What was the Hobby like back in 1971 you ask ?

[old joe]

Not at all like today ! Back in 1971 there was no such thing as live rock, live corals, metal halides, drilled tanks, sumps, mangrove seedlings and a thousand other ' common ' items available to the Aquarist today.
You did the 6 week waiting period for your tank to cycle... live rock wasn't invented yet... Lighting then was with what they call ' plant lights ' today... those sort of atinic looking flourescent tubes you get at Home Depot for your house plants. Years went by and the ' in ' thing in lighting was mercury vapor lamps.
Like inverts do ya ? The big list in 1971 was as follows : feather worms, flame scallops, banded coral shrimp, arrow crabs, star fish, hermits crabs.
Ya, but get a load of this ... ! back in '71 it was legal to buy a sea turtle... legal to buy pink coral sand from the Carribean.
Filtration you say ? Sure. The standard of excellence was a bubble up under gravel filter and a hang-on-the-back power filter by Supreme... nothing more than 2 " U " tubes going into a plastic box and returned to the tank via a big electric motor standing above the filter box. What's in the box ? just a wad of filter fluff and some charcoal.
You didn't need phytoplankton for your reef cuz there was no such thing as reef keeping in 1971. Your hydrometer was a a piece of genuine labratory equipment. No such thing as a protein skimmer, phosphate reactor, or even trace elements.
You started with the biggest all glass aquarium you could afford, mix in the right amount of Tropic Marin, purchase all the skeletons of hard corals
long dead and you were on your way !

 

[meowzer]

LOL...Welcome to SWF "Old Joe"....back in 1971 I think I was ordering sea monkeys out of comic books

 

[novahobbies]

LOL In 1971 I wasn't even a glimmer in my pappy's eye! I popped out 5 years later.

Don't know about 1971, but I can tell you about 1986! At 10 years old, my best friend got me interested in saltwater tanks. The big explosion of tank goods and ideas seemed to be in the 90's, but in the late 80's we "shared" (as in he had at his house but I spent money on) a 55 gallon tank with a pair of aquaclear HOB filters, crushed coral of course, a few chunks of live rock that barely deserved the name, and we felt we were livin' large because we had a couple of non-submersible powerheads in there for movement. Yep. Venturi bubbles and all. Didn't seem to bother the fish too much....the big fish in our little pond was a lionfish, which was a ten-year-old's delight to watch as he gobbled down store-bought feeder guppies.
Ah, Ignorance......

 

[dragonboy]

Dang 1971 I wasn't even around hahaha... I think fresh water was the most popular during that time. Hahaha Live Rock wasn't invented yet hehehehe.. its more like it wasn't known yet it human didn't invent that it was all natural. I started with gold fish back in 1989 heheeh...

 

[novahobbies]

Originally Posted by dragonboy
http:///forum/post/3049273
I started with gold fish back in 1989
"Back in" 1989.....sheesh.

Sit down, son.

 

[dragonboy]

hahaha... Your not that much older hahaha... I just start the hobby late hehehe...
Originally Posted by novahobbies
http:///forum/post/3049326
"Back in" 1989.....sheesh.

Sit down, son.

 

[mantisman51]

I started in FW in 1986 as a senior in HS. SW was considered an expensive and money-wasting affair by the old time FW guys. There was so little variety of SW livestock, unless you lived close to the Carribean. I hadn't even looked at SW until a little over 3 years ago because of the stereotype I had in my mind from years back. to be honest, if it wasn't for the ease of the newer filtration methods, I would love to go back to undergravel filters for my FW tanks. Having an 18"x48"x2-3" deep filter made for a very stable water column. I remember the good old days of taking the gravel and frames out once a month to clean the filter/gravel. Nah, HOB's and canisters are better. Eheim made canisters way back then, but only rich folks could afford them.

 

[pezenfuego]

Marked as Pez's top ten favorite threads.
As if that means something ^

If in less than 40 years our hobby has advanced this much, I can't wait to see what it will look like another 40 years from now. I bet people will look back at us and laugh at our use of refugiums and MH lighting. I'm just glad I'll be young enough to enjoy it

Seriously, excellent thread.

 

[natclanwy]

Great thread Joe, its amazing to me to see the advances in this hobby just in the last five years. I have been researching SW tanks for almost 10yrs and I believe my tank is turning six this year. Started with standard flourescents, crushed coral, undergravel filter, a skilter, no live rock and the only fish I had for quite a while were black molys.

 

[florida joe]

Hay Joe I remember getting the Rolls-Royce of external filters for my tank in 73. The good old DIATOMACEOUS EARTH filter

 

[crypt keeper]

You could own a seat turtle back in the day. That is insane. Im happy to be alive now and the age that I am. Everything I love is so advanced and Im at the age were Im young enough to do all the stupid stuff with no kids and enjoy life. Couple years maybe knock up my girl and take it from there.

 

[florida joe]

Originally Posted by crypt keeper
http:///forum/post/3049568
You could own a seat turtle back in the day. That is insane. Im happy to be alive now and the age that I am. Everything I love is so advanced and Im at the age were Im young enough to do all the stupid stuff with no kids and enjoy life. Couple years maybe knock up my girl and take it from there.
Yep you about summed it up

 

[nwdyr]

Cool trip down memory lane! I also had the Diatom. filter back in '77 , we even took the old dead coral out when "the green stuff" grew over it and soaked it in bleach!!! then dried it in the driveway and put it back in the tank. And our fish lived!?!? What a diff. between then and now huh? the under gravel filter was high tech! lol we had allot of fun back then and the fish were cheap...well not cheap , but not 100.00 like now! There was even a guy by my house that set up about 30 tanks in his garage and sold SWF. I think he was a diver , his house was the first time I saw lettuce in a tang tank , I thought that was soooo strange!

 

[drtito]

I am sure my LFS is stuck in the past, everyone he has sold a tank to gets under gravel filters and crushed coral. Even puts stone dead corals. I am sure this is true of most LFS's as upgrades cost us money.
I wish there were some pics of those old school tanks.

 

[crypt keeper]

Originally Posted by nwdyr
http:///forum/post/3050171
Cool trip down memory lane! I also had the Diatom. filter back in '77 , we even took the old dead coral out when "the green stuff" grew over it and soaked it in bleach!!! then dried it in the driveway and put it back in the tank. And our fish lived!?!? What a diff. between then and now huh? the under gravel filter was high tech! lol we had allot of fun back then and the fish were cheap...well not cheap , but not 100.00 like now! There was even a guy by my house that set up about 30 tanks in his garage and sold SWF. I think he was a diver , his house was the first time I saw lettuce in a tang tank , I thought that was soooo strange!
I find it funny that some of the stuff that was the norm back then people would have a heart attack over now and yet it worked and the fish lived.

 

[rdub62]

this just proves how much we have learned in a few decades...but yet there is still what 70-90% of the worlds oceans UNEXPLORED?....

 

[saltymarine]

Originally Posted by crypt keeper
http:///forum/post/3049568
You could own a seat turtle back in the day. That is insane. Im happy to be alive now and the age that I am. Everything I love is so advanced and Im at the age were Im young enough to do all the stupid stuff with no kids and enjoy life. Couple years maybe knock up my girl and take it from there.
How romantic! LoL

 

[geridoc]

Joe: You are really playing nostalgia today. I set up my first tank in 1973 in a LFS. They were just opening and I was still in graduate school. Since I was getting my Ph.D. in science, I became their consultant on things like pH, etc. I set up a 55 with an ug filter, a Supreme hob and a mix of dead coral heads and concrete replicas. I think I was the most successful aquariast in the area (NJ) because I kept fish alive for a year...unheard of back then. I didn't understand cycling for another two years, after I met Steve Spotte and he explained it to me. I still use his ammonium chloride method to start tanks. BTW, my first marine fish ever was a christmas wrasse, and I didn't understand why it disappeared the day after I got it, and remained gone for a day. And this was in a crushed coral bed. Great times!