Note from the Editor:
Reef aquarists new to the hobby may not know that Tunze is actually an old company and one that has played a major role in the evolution of the saltwater aquarium hobby. Lots of companies say that they are innovators here and innovators there, but in the case of Tunze, it's true.
We thought the story was interesting enough to make an article out of it. Later on, below, Roger Vitko, the US distributor for Tunze, will tell you in his own words about how the company got started.
But before we get there, let's take a brief look at aquariums throughout ancient history.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Ancient History
As far back as 6500 BCE, there is evidence that there were many different cultures all around the Mediterranean in what was later called southern Mesopotamia that kept fish in outdoor rock-lined "tanks" or ponds. This evidence is in what's now called Egypt, Syria, and all the countries bordering on the Mediterranean, even though written history doesn't start until about 3500 BCE.
These tanks were either fed from water diverted from freshwater rivers or close enough to the sea to receive saltwater during high tide. But the fish were not believed to be ornamental, but kept temporarily as food sources.
There is also evidence that ancient Hawaiians also had outdoor freshwater and marine tanks or ponds, although how far back this practice dates is unclear.
The Chinese are generally credited with the first real outdoor aquaculture, both freshwater and saltwater, with documentation starting around 1122 BCE.
Ancient Romans (roughly 800 BCE to roughly 100 CE) are also believed to have kept fish, but there's no clear evidence the fish were for ornamental purposes.
The first ornamental fish that historians are sure of are goldfish that were bred by the Chinese starting around 960 CE. These were freshwater fish bred down from larger carp.
The Aztecs also had outdoor marine ponds around 1300 CE.
More Modern History
For the sake of brevity, I'll just mention a few things in the more recent past. Félix Dujardin, a French biologist started experimenting with keeping a saltwater aquarium in 1838, and Anne Thynne, a British biologist, kept some stony corals alive for three years around 1846 and published her findings in 1859. And an English chemist, Robert Warington, kept a small aquarium and theorized that adding plants to oxygenate the water would create a balanced sustainable system. His results were published in 1850.
Public aquaria also began in the late 1800's, and the Honolulu Aquarium existed long before Hawaii even became a state.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Tunze headquarters in Germany.
Photo is courtesy of Tunze, ©2019, All Rights Reserved.
Roger Vitko opened an LFS in Austin, Texas in 1998. He liked great products and started stocking, selling, and servicing Tunze equipment. Axel Tunze came to Texas not long after, and Roger established a relationship with him. In 2001, Roger became the US distributor for Tunze.
Today, almost 20 years later, Roger maintains a close relationship with the Tunze family. "Axel Tunze is very influential in my life; he is a very kind man, who has looked out for me personally as well as in business and gives great advice and is a great listener."
Now, let's hear from Roger Vitko on the history of Tunze in the 1900's.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Left to right, Axel and Felix Tunze.
Photo is courtesy of Tunze, ©2019, All Rights Reserved.
We are an old company. Tunze formed as a company around the invention of the first powerhead by Norbert Tunze in 1959.
At the end of World War II, Norbert was knowledgeable on repairs and worked with American soldiers to repair their radios. I don’t have the full details but I believe as part of the Marshall Plan after World War II, they gave him some money to start a radio repair shop. He kind of fixed anything.
Tunze factory photo.
Photo is courtesy of Tunze, ©2019, All Rights Reserved.
One day a customer brought in an Eheim pump for model railroad waterfalls--Eheim was a toy company in the earliest days and made a pump to run a waterfall on a train set.
In general, the aquarium hobby started with toy companies; Mattel owned Metaframe for example and fish were called toy fish and sold at toy shops with the equipment back in the 50’s so this was kind of a natural extension.
Anyway, Norbert tested this Eheim pump on his aquarium and until this time there was no such thing as an aquarium water pump--air pumps were what was used, and all water pumps in existence sucked water in the bottom and pumped it out the top, so not really useful for an aquarium.
Tunze factory photo.
Photo is courtesy of Tunze, ©2019, All Rights Reserved.
Norbert noticed how much more lively his aquarium was and at first wrote Eheim to see if they would be interested in making their pumps for aquariums. They replied that they were a toy company and it did not interest them.
Norbert set out to make a pump on his own and patented the design to take water in at the bottom and push it forward. He started making these small air cooled pumps in his garage and in 1960 founded Tunze Aquarientechnik GmbH and trademarked the name Turbelle for the new powerhead. The name came from Turbine and Libelle which is German for dragonfly and so named because of the noise the fan made on the air cooled motors of the day.
Over time Norbert developed more products. In 1963, Tunze developed the first venturi-driven protein skimmer. The protein skimmer was inspired by a home hobbyist who noticed the foam collecting at the under gravel filter uplifts and attached an inclined ramp to collect it and then brought it to the Max Planck Institute for research and confirmed it was indeed protein and cellulose waste.
Tunze factory photo.
Photo is courtesy of Tunze, ©2019, All Rights Reserved.
Norbert Tunze and Erwin Sanders both began working on commercializing this idea simultaneously, Sanders went with air stones, and Tunze pursued motor-driven venturi.
In 1968, Norbert Tunze invented the aquarium conductivity meter. As time went on the company grew and in the 70’s began exporting, making filters, ever larger pumps and better skimmers. In 1981 Tunze introduced the centrifugal venturi skimmer which was the state of the art at the time.
In 1985 the Osmolator, the very first ATO was introduced. In 1988, we introduced our first powerhead which was water cooled and submersible. In 1989, Norbert Tunze invented the first calcium reactor using CO2.
In October of 1990 Axel Tunze, Norbert's son, joined the company and in 1994 he took over daily operation. Under Axel Tunze the first DC powerhead was introduced as well as the Comline in-tank system of skimmers, filters and calcium reactors. The original Power Magnet algae cleaning magnets were also introduced.
In 2002 the first commercially produced propeller pump, the Turbelle Stream was introduced in AC and DC versions. In 2004 the Wavebox, the first device to utilize resonance frequency to produce a standing wave in an aquarium.
Norbert Tunze passed away on March 10, 2003, at 74 years old. Today the company is run by Axel Tunze, and his son, Felix Tunze, heads up new product design.
This is an excellent video of Claude Hug, an engineer at Tunze, talking (in French) about powerhead placement.
This is a good video on the ancient history of aquariums by an anthropologist.
References
http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2004-09/rv/feature/index.htm
"On the increase of Madrepores". Annals and Magazine of Natural History. London: Taylor and Francis. 3 (29): 449–461. 1859.
https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/664c/a6d9ad188ed765a578536ec30b27428b8d50.pdf
Doar, Kevin. (2007). Case Studies in Aquarium History: Trends Discovered in Studying the History of Three Regional Aquariums. (Master's Thesis). Florida State University.
https://dailyhistory.org/How_Did_Public_Aquariums_Develop?
https://aquaticexperience.org/2014/...eeping-for-hobbyists-exploring-ancient-roots/
https://www.history.com/topics/ancient-rome/ancient-rome
Brunner, B: The Ocean at Home, page 36
https://austinaquarium.com/history-of-aquariums/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fishkeeping
https://www.algone.com/history-of-the-aquarium-fish-keeping
https://www.ratemyfishtank.com/blog/history-of-fish-keeping-as-a-hobby
https://publicdomainreview.org/2018/06/21/bringing-the-ocean-home/
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Reef2Reef offers special thanks today to Roger Vitko for his immense help in putting this piece together and Tunze headquarters for allowing us to use several photos from the factory.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
We encourage all our readers to join the Reef2Reef forum. It’s easy to register, free, and reefkeeping is much easier and more fun in a community of fellow aquarists. We pride ourselves on a warm and family-friendly forum where everyone is welcome. You will also find lots of contests and giveaways with our sponsors.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Author Profile: Cynthia White
Cynthia received her BA in English from NYU a long long time ago. She has been a freelance writer and editor for over 20 years. In 2018, she won the President's Award from the Professional Writers Association of Canada. Now she is a writer and editor on staff at R2R, where her forum nickname is @Seawitch.
Reef aquarists new to the hobby may not know that Tunze is actually an old company and one that has played a major role in the evolution of the saltwater aquarium hobby. Lots of companies say that they are innovators here and innovators there, but in the case of Tunze, it's true.
We thought the story was interesting enough to make an article out of it. Later on, below, Roger Vitko, the US distributor for Tunze, will tell you in his own words about how the company got started.
But before we get there, let's take a brief look at aquariums throughout ancient history.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Ancient History
As far back as 6500 BCE, there is evidence that there were many different cultures all around the Mediterranean in what was later called southern Mesopotamia that kept fish in outdoor rock-lined "tanks" or ponds. This evidence is in what's now called Egypt, Syria, and all the countries bordering on the Mediterranean, even though written history doesn't start until about 3500 BCE.
These tanks were either fed from water diverted from freshwater rivers or close enough to the sea to receive saltwater during high tide. But the fish were not believed to be ornamental, but kept temporarily as food sources.
There is also evidence that ancient Hawaiians also had outdoor freshwater and marine tanks or ponds, although how far back this practice dates is unclear.
The Chinese are generally credited with the first real outdoor aquaculture, both freshwater and saltwater, with documentation starting around 1122 BCE.
Ancient Romans (roughly 800 BCE to roughly 100 CE) are also believed to have kept fish, but there's no clear evidence the fish were for ornamental purposes.
The first ornamental fish that historians are sure of are goldfish that were bred by the Chinese starting around 960 CE. These were freshwater fish bred down from larger carp.
The Aztecs also had outdoor marine ponds around 1300 CE.
More Modern History
For the sake of brevity, I'll just mention a few things in the more recent past. Félix Dujardin, a French biologist started experimenting with keeping a saltwater aquarium in 1838, and Anne Thynne, a British biologist, kept some stony corals alive for three years around 1846 and published her findings in 1859. And an English chemist, Robert Warington, kept a small aquarium and theorized that adding plants to oxygenate the water would create a balanced sustainable system. His results were published in 1850.
Public aquaria also began in the late 1800's, and the Honolulu Aquarium existed long before Hawaii even became a state.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Tunze headquarters in Germany.
Photo is courtesy of Tunze, ©2019, All Rights Reserved.
Roger Vitko opened an LFS in Austin, Texas in 1998. He liked great products and started stocking, selling, and servicing Tunze equipment. Axel Tunze came to Texas not long after, and Roger established a relationship with him. In 2001, Roger became the US distributor for Tunze.
Today, almost 20 years later, Roger maintains a close relationship with the Tunze family. "Axel Tunze is very influential in my life; he is a very kind man, who has looked out for me personally as well as in business and gives great advice and is a great listener."
Now, let's hear from Roger Vitko on the history of Tunze in the 1900's.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Left to right, Axel and Felix Tunze.
Photo is courtesy of Tunze, ©2019, All Rights Reserved.
We are an old company. Tunze formed as a company around the invention of the first powerhead by Norbert Tunze in 1959.
At the end of World War II, Norbert was knowledgeable on repairs and worked with American soldiers to repair their radios. I don’t have the full details but I believe as part of the Marshall Plan after World War II, they gave him some money to start a radio repair shop. He kind of fixed anything.
Tunze factory photo.
Photo is courtesy of Tunze, ©2019, All Rights Reserved.
One day a customer brought in an Eheim pump for model railroad waterfalls--Eheim was a toy company in the earliest days and made a pump to run a waterfall on a train set.
In general, the aquarium hobby started with toy companies; Mattel owned Metaframe for example and fish were called toy fish and sold at toy shops with the equipment back in the 50’s so this was kind of a natural extension.
Anyway, Norbert tested this Eheim pump on his aquarium and until this time there was no such thing as an aquarium water pump--air pumps were what was used, and all water pumps in existence sucked water in the bottom and pumped it out the top, so not really useful for an aquarium.
Tunze factory photo.
Photo is courtesy of Tunze, ©2019, All Rights Reserved.
Norbert noticed how much more lively his aquarium was and at first wrote Eheim to see if they would be interested in making their pumps for aquariums. They replied that they were a toy company and it did not interest them.
Norbert set out to make a pump on his own and patented the design to take water in at the bottom and push it forward. He started making these small air cooled pumps in his garage and in 1960 founded Tunze Aquarientechnik GmbH and trademarked the name Turbelle for the new powerhead. The name came from Turbine and Libelle which is German for dragonfly and so named because of the noise the fan made on the air cooled motors of the day.
Over time Norbert developed more products. In 1963, Tunze developed the first venturi-driven protein skimmer. The protein skimmer was inspired by a home hobbyist who noticed the foam collecting at the under gravel filter uplifts and attached an inclined ramp to collect it and then brought it to the Max Planck Institute for research and confirmed it was indeed protein and cellulose waste.
Tunze factory photo.
Photo is courtesy of Tunze, ©2019, All Rights Reserved.
Norbert Tunze and Erwin Sanders both began working on commercializing this idea simultaneously, Sanders went with air stones, and Tunze pursued motor-driven venturi.
In 1968, Norbert Tunze invented the aquarium conductivity meter. As time went on the company grew and in the 70’s began exporting, making filters, ever larger pumps and better skimmers. In 1981 Tunze introduced the centrifugal venturi skimmer which was the state of the art at the time.
In 1985 the Osmolator, the very first ATO was introduced. In 1988, we introduced our first powerhead which was water cooled and submersible. In 1989, Norbert Tunze invented the first calcium reactor using CO2.
In October of 1990 Axel Tunze, Norbert's son, joined the company and in 1994 he took over daily operation. Under Axel Tunze the first DC powerhead was introduced as well as the Comline in-tank system of skimmers, filters and calcium reactors. The original Power Magnet algae cleaning magnets were also introduced.
In 2002 the first commercially produced propeller pump, the Turbelle Stream was introduced in AC and DC versions. In 2004 the Wavebox, the first device to utilize resonance frequency to produce a standing wave in an aquarium.
Norbert Tunze passed away on March 10, 2003, at 74 years old. Today the company is run by Axel Tunze, and his son, Felix Tunze, heads up new product design.
This is an excellent video of Claude Hug, an engineer at Tunze, talking (in French) about powerhead placement.
This is a good video on the ancient history of aquariums by an anthropologist.
References
http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2004-09/rv/feature/index.htm
"On the increase of Madrepores". Annals and Magazine of Natural History. London: Taylor and Francis. 3 (29): 449–461. 1859.
https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/664c/a6d9ad188ed765a578536ec30b27428b8d50.pdf
Doar, Kevin. (2007). Case Studies in Aquarium History: Trends Discovered in Studying the History of Three Regional Aquariums. (Master's Thesis). Florida State University.
https://dailyhistory.org/How_Did_Public_Aquariums_Develop?
https://aquaticexperience.org/2014/...eeping-for-hobbyists-exploring-ancient-roots/
https://www.history.com/topics/ancient-rome/ancient-rome
Brunner, B: The Ocean at Home, page 36
https://austinaquarium.com/history-of-aquariums/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fishkeeping
https://www.algone.com/history-of-the-aquarium-fish-keeping
https://www.ratemyfishtank.com/blog/history-of-fish-keeping-as-a-hobby
https://publicdomainreview.org/2018/06/21/bringing-the-ocean-home/
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Reef2Reef offers special thanks today to Roger Vitko for his immense help in putting this piece together and Tunze headquarters for allowing us to use several photos from the factory.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
We encourage all our readers to join the Reef2Reef forum. It’s easy to register, free, and reefkeeping is much easier and more fun in a community of fellow aquarists. We pride ourselves on a warm and family-friendly forum where everyone is welcome. You will also find lots of contests and giveaways with our sponsors.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Author Profile: Cynthia White
Cynthia received her BA in English from NYU a long long time ago. She has been a freelance writer and editor for over 20 years. In 2018, she won the President's Award from the Professional Writers Association of Canada. Now she is a writer and editor on staff at R2R, where her forum nickname is @Seawitch.
