4-foot plant light fluorescent. Bleached coral skeletons from Pier One provided the decoration.

1990. My first coral and inverts and live rock. A sump with a wet dry filter that included bio bale and spinning feed arm. 6 Actinic and daylight fluorescents. 4 foot protein skimmer powered by a Schego pump with limestone diffuser. I still have the airpump, still use the overflow, and still have the Caulastrea in my tank today. I never fell for Thiel's air injection equipment shtick - Moe's book was the bible and the usenet newsgroups like rec.aquaria and sci.aquaria were probably experiencing their first spam.

[locito277]

Nothing else to say!! Loved this thing lol


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[ReefTeacher]

1979, 20 Long tank with dolomite and UGF. My first fish was a tank-bred maroon clown from Martin Moe!

[ThRoewer]

When I set up my first saltwater tank in 1978 I already had a skimmer and inverts like NPS anemones. Soft coral, zoas and mushrooms were also already available. And I was in a backwards corner of Germany back then. About a year later I "discovered" the real reef tanks, when I found the more up-to-date stores in the Netherlands and Bremen.
In Berlin, only a few years later, Stüber got a Acropora to grow out of a piece of life rock.
By the end of 1982 I had bred my first two melanopus clownfish.
By 1985 I had a 160 liter reeftank that would easily hold up to the majority of today's soft coral and anemone tanks.
In the early 1990s I got my first SPS to grow, a Seriatopora hystrix.

[moondoggy4]

My first SW tank was back in 85, two eheim canister filters ,UG filter, I even had a UV light, light source was FW, no corals just lots of cool fish. Tap water with Prime and instant ocean with the little bottle.

[Breadman03]

Is that a rice crispy treat? lol

Originally Posted by locito277

Nothing else to say!! Loved this thing lol


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[Flippers4pups]

IMG_1062.jpg

Circa 1993

[vitodog]

Originally Posted by Kevin Guthrie

Wow, the Wayback Machine! OK... lets set it for 1970... exact years are pretty hazy... Fish only, crushed oyster shell gravel, under gravel filter with lift tubes run by bubbles generated from a piston pump, and a single fluorescent in a plastic hood. Absolutely state of the art stuff!

1975. 90 gallon tank, still fish only. Crushed coral gravel, undergravel filter lift tubes run by powerheads. They were not immersible and you had to clean the dust out of the cooling fan shrouds every once in a while and they burned out after a year or two. 4-foot plant light fluorescent. Bleached coral skeletons from Pier One provided the decoration.

1990. My first coral and inverts and live rock. A sump with a wet dry filter that included bio bale and spinning feed arm. 6 Actinic and daylight fluorescents. 4 foot protein skimmer powered by a Schego pump with limestone diffuser. I still have the airpump, still use the overflow, and still have the Caulastrea in my tank today. I never fell for Thiel's air injection equipment shtick - Moe's book was the bible and the usenet newsgroups like rec.aquaria and sci.aquaria were probably experiencing their first spam.

Kevin, do you remember if those Actinics and Daylights were T-5's?