Early Reefers 1990’s to Early 2000’s

[Panky]

Did reefers in the Early days of modern Reef aquarium’s deal with Dino’s and/or Cyano? If so, what did they do to remedy the issue?

Asking this question because I think Metal Halides were eliminating a lot of the common reef ugly problems. I’m wondering if the producers of UV sterilizers, understood that UV-B was missing from current LED’s. Given that UV-B LED’s are pretty much nonexistent. I started to wonder about this dating back to my days of working in healthcare IT. We used to have UV-C robots that would go in and sterilize rooms when patients left.

 

[CoastalTownLayabout]

Had a few issues with cyano in my systems back in the 90’s and certainly saw a few other tanks with it too. I’d deal with it by directing some flow on it. Would generally occur in small areas of the substrate where detritus accumulated. Had it under both T8 and MH lighting.

To be honest, I can’t ever recall seeing a tank with dinos back then.

 

[Roatan Reef]

Victor from WWC and Randy from BRSTV Said that back in the day everyone chased algae, cyano, diatoms etc...but later on found out they chased it so much that they removed nutrients from the tanks..even with MHs/T5s...and it causes coral loss.

New thinking now is even acro dominant tanks need some form of nutrients...more than just feeding.

Nitrates kept above 20 seems to work.

 

[fish farmer]

Back then tanks were started with LIVE rock and LIVE sand, not just robust with bacteria but micro invertebrates, more competition in the aquarium environment.

As stated above trying to achieve zero nutrients was the push.

I don't believe I had high nutrient issues or dinos in my first tank when I ran low kelvin halides, but I did have all the other uglies, but dosed kalk for boosting coralline growth and had fast growing softies/lps. Cyano I've dealt with many times.... usually due to low flow areas and high detritus buildup.

I've never dealt with dinos ever, but running my tank the same way I did back then. I may have seen something that may have been a little bit of dino when my nutrients weren't registering on test kits, but never got out of control.

 

[EZKLR]

Def saw cyano, but can't recall having much of an issue personally. Never saw or dealt with dinos in any of my tanks or customers. Used various lighting from HO florescent to halides. Most tanks were live rock and play sand

 

[kevgib67]

I started my tank in the mid 90s, I do remember mild cyano and bubble algae. Never had dinos in the 16 years I had it running. I don’t remember algae being as big of an issue back then. The goal was 0 nitrates and phos which I luckily never achieved. As stated above, we had access to beautiful diverse live rock. No plugs back then so every coral came on a new piece of live rock adding more diversity. My current tank is just over 15 months, set up the same way, and I have haven’t had dinos, excuse me while I go find a piece of wood to knock on.

 

[billyocean]

I heard live rock was better in the 90s because of the biodiversity of the flannel shirts.

 

[TokenReefer]

 

[dwest]

I’ve always had some cyano. I’ve had dinos when nutrients were driven very low (2020), and when nutrients were pretty high (2000 era- and with all liverock). Although I would have to agree that in general dinos are much more prevalent now.

 

[Panky]

Interesting to hear from you guys. I get live rock, but how much of that was still alive when you added it to your tank?

 

[pledosophy]

My tanks in 2001 had cyano and I helped run a forum where we guided people through setting up systems and cyano was very very common. Dino's not so much.

The system I worked with from 01-06 where usually higher nutrient.

There of course were different philosophy's on reef keeping back then, and they often varied regionally based on the knowledge from the LFS and local fish clubs. My area was really into the natural reef keeping methods; think refugiums, no filter socks, weekly 20% water changes etc. I thought a skimmer was a terrible idea until about 2007. (now I love them)

It was pretty common for people to have a half gallon of refugium for a gallon of display in some areas, some LFS's even had this.

Cyano was treated with 72 hours of lights off and increasing water movement. Sometimes changing your bulbs was recommended as it was believed the aging bulbs color spectrum shift was complimentary to specific algaes. Chemiclean was a huge debate locally back then as many thought it unethical to be putting antibiotocs into the water supply just to keep fish and there was a fear of creating antibiotic resistant strains of cyano. There were a few MD's and a Pathologist that were pretty vocal about this.

Interesting to hear from you guys. I get live rock, but how much of that was still alive when you added it to your tank?

In 2004 ish I went to a wholesaler and Walt Smith himself was there delivering rock. It was the first shipment of Fiji rock in a long while that came to the states, well over a year IIRC. It came by boat. It was moist, but not shipped in water.

The wholesaler still had liverock, that they kept on large metro shelf looking things.

I realized at that all of the fiji liverock that had been purchased for the last year or so, had been out of the water a significant amount of time. As for tests of the bacteria populations, I didn't have access to that kind of stuff back then. You'd still find an occasional worm or crab, but it was rare. It is my opinion that much of the liverock back in the day, if not bought from a fresh batch probably got it's bacteria from the tank it was sold from at the LFS

 

[fish farmer]

Interesting to hear from you guys. I get live rock, but how much of that was still alive when you added it to your tank?

My first reef started with raw uncured Fiji, 20 lbs mixed with dry base.Typical die off, but still had stuff live. I also added the 9 for 99 deal from ipsf, sand, mud, snails. I also started a tank with coralline base rock from a Florida vendor, equally as live, cured in a vat for a month.

I was also a 5 hour drive from Paragon Aquatics in Connecticut. He cured Fiji rock in vats in his garage under halides, rich coralline coverage, encrusting corals. I still have a piece of his rock in my tank now and it still has one live tube worm....20 years later. I think I still have some sponge life from the Florida rock as well.

Also back in the day when we traded corals I don't remember anyone QTing or dipping corals, we just passed stuff around good or bad.

 

[Coinzmans Reef]

Never really had an issue in the 90's with any kind of algae. I had different types of algae in my tank but never cyano. I had two MH and two actinic. I never fought with anything back than the tank was balanced. I did one hour of maintenance a week on Saturday, tank looked great. Minimal fish with minimal feeding = minimal cleanings and no problems. The Tank was set up as a 125 peninsula with a trickle filter with bio balls and two power heads for flow that's all. I added three Coralife products Iodine, iron and molybdenum weekly and 2 gallons of a calk drip every other month. I Never tested anything other than nitrates every six months, as it was always 20ppm. The tank was in service for ten years +/- from 1991- 2011

Edit... I had a PH, ORP monitor controller with ozone generator and an Emperor Aquatics skimmer that I never used. However the probes and monitor were in service. Ph between 7.8 - 8.1 ORP was high at around 420's and only the PH probe was calibrated after the initial set up roughly every 5 years or so. LOL


1996

 

[Coinzmans Reef]

Interesting to hear from you guys. I get live rock, but how much of that was still alive when you added it to your tank?

One trip to Mexico I loaded 60lbs right from the gulf into my Eddie Bauer bag got on the plane and in the tank all within 6 hours, I would say pretty live.

 

[Daniel@R2R]

Good thread! Following!

 

[dlsorensen]

Ahh the 90's. My first tank was a 100g with T-5's, couldn't afford halides then. Cyano for sure and some hair algae to boot. All cleaned up well after some months. Never knew about "testing" back then, couldn't afford them either. Just water changes and add away. I am thankful for being older, wiser, and a little more able to invest in the hobby.

 

[TWYOUNG]

Started a reef in late 90's with all uncured sandy/silty wet boxes of live rock. Grew a forest of macroalgae when lit with metal halides and actinics. Bare bottom with rock elevated on eggcrate and flow underneath. Never heard of dinoflagellates but there were a host of other issues.

 

[vetteguy53081]

Victor from WWC and Randy from BRSTV Said that back in the day everyone chased algae, cyano, diatoms etc...but later on found out they chased it so much that they removed nutrients from the tanks..even with MHs/T5s...and it causes coral loss.

New thinking now is even acro dominant tanks need some form of nutrients...more than just feeding.

Nitrates kept above 20 seems to work.

No - issues were algae and we tested for ammonia literally.
There were about 20 meds by tetra and jungle products as well as having the best undergravel filter system with dolomite bedding

 

[NanoBoxes]

True Live Rock made all the difference!

 

[Wrassefan78]

The good ole 90’s!

Started my first ever saltwater tank with a 55 gallon under gravel filter later replaced with a reef keeper wet dry unit. Later on an air stone protein skimmer. Started with old coral skeletons for sale at the lfs later changed to live rock. Went to Hawaii and on my way back home stopped at the wholesalers to get fish for the tank. 5 dollar yellow tang and 4 other fish. All survived the plane ride home to Alaska. This is the early 90’s where we thought aptasia was a great thing to have.