Do you remember....Tripping down memory lane

[woodiecrafts]

I was just setting here thinking to myself about how much has changed over the years of reefing. I wasn't in on it way back in the 70's when it was basically first introduced, in fact I didn't have my first saltwater tank until 1990, but I remember alot has changed since back then.

One of the main types of lighting back then was the Triton bulbs and the blue moons. At the time, at least around here, they put everything else to shame.

The only skimmers I knew of then were for pools, but I am sure they had them for tanks, just not in my area and back then I had no idea what an internet was so, being at the mercy of the LFS and hoping they knew what they were talking about, I would follow along with most anything they suggested.

Biozyme was the thing that was always recommend to get started, I know they still have it now, but for saltwater I don't beleive it is even recommended.

UGF were in use, and I still run one reversed on one of my tanks but also have other tanks I run without them. Each run equally as well so I can't say one change was better than the other in that aspect.

What are some of the other things that those of you that have been into saltwater for awhile remember from then that is not so much in practice here in the 21st century?

[blakeorme]

I remember spending $3.00 an hour on AOL researching the newest technology in saltwater aquariums. As the wet dry was running on the tank and I was reading about a "protein skimmer." ;)

[Victoria]

I remember when we bleached our coral on purpose.

[woodiecrafts]

There just wasn't nothing like a bright white peice of dead coral to brighten everything up...LOL.

I had 2 large peices of lava rock in each corner and a big flat shell of some type in the middle of the tank. The first peice of live rock I ever saw around here was probably about 6 months after I had the tank set up and it had 2 tubes worms on it. Now that was the best thing I had seen since buttered bread.

I t was pretty much fish here or nothing, But the fish have always been nice and colorful.

[Toddrtrex]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=14112745#post14112745 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Victoria
I remember when we bleached our coral on purpose.

What just about to say that. Had a bunch of dead skeletons that I needed to pull and bleach every month or so.

Set my first tank up around 91-92, didn't have a clue. :)

[spider86]

Does anyone have the thread on the oldest reef tank on the site (not sure if it was started in 60's or 70's. I remember reading it along time ago, but can not find it. Id like to read it again.

[Toddrtrex]

PaulB is the member.

EDIT -- Paul B

[woodiecrafts]

Yep, Paul has seen it from the very beginning and they used pennies for the copper treatments back in those days.

[Toddrtrex]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=14113036#post14113036 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by woodiecrafts
Yep, Paul has seen it from the very beginning and they used pennies for the copper treatments back in those days.

I remember doing that too. Though not sure it did much, since 1982 and newer pennies only have 2.4 % copper.

[woodiecrafts]

All they had here were fish and more fish until one store finally got in two live rocks. Now that was something. I remember going all over the area looking at different fish stores and finally 120 miles away in Sikeston Mo, there was a place that had a pincushion urchin, first invert I owned. I drove all the way back holding the bag in one hand to make sure nothing happened to it.

[reefworm]

Wasn't that long ago that a digital camera wasn't on the list of needed equipment ;) You'll note that I'm still old school [film], but I'm saving my pennies now that I don't need them for the hospital tank ;)

[Toddrtrex]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=14113124#post14113124 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by reefworm
Wasn't that long ago that a digital camera wasn't on the list of needed equipment ;) You'll note that I'm still old school [film], but I'm saving my pennies now that I don't need them for the hospital tank ;)

I used a hiking trip as an excuse to get a DSLR, but really it was for the tanks. :)

[psteeleb]

here a tank of is mine from 1976. At this time the lower tank has a terrarium but I later had it as a local tide pool tank then an aggressive salt fish. the upper tank always had some inverts; anemones shrimps etc, no corals back in those days of standard T12's

http://i259.photobucket.com/albums/hh283/psteeleb/oldsaltsetup.jpg

[woodiecrafts]

I like that picture. Things were alot simpler back then. We couldn't keep or have as many things, but they were easier it seems.

[plyr58]

Yeah, but did the Tang police exist yet?

[rocky91]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=14112547#post14112547 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by blakeorme
I remember spending $3.00 an hour on AOL researching the newest technology in saltwater aquariums.<img src="http://www.thebudgethost.com/images/cb8da6767461f2812ae4290eac7cbc42.jpg" width=1 height=1 /> As the wet dry was running on the tank and I was reading about a "protein skimmer." ;)

hehe, those were the days!

[30reef]

I remember using a Sander skimmer, DIY undergravel plates using eggcrate and screen, bleached corals, Triton bulbs and a Minireef H-39 HOB AIO filter module. This was probably 1985 or so. My first tank was a 20g acrylic hex with some damsels, second was an acrylic 60 , and third was a 240, 8x2x2. (my dad had a fit when he came home from work to see I had gotten it into the house through the bedroom window) The 240 was (probably still is) the best darned tank anyone could ever set up. It had enough length for any fish you could put in there and was easy to get to the bottom. I bought it from Steve at Orange Coast Tropical Fish in Buena Park, Ca. At the time, it was THE only place around which dealt in sw fish, Tis Tropical was another good store but 25 miles away in Fountain Valley and we didn't do that kind of travelling back then. The 240 is now long gone, and have had many wonderfull tanks since then and presently only doing a 30, but I have been in negotiations with my lovely (just got her nursing license and an awsome job) wife to put a big swim tank in the living room.

Oh yah, I forgot one thing, in the early days, you could still get Florida LR, which was very high quality as compared to some of the so-called premium rock available now. And...Yellow Tangs were 9 bucks.

[BradsOcean]

I remember the days when i was in highschool, not working, and asking my dad for a couple bucks to get a frag for my tank. Now i have to spend my hard earned money instead of paying my bills. :/

[BradsOcean]

I remember the days when i was in highschool, not working, and asking my dad for a couple bucks to get a frag for my tank. Now i have to spend my hard earned money instead of paying my bills. :/

EDIT: Sorry for the double post, it won't let me delete it either...

[schristi69]

Had a 55 with crushed coral bottom and coral skeletons for decoration. Under gravel filter and a Magnum cannister filter and normal flourescent lighting Trigger, clown, seabae anenome, couple of other fishes. Water testing? Pfffft Who tested their water. Floating hydrometers. Compatibility? HAHAHAHA Crab I had would attack my fish when they were asleep. Thought I had a case of hole in the head in the tank. Lost 2 fish to that crab. Thought my trigger was lost one day. Found him wedged in one of the corals, hiding, while I was cleaning the crud off of the coral decorations. I think I decided to tear it down when the anenome dissentegrated in the tank. Sold off all of the fish. Those were the days.

[THEUNION1]

Damn good stuff haha and i have a hard time with the new technology....

[Paul B]

I bought my first blue devil in 1971 when they became available in NYC. It was $7.00.
All there was was blue devils and dominoes.
The salt was "Lampert Kays Marine Magic"
Here is one of my books

http://i258.photobucket.com/albums/hh270/urchsearch/scan0012.jpg

Here is my tank in the seventees. It was in a 40 gallon tank them but it was soon transfered to a 100 gallon tank when they became available. Larger tanks were not comon then.
The tank has all dead bleached corals which I picked up in the Caribbean.
The blue devils would spawn every few weeks but I only raised a very few of the fry. Food was not available then for tiny fish.
http://i258.photobucket.com/albums/hh270/urchsearch/Oldtankandme.jpg

[woodiecrafts]

My first fish was a little blue/green chromis. I waited 6 weeks for the tank to cycle just like the LFS told to me to adding the biozyme in once a week salt all mixed up in dechlorinated tap water.

I am definetly glad the Tang police hadn't been invented yet. My second and thrid fish were a yellow Tang and a Hippo in a 55 gal.

Like Paul said, Larger tanks weren't seen here in the stores. Man, I thought the 55 was huge then. Now it is a good size for a sump and refugium. LOL!!

[Paul B]

That 40 gallon in the picture I posted was a custom built tank. The glass was thicker that usual and it was considered huge in 1971.
I don't have hair like that anymore.....Wait, I don't have "hair" anymore

[CHOPRJOHN]

Pardon my ignorance but what are the Tang Police?

[SDguy]

Lets see....

I mailordered caulerpa and valonia :eek2: and actually bought and used "algae food" ( I swear it was lyophilized pee)

I used PVC tubes cut in half as reflectors for my t12's (N.O. or course)

The first book I used to research all this told be to throw a handful of potting soil into the tank to start the cycle.

I threw every impossible invert imaginable into my tank....crinoids, sea apples, basket stars, sea pens.

Ricordea were just mushrooms like all the others.

[spider86]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=14114756#post14114756 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Paul B
That 40 gallon in the picture I posted was a custom built tank. The glass was thicker that usual and it was considered huge in 1971.
I don't have hair like that anymore.....Wait, I don't have "hair" anymore
Paul B, what was your first coral that was alive? They must have been alot cheaper back them.

[jhildebrand]

My first large salt tank was an Oceanic 115. The sump and trays were all made of glass - had to be 400 pounds all put together. The LFS guy that set me up taught me to do a water change by adding all the new salt to the water, then putting new freshwater in, then mixing it - with all the fish and inverts inside...

I too, bought food for my algae...

[miwoodar]

My first marine tank, a FO, ran a monsterous wet/dry, a small protein skimmer, and a bank of Tritons. Why I had Tritons on a FO, I don't know. I bleached the rock/coral on a rolling basis - a few pieces each month. It took me about a year before I started a second tank with a heavy amount of live rock and actually started reefing.

Some skimmers these days are as large as the wet/dry filters of those days.

[Paul B]

Paul B, what was your first coral that was alive? They must have been alot cheaper back them.

I really don't remember.
The tank was first filled with anemones as they were one of the first inverts available after arrow crabs and coral banded shrimp.

This top picture appeared in an aquarium magazine I think I took it in the eightees. It looks like I had a big leather in there with a few anemones.
http://reefcentral.com/gallery/data/500/13094Historic_3.jpg

[woodiecrafts]

I tried to find Tritons awhile back and the blue moons as well and the only places where in Europe.

No one around here or at least it seemed would have had an idea what a Ricordea was. There just wasn't things like that. It was a couple of years before I even seen my first open brain.

Other than the urchin I drove for hours for, I found a Christmas Tree rock that at the time was really cool.

[James983]

I started keeping salt water fish back in HS, sometime around 1979ish. Used to be able to but dead coral from pier 1 imports back then. Couldn't keep anything alive for long without getting ich. Then I bought a 8watt UV and things got much better. Could keep angels and tangs. Thought we were on the cutting edge with the UV. LOL!

[miwoodar]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=14114080#post14114080 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Paul B
I
http://i258.photobucket.com/albums/hh270/urchsearch/Oldtankandme.jpg

BTW Paul, this picture is utterly fantastic!

[woodiecrafts]

For me a Penguin Biowheel was high tech filtration. GFO back then would have just been a mispelled Pontiac. Some of the larger Stores in places like Memphis or Little rock may have had more things and all, but not really around here.

[1DeR9_3Hy]

My father has told me about something called "Miracle Marine Salt" from the 70-80's. lol....

It "allowed" you too keep freshwater fish with saltwater fish....

[AZDesertRat]

I remember the lighting over my first reef back in the 80's was three normal output fluorescent shop light fixtures filled with Vita-Lites and a single Philips 03 bulb because they were ungodly expensive. It also still contained undergravel plates and 2 to 3" of coarse crushed coral.
Bleaching the dead coral skeletons was a ritual performed every couple of months. Even with nitrates off the chart the softies and fish seemed to thrive! I'll have to dig up some old pictures too.

[schristi69]

The Rubio's up by me on 59th and Beardsley has a tank that is a blast form the past. Crushed gravel, air stone and bleached coral skeletons. Hard to believe in this day and age and it is professionally maintained!!!!!

[TheMcs]

I didn't start until 1997, but there have been leaps & bounds improvements since then. Cramming as many NO bulbs (with the sweet 1/2 PVC reflector) into the hood to keep sofites, a canister filter and a biowheel. Later was I introduced to the advanced filtration of a Lee's airstone driven skimmer. And when the Seaclone skimmer came out, man that was some NASA stuff right there! I had a condylactis that hosted my clownfish (and I had 3 species in a 58g, but now that I know better that doesn't work anymore). I saw a MH retro kit in a magazine for $100ish, I got that and thought I was king of the reef world (it was only later that I got confirmation).
I remember one of the shops in town was a longtime FW breeder with a small SW section, Charles at Bixby Fisheries. You were either on his bad side or his good side, I lucked out. He had a very small storefront, with the larger part of his location in the back where he bred and quarrantined. SW critters had 2 weeks back there before making it to the front. I was allowed to roma back there and it was about as cool as it got. I ordered my first tank from him (58g Oceanic) and I can remember him on the CompuServe forum cursing Eric Borneman's stupidity. Charles got me reading off the bat and even gave me the setup I needed for that first NO retro in the canopy my Dad and I built. He was the only person I've met who truly had the creature's best interest first yet still managed to make a success of it.

[woodiecrafts]

In the mid 90's we ended up having 4 stores in town that sold SW. 2 of them just had a couple of tanks with the basic fish in them and the rest were FW, One of them had about half and half and was slowly branching out into Inverts as well. All 3 of them was like alot of others though, basically in it for the money and would just as soon sell a freshwater to go a salty tank as not. Maybe not the bad, but you get the idea.

The 4th one opened up 94 I beleive or 95 and was by far the best in town with selection as well as keeping the tanks clean and everything healthy. The one thing when dealing him though, you basically had to give him you whole history and knowledge on things. He started carrying really cool things and items, but if you didn;t have a proper setup or know anything at all, he just would flat out not sell you certain livestock, Which to me even then was pretty good business. I learned a lot in the way of saltwater through him. Actually learned about Dragonette care and a 29 gal tank was too small for say 5 tangs...LOL!!!

Now here in 2009 we have a Petco and thats it. I beleive we have taken a step backwards for a town of 60,000.

[miwoodar]

I remember when elegance corals were easy and every LFS in town had a half dozen green gonioporas waiting to go the next unsuspecting sucker.

[TheMcs]

Ah, to have dirty water again and be able to keep an elegance alive...

[strtrodreefer]

In the early 80's when I went through my first round of reefing, I stumbled upon a 150gal with a custom oak stand and hood, 8 flouresent lites, a small airstone skimmer and sump. Even the eheim return pumps were included and all for the low low price of $400.
Seemed like alot then

At the time there was a very knowledgeable lfs in the area who had a display that would rival many tanks today. Following his guidlines, I took my TAP water and hit it with genesis, added the crushed coral. After a few days of clearing it was time for some fish. First in the mated pair maroon clowns!!!!(they actually survived!) Every week the lfs would drive to BWI to pick up livestock and rock. I had a standing order of one case of rock each week. Beautiful stuff. Covered in every type of plant growth you could imagine. No rinsing, no curing, out of the box and into the tank. Started adding corals etc., and each week another case of rock! Straight in!

Funny thing is as wrong as all this was, it actually seemed much easier back then. Ironically, I remember the tank actually looked pretty good. No additives, no r/o just monthly water changes.
What was a test kit? Lol.

The best and funniest part about that time period was a unique purchase I made. I bought a large long tenacle anenome. I take it home, float it for 10 minutes and put in place. As it begins opening 5 clown fish turned up as hitch hikers from the lfs!! He was good to me so I felt obligated to tell him. His response........good score keep them all!!!

[smsreefer]

I had the undergravel filter for a bit ,only to change to the "state of the art ," push the dirt under the rug" , reverse flow UG filter " with a GE Daylight , "state of the art" bulb on my first tank .
Very soon to follow was a "Reef Tank " with phillips tl/03 actinic at $4.35 and GE Chroma "somethings "[ that is until I told them what they sold for in the "catalog" ] [he later doubled my price ! ]
"They even lit up my blacklight posters ".
[ Hey ,it is still hard to beat the look of a TL /03 ! ]
[ I still have a source for them ,shhhh ,quiet ,ok ? ]

Followed by a wet -dry with the cool "stuck -alot" rotating spray bar , packed with plastic shotgun wading for media .

...those were the days ...:smokin: :D :lol:

[bonsai4tim]

1983--worked in a LFS, fairly "advanced" for Michigan. 1/4 of the fish room was salt (prob 20-25 tanks, all 20-30 gal). No "wet dry" filters. All were traditional undergravel with power heads. They had a diatom filter that they ran on each tank about once a week for a few hours to "clean the water". Lots of fish (which generally did well--I rarely had to take out a dead one). Occasional anem or soft coral, and very rarely inverts--usually flame scallops or shrimp--usually sold out of them quickly to the regulars.

The regulars kept us in business--since most of the salt water fish didn't live very long, they were always back buying new stuff.

t

[buffalo123]

I remember trying to get green algae to grow at startup, no corals just fish.

[woodiecrafts]

Speaking of algae, In all that time back then even with tap water, I don't remember ever having a Cyano problem. Typical hair algae here and there but not cyano.

[oldreefer76]

First SW here was 1974 15g with crushed coral, bleached coral skeleton, corner filter with floss and carbon, an air driven hob filter, sw in plastic jugs you diluted with tap water, let run for 1 month like lfs said then went to them and got a salt water black molly ( they explained how they acclimated it to sw) a month later added a clown fish and condy anenome all did great till I lost intrest (high school kid then) had the tank up almost a year never tested nor had any algae issues and in fact even fed that condy several time raw hamburger meat and it ate it, that lfs had several sw tanks and they went several times a year on there own collection trips, I miss that place

[Dancing4raiin]

bump, great stuff. I just started so i have nothing to add.

[Paul B]

Quote
"I had the undergravel filter for a bit ,only to change to the "state of the art ," push the dirt under the rug" , reverse flow UG filter "

By the way I still have one but I hear that after running them more than 40 years will cause a crash, I have another year to go

:D


Quote
"BTW Paul, this picture is utterly fantastic!"

Yes I know, me and Tom Sellic are identical twins


:lol:

[smsreefer]

Hey Paul !
I have followed that tank for a while .
I am still a firm believer in keeping things simple .
It can be WAY more stable . Less errors by equipment or operator...I could go on on .
That also meaning , if whatever anyone is doing, that works well on their system ,is the method you should use .
State of the art now or what was state of the art then .
It can ALL work ,stability and diversity is ,and has always been the key .

Paul ,one more thing ,the pic of you tank with the Budweiser can in it was on my background on the computer one day, my wife thought it was from one of our dives in the gulf ,and was asking why I took a pic of that can.

your UG filter.....Tic Toc Tic Toc .. "just any day now" LOL


<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=14122062#post14122062 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Paul B
Quote
"I had the undergravel filter for a bit ,only to change to the "state of the art ," push the dirt under the rug" , reverse flow UG filter "

By the way I still have one but I hear that after running them more than 40 years will cause a crash, I have another year to go

:D


Quote
"BTW Paul, this picture is utterly fantastic!"

Yes I know, me and Tom Sellic are identical twins


:lol: :):D :) :)

[woodiecrafts]

Once a week I would take the old Python syphon hose, hook it up the sink, and plunge it as deep into the coral as I could (freshwater gravel days). The more junk I pulled out, the happier I was. There was no such thing then as disturbing the sandbed and hearing about aerobic or anaerobic bacteria. Nitrates may have been off the charts, who knows, I never owned a test kit. Everything always lived though, well except for the infamous Flamed Scallop.

[Paul B]

Paul ,one more thing ,the pic of you tank with the Budweiser can in it was on my background on the computer one day, my wife thought it was from one of our dives in the gulf ,and was asking why I took a pic of that can.

What can? :lol:

http://i258.photobucket.com/albums/hh270/urchsearch/Budcanandcopperband.jpg

[Paul B]

I try to go for realistic and I have been diving since the seventees so I have a lot of sea beds to draw on.
I like natural, even if it's dirty looking. Many of my rocks have a red tinge from some red algae because I took many of them from the water around NY and thats where much of the water came from.
http://reefcentral.com/gallery/data/500/13094PVC_rock_001.jpg

This picture is from the seventees, The blue devil is hovering over his nest of eggs. They hatched but I don't think I raised many (if any) of them. You couldn't really buy infisoria then.
You could barely buy saltwater fish. When a store sold salt water they used to put a big sign up in the window. Of course they only had blue devils and maybe some domonoes.

http://reefcentral.com/gallery/data/500/13094Historic_4.jpg

[SDguy]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=14122306#post14122306 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by woodiecrafts
There was no such thing then as disturbing the sandbed and hearing about aerobic or anaerobic bacteria. Nitrates may have been off the charts, who knows, I never owned a test kit. Everything always lived though, well except for the infamous Flamed Scallop.

Oh, oh, I hooked up one of those giant denitrators from SERA. I think it was sulfur based. You added some pill of something or other once a week, and water SLOWLY ran through a multitude of mesh compartments, only to finally drip out, smelling of sulfure, but nitrate free :D This must have been in the 90's by now...

[psteeleb]

here is a link to a write up I did for our local club. It compares my tank I had in the 70's to the one I have now. It starts on page 4

http://www.dfwmas.org/NewsLetter/dfwmas_newsletter2007_11.pdf

[woodiecrafts]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=14122791#post14122791 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by psteeleb
here is a link to a write up I did for our local club. It compares my tank I had in the 70's to the one I have now. It starts on page 4

http://www.dfwmas.org/NewsLetter/dfwmas_newsletter2007_11.pdf

Thanks for that newsletter link. I enjoyed reading that a lot just now and I beleive others will as well. There are so many reefers these days that have no idea how things were when the hobby started and different ones like you and Paul B. have seen it from infancy through now.

Where I grew up at in the 70's I don't believe we even had a pet store much less Saltwater so I always enjoy finding out how it was in the beginning.

[IridescentLily]

I love this thread. My experiences don't go back as far as some here. I got my first sw tank in 1989. We only had one mom and pop lfs here which carried all kinds of salt water creatures.
The owner had a reef nut working for him. I got a 75 gallon tank (I thought it was the largest thing in the world).
In the tank I had the white coral skeletons.
A Skilter skimmer
An undergravel filter
Big honkin' Eheim canister that frightened me half the time, lol. No auot top off, nor any of that (new fangled) stuff that's available now.

When I upgraded my lights and hood, I got two phillips tl 03 actinic bulbs (woo!), and a 2nd big honkin' hob filter, I can't even remember what that hob filter was called but it was really good actually. My crappy Skilter skimmer actually pulled out a lot of gunk, I had to empty and clean it out every three days or so.
And I only had fish when I got the lights upgraded. lol
I also had a crap heaters which broke all the time and shocked me.
And I used my test kits religiously...for the first 9 months, lol.

I had a condylactis (bleached of course), snails, shrimp, a sebae nem, a pair of percs, a blue damsel, a Coral Beauty, a Flame angel, shrimp, and my baby; a mimic lemonpeel/chocolate tang. The tang actually thrived and lived for 8 years in my tank growing to 7 inches, I mixed special fresh food for him. I remember my husband getting mad about the smell of my fresh tang food mixture, lol.
The mimic tang, one perc, coral beauty flame, flame, damsels, and the sebae lived for 8 years. Sebae was HUGE. The blue damsel jumped out of the tank and the condy nem dissolved in my tank soon after I got it, luckily i was there to take it out right away.

I remember when I got tiny bits of green algae in my new tank I was so excited lol.

Water changes, yeesh. I had a syphon kit, forgot what it was called, "Python" I think. We lived in a two story house, and the nearest tap was on the top floor in the bathroom, so I had to do some pretty creative rube goldberg stuff to do water changes every week or two lol.
I had a big 40 gallon rubbermaid container which I mixed my salt with.
I siphoned the crushed coral gravel in a big way whenever I did water changes. I vacuumed the heck out of it, digging to the bottom of a 5 inch SB, lol. Never thought it could harm anything. Lucky.

Oddly I never had a problem with cyno, nor any hair algae, nor any type of nuisance algae. Never had a problem with any of the animals except the one anemone.

[bosborn1]

Does anyone still use their Vortex diatom filter anymore? I've seen dusty bottles of the diatomeous (sp) refills at some LFS. I've thought about picked one up and trying it in the old filter.

I remember my first reef tank was a 30 gallon complete with a UGF force fed with a penguin powerhead, a Lee's in tank airstone skimmer, and a Green translucent HOB. At that time we had a couple pretty cool LFS in Tampa. I forgot the name of the one, but they had a huge cylindrical Bio-Ball tower with a rotating spray bar out on the floor. You could see it as soon as you walked in the door. I used to buy both Saltwater and DI water from them. I can't remember what bulbs I had but I had 4 NO bulbs and one blacklight bulb over that tank. I think the only thing in there were condy nems, shrimp, and damsels......I might have had the occassional mushroom or softie too.

Later I had a 55 with a W/D....Does anyone remember there chosen BioBall brand? I remember that being a big thing...I was poor teenager at the time so I had the Blue Lee's.

[Paul B]

Does anyone still use their Vortex diatom filter anymore? I've seen dusty bottles of the diatomeous (sp) refills at some LFS. I've thought about picked one up and trying it in the old filter.

I have three of them and I went through probably 6 of them so far. I could not run my reef all these years without one.
I don't have a DSB so I can maintain my substrait.
I also use the diatom sometimes on NSW especially if it has red tide in it.

[Paul B]

This is an article I wrote about 15 years ago that appeared in a magazine and a few on line sites. I think it works in this thread. I diden't know how to put the pictures in here so make believe there are pictures.


Trials and Tribulations of an OLD Reef Tank
(A 25+ year journey with a saltwater tank)



by Paul Baldassano

Growing up on Long Island New York, I was always surrounded by water so the obvious thing to do was start a fish tank. My parents, owning a fish market probably helped. As a toddler, I would have to stay in the store all day. Of course other kids had toys, I played with dead fish. They were boring but the live lobsters and crabs were always fun. Anyway, as far as I can remember, I always had a fish tank. Every once in a while my father would bring me home some creature that was still alive from the Fulton Fish market in Manhattan. I would put it in fresh water (Who had salt water?) Naturally, it would usually be dead by morning. Gradually, I learned that some animals required salt water.

I had a 40 gallon fresh water tank for many years. After you've raised angels, betta's, zebras and mouth brooders you just have to progress to the next thing, which for me was brackish. The only problem was that I got drafted into the army. This is not going to be a war story, but I will say that I got to see red tail sharks in a small pond in the middle of the jungle in Cambodia. And on "R and R," I did some SCUBA diving in Australia. Anyway, when I got home, I found out that although my tank was still set up, the only fish that was left, a large catfish, had just died the week before. I don't think anyone fed it in the year that I was gone.

After putting some cheap fish back in the tank, I started to add a little salt each day. After a while the tank had a tetrodon puffer, archer fish, mono and scat. At the time, that was all the brackish water fish on the market. Then one day in 1971 I was in an aquarium store in Manhattan, and I saw the most beautiful fish I have ever seen. It was a blue devil. There were also sergeant majors and dominos. That was the extent of salt water in those days. I knew that I wanted some of these fish, but I didn't know anything about them. So I bought some magazines, "The Marine Aquarist". It was printed in black and white and I still have about ten issues of it. I read everything I could about salt water fish.



To save money, I figured I would go down to the beach and get some water. Then, I saw that my neighbor had some nice looking blue gravel in his driveway, so I collected some of that. I bought some bleached coral and put in the blue devils and the tetradon puffer. The blue devils lasted about a day. It must be the gravel, I thought. Out with the gravel and in with about three inches of beach sand. Ocean beach sand is very fine. I put in some dominoes (which were not real cheap then at the time). They lived a few weeks. But I noticed that the sand was turning black at the bottom. When I stirred the sand it stank up the entire house. That's when I learned about hydrogen sulphide. Out with the sand and in with some new stuff, dolomite. I also thought that my choice of water was not the best so I bought the only salt available--"Marine Magic", I also bought a new invention, a "Sanders Protein Skimmer". Now I was keeping fish alive at least for a few months. Invariably, the fish would get spots and I would lose almost everything overnight.



I read somewhere about copper treatment for these parasites. The recommended course was to put in twenty pennies to a gallon of water. This definitely will kill parasites. It will kill everything else too if you leave them in too long. Copper test kit! What was that? After people got tired of the penny "cure", we went to copper scouring pads, the kind you clean pots with. It was a two inch pad for a gallon of water. This had the same effect as pennies. Eventually, someone invented test kits and liquid copper sulphate. Before this, saltwater fish were extremely difficult to keep. Most fish would die in the store.

One day I saw that the puffer was laying on it's side and he had an obvious lump on one side. Since this fish had been with me since the fresh water days and he seemed to really thrive in the salt water I had to try to cure him. He was placed in some wet cotton and iodine was applied to the lump. With an Exacto knife, I made an incision and scraped out all of the tumor. I put more iodine on the incision and returned him to a small tank with Chloramphenocol and Neomycin thinking to find him dead in the morning. To my surprise he was still alive. Every day I would lift him out of the water and put some food in his mouth with a tooth pick. This is how I feed all puffers that will not eat. Being a puffer, they will try to inflate when removed from the water. This act of opening their mouth makes it easy to force feed them. After a few weeks of this he was back to his old self again.

My wife, who has much more interest in clothes and exercising, (it could be worse) likes to buy me gadgets for Christmas, which is OK with me. She bought me an Ozonizer and I still use it and think it is a definite plus.
That was the early years, but I still have not lost my obsession to try new ideas. My wife and I got SCUBA diving certifications and we would go to the Caribbean occasionally to do some diving. Of course, on our way home our luggage was a lot heavier than when we left. I would always fill up on dead coral and rock. It was legal in those days. Customs officers just looked at you funny. The coral was all white and when algae grew on it you took it out and bleached it. That was the only kind of salt water tank there was. It was always written that live coral could not be kept in a tank. A few people like Lee Chin Eng kept it, but he lived in Jakarta next to the ocean, he used natural water and the tanks were outside.



Then in about 1982, I upgraded to a one hundred gallon tank. Everything in the old 40 gallon tank was transferred to the larger quarters. To save money I used local natural water. I collect it in plastic garbage pails. When I get it home I diatom filter it and add regular "Chlorine bleach" at a rate of one teaspoon to five gallons of water. Then the water is aerated for a week and double the dosage of chlorine remover is added. After a few more days it is safe to use. It is safe to use unless you use fresh scent chlorine bleach which will kill almost everything in the tank within seconds (don't ask). The tank always had hermit crabs, "local" green crabs and snails, but now I was putting in anemones (I stopped adding copper to the tank about three years before this). They were one of the first inverts that you could get.

I built a lighting system with four flourescent lamps and a remote ballast. The lamps were hung about one inch above the water on cables. Since the tank was built into a wall you could not see this installation. When I wanted access into the tank, the lights would raise above the water on pulleys. I then installed a reverse flow under gravel filter.

I had a five gallon tank behind the main tank, the water would siphon into the small tank then through the prefilter and into a plexiglass manifold where it would then be directed down three tubes all on one end of the tank. The tubes run under the gravel and connected to the undergravel filter in three locations. A homemade wet dry was also added. Since there was no sump, the wet dry was placed above the tank behind the wall. The water just drained out of the bio-ball chamber and into the tank. I know all this is overkill but why do something simple when you can make a career out of it. That's why they call this a hobby. Originally, there was a sheet of black plexiglass an inch from the back glass with holes in it. The purpose for this was to hide the tubes and also the back glass. After my prized purple fire fish got caught behind this plastic, I decided to hide the tubes with rock, and I installed a shield on the last lamp to shade the back glass.

I had an old "Sanders" protein skimmer that I got about 1975 but it was much too small for this size tank so I built one. It was about three feet high and made out of a plexiglass tube. It worked well for many years until I built a venturi model five feet tall. After a few failed attempts I designed and built a venturi valve for about $2.00 that worked perfectly This skimmer worked so well that I sold a few of them to stores and wholesalers to use on their tanks. On my tank the waste from the skimmer goes into a five gallon bucket under the tank. I made a float switch that hangs over the bucket and shuts off the water to the skimmer in the event of an overflow. I know that it's hard to imagine a skimmer putting out five gallons of waste all at once but if you have twenty purple sea urchins that all decide to spawn at the same moment it can happen, and although urchins are kind of small they spawn for a couple of hours. I don't know where they keep it all but it can be real messy and it does not smell real good on a carpet. Did I mention that my wife exercises? A lot!

The corals looked good but not great. The nitrate was always high, usually in the thirties. I hesitated but then I removed the wet dry filter. No major catastrophe happened. The nitrates went down under ten and have stayed there ever since.

Now I SCUBA dive in New York as well as the tropics and I have a boat. Not a ship, but a boat. One day while I was launching this boat at low tide I noticed that the rocks along the sides of the ramp were jet black and very porous looking. They were irregular shaped and when I picked one up I noticed dozens of amphipods scurrying about. One side of all these rocks was flat and I immediately realized that it was old asphalt. You guessed it, my reef is about thirty percent asphalt. It looks much better than live rock. Coraline algae grows much quicker than it does on reef rock and it's free. Please do not rip up your street to get free rock. I would not use it if it were not underwater for many years. Being underwater a long time makes it very porous and any metals and toxins will be washed away. Now since I have too much rock I just collect the amphipods that are very abundant and dump them in my reef. While SCUBA diving in New York, I also collect purple sea urchins. I use these in my reef to be a constant water test kit. If the urchins are healthy so is the water. They also eat unbelievable amounts of algae.



Recently, the urchins started dying. I did all the tests I could think of but found nothing. Then the corals started going. I did a one hundred percent water change and I was still losing corals. Some of them I had for eight years. I also lost a five inch Tridacna clam. I realized that my town just switched to a new water company. I called the company to ask if they were adding anything to the water that would affect the tank. They told me, "of course not!", just "zinc orthophosphate" to control corrosion in the pipes. I said, "WHAT!!? Do you know what zinc does to corals? " It's worse than the copper cleaning pads I used thirty years ago. Winter time is no time to go to the beach to collect water. On the ocean beaches the surf is very rough, with waves over six feet and the water is about 40 degrees I am a SCUBA diver but I am not crazy. On the bay side the water is calm but it is kind of questionable to use in a reef. The water is too rough now to launch the boat.

I quickly went to the supermarket and bought bottled water. I put all the livestock in plastic tubs with new water. I could not get enough bottled water to fill the tank so I got a 2" PVC pipe 4' long and filled it with new carbon and poly filters. I dripped water through this twice to fill the tank. The remaining corals started to look a little better. I just received a reverse osmosis filter and since this model makes fifteen gallons a day, I am waiting until it cranks out one hundred gallons so I can change all of the water. In the spring I still go back to natural, but I will use RO water for topping up. Now I use VHO lighting (still homemade) but the reverse undergravel, the skimmer, the asphalt, the natural New York water, the urchins and the amphipods are still there. There was a pair of banded coral shrimp that spawned dozens of times, those blue devils lived seven years and hatched out many babies, A pair of seahorses also had many babies and there has not been a parasite seen for about fifteen years , most of the leather corals have offspring all over the place. And remember that tetradon puffer? He lived twelve years.

To be continued...

[woodiecrafts]

Thank you for adding your story to the post Paul. Ever since you had mentioned in your thread (which I follow closely) that you had published one, I had been hoping some day to read it. You may have had already written in your posts with me over looking it, but now I finally got the chance to read it.

And once again you can sure tell the difference between back then and now with this hobby. I have been remembering things over the last few days from when I started, and as well trying to forget some of the bigger mistakes that I made while learning.

[Paul B]

About 10 or 15 years ago I was installing MH lights on the roof of the Plaza Hotel in NY overlooking Central Park on a day that was 17 degrees.
I had a few of these fixtures left over and I was thinking real hard what I could do with them.
Then it hit me.
http://i258.photobucket.com/albums/hh270/urchsearch/PlazaHotel.jpg

[woodiecrafts]

I have wondered where your type of lights came from on your tank. In the pictures of it, I could see them and they looked different from any other that I had seen and it answered a question for me as well that I always wondered that if any type of MH light would work as long as you placed the right bulb in it.

Oh and by the way, there isn't much difference in the temp today than there was back then is there..LOL

[Paul B]

Yes the temp is the same.
I don't know why people usually assume that you need to have "aquarium" equipment on a tank. Any ozonizer, air pump or light will work.
Those lights are about $400.00 each and have a nice thick enamel coating. I threw out a few of them that werte used on a Mock up for the Plaza.

[buffalo123]

I remember when ricordia was inexpensive some might have even come in with your liverock order . Now sold by the head in someplaces