Old School Tank Thread

[timkenagy]

I'd like to see this thread full of old pictures of fish tanks. I know we have some members that have been in the hobby for a long time. Or some have family that had tanks. This may take some work on your end but it would be a cool thread if everyone that can, does!

Criteria
Post pictures of tanks from pre 1990. (But older the better)
No pictures from last week of a tank that was set up pre 1990. Actual photos from pre 1990.(So you may need to break out the scanner)
Don't limit things to just the display. We're all reef junkies here. We love the ugly behind the scenes stuff just as much.. So post them too.
If we happen to have a grandparent or something that has pictures of really old reefs. (Like really far back.. In the early days of reefkeeping) beg them to share stories with the pictures as well

 

[timkenagy]

I'll start with a couple from the web

 

[McMullen]

Do those have dates by chance. Very Cool!!

 

[timkenagy]

I didn't see any.. Google old reef tanks and they should pop up.. But I was hoping for a collection of members tanks. Maybe @revhtree could entice some of them old guys with a T-shirt or something.. Heck I'd even pay for it if we could get a bunch in here!

 

[trido]

Most guys browsing the forums have only been in the hobby for a short time. Most old timers don't feel the need to share and dont want to deal with the drama that pops up from time to time. I cant help because I dont have to many pictures at all from my early 20's. NO digital cameras. It'll be interesting to see any pictures the get posted though. Times have changed even since 2005.
You might do better to ask for pre 2000 pictures.

 

[timkenagy]

Or they get grumpy and yell at you when you try and direct them here

 

[Retro Reefer]

Bad photo of my 55 taken with a disposable 35mm camera taken in the late 80's

, the tank was set up in 1985 and tore down in 1997. Check out my skimmer forest.. lol

 

[timkenagy]

Bad photo of my 55 taken with a disposable 35mm camera taken in the late 80's

, the tank was set up in 1985 and tore down in 1997. Check out my skimmer forest.. lol

Awesome! That's exactly what I'm looking for! Bad 35mm scans!! Keep them coming! Uglier the better (not saying yours is ugly.. The equipment wasn't streamlined yet)

That was back when bioballs were still a great product.. (Why they still make them when the know we just throw them away?) and what was real? Everything? What coral was manageable back then?

 

[Retro Reefer]

Yes everything in the tank was reel, the bio balls where a recent upgrade from a roll of polyester padding that the wet dry came with and they where supposedly the greatest invention ever for our wet dry filters.. lol. The picture was taken right as my tank was coming into its own after years of struggling with supper high nutrient levels and not enough lighting, the tank was a morph from a fish/invert tank that I set up in the early 80's to a reef in 85 starting with the addition of 80+ pounds of fresh harvested rock from Fiji and Hawaii, It went right into my tank uncured and uncleaned right on top of the original rock substrate complete with air driven under gravel filter after Setting up my wet dry and completing the cycle I promptly headed to my LFS to purchase the only reel live coral that I had ever seen a Goniopora needless to say it didn't last long or did the replacements purchased afterwards.. Even though I had a huge bio filter in place the tank was still being illuminated with the original single bulb glass hood fixture that came with the tank and of course I had no idea lighting was so critical.. Over the next couple years some LPS became available mostly hammer and bubble but I still had very little to no success even though I had added another light fixture complete with a plant grow bulb that I was sure was going to be the magic bullet for coral growth but in the end it just helped turn my tank into a swamp.. lol. It wasn't until John B figured out that the Philip 03 bulbs coming from holland where the ticket for coral survivability that I decided to completely redo my tank pulling out the under gravel filter and substrate, built a light fixture that would hold 5-48" fluorescent tubes 60/40 actinic, added bio balls to the wet dry and installed 2 skimmers one a home built venturi and the other a huge 5' tall ozone injected countercurrent that came from a public aquarium.. lol. From that point I was keeping most everything alive and a lot of softy's started becoming available which did great in my system but I still had little growth from my LPS until I started using kalkwasser as my top off water, it dramatically changed my tank.. All the nuisance algae disappeared, coralline algae started encrusting everything, and most of my LPS started growing like crazy laying down inches of skeleton over the years, the elegance in my avatar was the size of my fist when I purchased it and almost the size of a football when I sold it years later.. The best pic's of the tank are from the mid 90's if I can ever find them, the back wall was solid purple including the overflow and power heads and the bulk of my corals where fat and happy, I used rubber bands to "pinch" off pieces of leather and shrooms which I tied to small rocks a early form of fragging

 

[Mike in CT]

I will post pics of my bleached coral/ UG set up later when I get home!

 

[timkenagy]

Yes everything in the tank was reel, the bio balls where a recent upgrade from a roll of polyester padding that the wet dry came with and they where supposedly the greatest invention ever for our wet dry filters.. lol. The picture was taken right as my tank was coming into its own after years of struggling with supper high nutrient levels and not enough lighting, the tank was a morph from a fish/invert tank that I set up in the early 80's to a reef in 85 starting with the addition of 80+ pounds of fresh harvested rock from Fiji and Hawaii, It went right into my tank uncured and uncleaned right on top of the original rock substrate complete with air driven under gravel filter after Setting up my wet dry and completing the cycle I promptly headed to my LFS to purchase the only reel live coral that I had ever seen a Goniopora needless to say it didn't last long or did the replacements purchased afterwards.. Even though I had a huge bio filter in place the tank was still being illuminated with the original single bulb glass hood fixture that came with the tank and of course I had no idea lighting was so critical.. Over the next couple years some LPS became available mostly hammer and bubble but I still had very little to no success even though I had added another light fixture complete with a plant grow bulb that I was sure was going to be the magic bullet for coral growth but in the end it just helped turn my tank into a swamp.. lol. It wasn't until John B figured out that the Philip 03 bulbs coming from holland where the ticket for coral survivability that I decided to completely redo my tank pulling out the under gravel filter and substrate, built a light fixture that would hold 5-48" fluorescent tubes 60/40 actinic, added bio balls to the wet dry and installed 2 skimmers one a home built venturi and the other a huge 5' tall ozone injected countercurrent that came from a public aquarium.. lol. From that point I was keeping most everything alive and a lot of softy's started becoming available which did great in my system but I still had little growth from my LPS until I started using kalkwasser as my top off water, it dramatically changed my tank.. All the nuisance algae disappeared, coralline algae started encrusting everything, and most of my LPS started growing like crazy laying down inches of skeleton over the years, the elegance in my avatar was the size of my fist when I purchased it and almost the size of a football when I sold it years later.. The best pic's of the tank are from the mid 90's if I can ever find them, the back wall was solid purple including the overflow and power heads and the bulk of my corals where fat and happy, I used rubber bands to "pinch" off pieces of leather and shrooms which I tied to small rocks a early form of fragging

This is all so fascinating to me. And all this with no internet and a very small community to feed from. I'm sure information came at a snails pace and any new tech was just like the real world tech.. Pretty much useless by today's standards but a necessary steppingstone to get to today's.. Like that fancy blue thing on the front.. (Did it have a cool word like ozone in the name?) probably set you back a ton and really does what? no arguments over what type of skimmer is better.. A SKIMMER is better thank you so much for sharing and for sure share more if you can find them! It's amazing how to reefers like us one still picture from the late 80's can lead to 1000 questions

 

[Retro Reefer]

Early on I spent countless hours in the public library reading everything I could get my hands on that pertained to invert/corals mostly information about there behavior in the wild however later I came to realize almost everything I had been reading was completely false.. Even my beloved Audubon Society Field Guide to sea creatures was full of incorrect information fortunately I was soon to realize there where some very bright people very close to me that where going to make a huge impact on the hobby including John Berleson with the 03 introduction and a very young Julian Sprung who I believe was working in a pet shop when I first met him here in the DMV.. We where both in our twenties long hair and all, lol. The first real book available to us on "captive" reef keeping was Alberts Thiel's Advanced Reef Keeping.. Picked mine up the day it came out, safe to say it's been around the block a few times.. lol!

 

[hatfielj]

This thread makes me think of where this hobby will be another 20 years from now. We've made so many advances in such a short time. Its hard to imagine things will get any easier, but maybe they will! Exciting stuff. Great idea for a thread

 

[Retro Reefer]

Oh I forgot.. You are correct that very expensive blue box wad a ozone injector for the countercurrent skimmer, the idea is that ozone breaks down regular oxygen that's in the air we breathe which contains 2 atoms (o2) into free single oxygen atoms. It's these free oxygen atoms that attach themselves to the dissolved organic compounds which breaks them down into simpler forms that can be easily removed by skimming.. It did work very well as the skim would be much more abundant and much darker when the unit was running however I always feared health issues for my family from the ozone which you could always smell strongly when it was on so I didn't run it that often..

 

[timkenagy]

Oh I forgot.. You are correct that very expensive blue box wad a ozone injector for the countercurrent skimmer, the idea is that ozone breaks down regular oxygen that's in the air we breathe which contains 2 atoms (o2) into free single oxygen atoms. It's these free oxygen atoms that attach themselves to the dissolved organic compounds which breaks them down into simpler forms that can be easily removed by skimming.. It did work very well as the skim would be much more abundant and much darker when the unit was running however I always feared health issues for my family from the ozone which you could always smell strongly when it was on so I didn't run it that often..

I knew it! I don't know how? But it seems like everything back then was just like that!

 

[timkenagy]

This thread makes me think of where this hobby will be another 20 years from now. We've made so many advances in such a short time. Its hard to imagine things will get any easier, but maybe they will! Exciting stuff. Great idea for a thread

Totally.. But my fear is it gets so simple it takes all challenges out of it. To the point of want this tank? Buy this, this, and this.. And we loose the originality of our reefs. But I can see it. Things like mindstream.. I know it's been in testing for 3 years and some joke it's not ever going to make it to production. But the groundwork is being laid.. So eventually it will happen. And someday we'll have devices that will track and test every element in the water possible and tell us live what needs added.. And eventually dosers to do that for you. Once that happens.. Game changer! Imagine everyone with perfect water quality? Perfect alk/cal/mag all the Tim completely automated.. We're not that far away.

 

[bairdimusprime]

SUCH AN AWESOME THREAD !! Following

 

[firstlight10]

Paging @Paul B !

 

[Mike in CT]

This my first saltwater tank (high school age...late 80's), hard to see but there is a feather duster, domino damsel and a long nose hawk fish in there. There is a Eheim filter uptake tube for a Eheim canister filter that I was able to buy used from the "Pet Land" LFS that was next to Caldors in Wallingford CT. And of course there is a UG filter running that bad boy.! Can barely see the tubes and the power heads on the side.
That hawk fish jumped out twice in the middle of the night, and both times I heard it in my sleep and threw it back in.... Lived about 10 years!



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[gcrawford]

Awesome thread, need to look for my old pictures. Following...