how do you keep fish in the old days, anything changed?

[dudley]

I was 14 yrs old in 1971 when I started working for a new pet shop in Cleveland called Pet Town USA. It was a family run business (not my family) & the main owner was a woman who had a very good grasp on the proper way to take care of fish.

Most all the tanks were 15G or 20H All-glass brand tanks, bare bottom with corner box filters filled with charcoal & glass wool. There was a huge compressor in the basement that supplied the air to run the filters off a manifold. We also had a portable diatom filter that would be used between tanks to make the water sparkle. There was a separate diatom filter to be used on 'sick' or quarantined tanks that was thoroughly cleaned & disinfected with bleach between uses.

Heaters were used only on the tanks that needed a higher temperature or were sick. The store was kept at 78F year round. During the summer, we had to keep the front & rear doors open & use a huge fan to keep the room cool (no A/C). The clamp on type heater was the norm & they were definitely touchy if you knocked them slightly.

All water was aged or Dechlor was used for the freshwater tanks. Eventually, they added a saltwater room in the rear of the store, that had its own separate water & filtration system from the basement. This was a big deal then and they had a wonderful selection of fish & inverts.

Fish were separated by species and all new shipments were quarantined for a week before being sold. We were instructed to question all fish purchases to be sure their new owner had the proper equipment, tank size & compatible fish before allowing them to be sold.

Under-gravel and box filters were the norm for average homes back then. I do remember selling some Dyna-flow filters but that was for the hardcore fish keepers & it was considered a big sale day when one was sold.

It was a great place to work. The atmosphere was friendly and there were lots of great conversations regarding fishkeeping, water chemistry, proper medications, etc. I would work a few hours a day, every day for $1 an hour:22_yikes:. When they couldn't afford to pay me some days, I worked for free.

I think that this experience allowed me to continue my love for fishkeeping and continue to strive for the best possible conditions to keep my fish healthy. That pet store is one that I compare all others too, even to this day. Their attitude was 'It's all about the fish' and hopefully, they instilled that attitude in everyone that knew them.

 

[foolishfish]

I must've missed the senior circuit registration. I'm comin' from a time when we had to actually get up off of our arses and walk across the room to adjust our foil wrapped antennae when watching our 3 station black and white T.V.s. Minumum wage was a nickel and we all walked to school 5 miles each way...up hill and in three feet of snow every day but the last day of school.

Since I'm obviously older than dirt it must seem implausible that I have friends even older than that, but one of them was telling me about growing up in Brooklyn after the war (that's WW II not Civil) and having to race home on his lunch break to turn his bunson burner down under his slate bottomed tank. Such were the trials of tropical fish keeping during the Dark Ages.

I still have a couple of the old slate bottoms somewhere, but let me assure you that you never moved one alone, and even with help you always made sure that it was completely empty before doing so or it was almost guaranteed to leak.

During the 70's I had a GBR and some neons that lived for several years in a little cubic foot tank with a desk lamp over it and a matt of anacharis that served as a lid. My first really big tank was a 20 long that I devoted to keeping a school of red bellied piranha in. I must've moved 10 times with those fish before the tank finally met an end and I put the over crowded piranha in a 55 where they grew quite enormous.

Finally donated the whole set up to the LFS where I originally bought it just before I left to join the service.

 

[Fishfriend1]

Holy Crap i cant believe that the fish survived even a minute in most of those tanks. LOL I think the fish were hardier back then. My grand parents had a fishtank when they were kids (1940s-60s) they had have 3 people pic the tanks up. I dont even know if they told the truth but they sounded truthful. Apparently they had to put the tanks near the fire place to keep them warm in the winter. LOL

 

[Star_Rider]

I don't get it.

am I the only guy who kept tanks in the 70's that understood that tank had to cycle?
I learned from the local fish store that the tank had to cycle.. tho it wasn't referred to as the nitrogen cycle.. but that bacteria had to be in the tank to cycle the tank. the diff was we used fish to cycle the tank..usually the cheaper fish like live bearers.
I had a ugf run by air pump and a state of the art whisper filter.
we had diatom filters too.
to polish the water.. tho water changes were more once or twice a month.

 

[CWO4GUNNER]

Wow I didn't even know they had aquarium heaters back then. I used an incandescent 100W bulb submerged in the tank 2/3 rds of the way down otherwise it would crack from temperature difference between the wet side and dry side of the bulb. Depending on the tank size dictated how big a bulb you used. Occasionally a bulb would pop and a circuit barker would throw and the fish would do a few laps but they were never hurt. For mood lighting I would paint an incandescent bulb red or blue with engine paint which worked pretty good.

I remember getting my first modern filter an HOB called a Dynoflow, it would siphon water in like a overflow box and a tiny magnet impeller would pump it out through a 3/8 inch tube. It was always clogging and having to be re-primed.

 

[excuzzzeme]

I still have a Dynaflow! I have the motor and the main box and believe I have the J-tubes around somewhere! I think it was a Dynaflow 600. The J-tubes are huge!!! I also have an old Tetra Whisper 500. I think it is 500 as I don't remember. I know that I can use all AC500 parts in it even though it is labeled Tetra!

 

[VFC]

I have to correct my statement regarding the age of the four tanks I posted earlier. They were all set up between 1974 and 1976; not the 1980s like I originally said.

If you look closely at the 20G L with the two Discuss, I had painstakingly glued red pebbles together to form a pathway. I even glued white gravel over the top of the bridge. I was so careful not to disturb the gravel when I filled the tank with water.

Also notice that in the center of the tank, against the back wall, is a fiber-optic plastic bush. There was a light bulb on back of the tank to light up the multi-color tips. Who said we didn't have high tech stuff in the 70's.

Two days after I filled the tank, I added the Discuss.

This tank lasted only a few days. The night that I added the fish, I was having trouble sleeping because I was so excited about my new tank design and beautiful fish. I got out of bed and walk into the room with the fish to admire them. When I turned on the room light the fish freaked out-----big mistake. The gravel bed was instantly turned into a multi-color mix.

I was so upset that I went out the next day and bought a 29G and moved the two discuss into it. Since I had such an enormous tank, I added four more (small) discuss.

 

[Scuppers]

Great question...

Back in about '74 I had a 55g community, 1 x 20g extra plant/fish tank, 1 x 10g hospital and 1 x 10g fry.

The community tank was all neons, tiger barbs, swords, guppies with a red finned black shark, an albino cory, an absolutely perfect ram and a pair of dwarf gouramis. I believe I had a nice krib around that time too.

Tank had twin u/g filters and that was it. I went down the local trout stream and picked my plants from there and along with some elodia from a local shop and a grow-lux lamp that was about it.......

I let the tank sit without fish for about a month. I think all I ever checked was Ph. I threw the fish in over a period of a week or so and did not lose a thing. Had an episode of white spot now and again but that was easily treated with some purple drops (?)

The gouramis bred as did the livebearers and the tank had a lovely mellow colour from some fancy old wooden roots I boiled up and put in the tank.

Now here is the thing, I cleaned the tank about every two weeks and only changed the water (50%) twice in the first year or so. I used to go away to sea (Merchant Navy) for six months sometimes and the tank was easily handled by my wife. It was always great when I got home though I had to thin out fish and plants.

I'm new here and newly back into it and am somewhat horified by how complex it all is now. But, I figure to learn from others experiences so will see how it goes.

FYI, just finished pulling apart and re-siliconing a 75g and re-finished the stand. Setting it up with u/g filters, the same wood I had all those years ago and just plants for the first month or so. Then zebras etc etc etc........

 

[Anubias Design]

I got my first real tank, and by real I mean one with a filter in 1972. The kit came with a box filter but no heater. It was a 5 gal tank that had 17 fish in it. That tank ran for years that way until I got a case of ich (brought in with a new fish) and had an almost complete wipeout. When I reset it, I switched to a sponge filter and added a heater and a hood (it didn't have a hood before that) with a fluorescent light. I had a few tanks that had incandescent light but most were fluorescent. In reality, things are not that different now. We did know about the nitrogen cycle then. We had mechanical, chemical and biological filtration, just like today. The forms may have changed but the basics haven't. In a lot of ways, I miss the old hang on power filters as they really did a great job and moved a lot of water. I still use box filters in all my tanks. I started keeping marine tanks in 1976. Those were set up with undergravel filters. Nektonics used to make a UG that had a hole in the top and you could order a protein skimmer to fit on there. I had those in all my marine tanks. We used full spectrum lighting, and Vita-Lites were the ultimate. I got my first live corals in the late 70s. They did ok but didn't live as well as they do today. Interestingly, anemones were not considered difficult then. The bigger problem with anemones was what to do with them when they outgrew the tank. I had carpets and long tentacles that outgrew the tanks they were in and had to trade them back to my lfs for smaller ones. When you consider the difficulties many folks have with anemones today, maybe everything isn't better now?
Mark

 

[woolfam]

I kept a 15 gallon in the middle 70's. HOB filter and a pair of UG filters. Had a Silent Giant air pump.

(I stole the pic from an eBay auction.)

I kept 30 fish in that 15 gal, including a pair of angelfish. I don't remember what the others were.

I remember the wavy plastic background. Mine was dark blue.

I kept live plants. They grew like crazy! Lots of fertilizer with all those fish. :22_yikes:

About once a month, I would put all the fish and plants in a big bowl, take the tank to the bathtub, and tear it down and clean it squeaky clean. I'd then trim all the plants, put it all back together again, and admire my really clean tank.

I know a lot more now...