Vintage Aquariums

qquake2k

qquake2k

AC Members
May 3, 2006
121
1
16
Northern California
When I was a kid in the 1960's, we had a stainless steel frame 10 gallon aquarium. I remember we had a belt driven piston air pump that sounded like a small air compressor, which I guess technically it was! We had an internal corner filter that was a bear to clean and replace the media in. The tank was way over stocked. A large pleco, an elephant nose, a couple of hatchet fish, angel fish, cardinals, cories, kuhli loaches, snails, some sort of eels, and some others that I can't remember. But they seemed to thrive.

It was a simpler time, and we were ignorant in a lot of ways. I have very fond memories of that aquarium, though, and it is the reason I still love aquariums to this day. I really wish I had some photos of it, but if there are any, I have no idea where they might be. That aquarium must have made a huge impact on me, it's been 40 years and I still remember a lot of it.

Anybody else have memories like this, or preferably some photos?
 
sounds very much like the tank my parents had in the eighties. it was probably just as old as they got it at a yard sale. i thought that tank was amazing but it only had minnows in it and my dad used to take them out to bring them ice fishing which broke my heart everytime. i'm glad my tanks now don't have those same crappy filters on them. i remember the tank smelled bad.
 
had one of those myself back in the 60's a few guppies and platies in it, always smelled fishy...lol didnt know was sposed to change the water that often just changed the floss and carbon
 
I remember having a tank as a kid. It couldn't have been much more than 15 or 20 gallons. We had a couple small goldfish from the fair and Walmart and a common pleco. I don't remember if it even had a filter or aerator. I'm pretty sure it had an aerator as my mom thinks fish can't live without them. Anyway, I remember us thinking that we were doing something amazing because the goldfish lived for 5 years! I'm sure they never got more than 2 inches, and the plec didn't get more than about 5 inches.

Later, after those residents died, we found a bullhead in with a bucket of walleyes that my dad and brothers caught. They were cleaning the walleyes, and there was this bullhead swimming around (they keep the fish alive until they clean them, otherwise you get a really fishy taste because they start decomposing right away). Anyway, we decided to keep it and put it in that tank. We had it for a year or more, but finally released it because it was getting too big. By that time I think it was over 5 inches.

I don't remember ever doing water changes. Of course, my memory could be hazy because we stopped keeping fish after I was about 8 or so.
 
I also had a 10g tank as a kid back in the early/mid 70s. It had a stainless steel frame and a slate bottom. Had an internal filter with charcoal and floss powered by an air pump. We didn't know about cycling or partial water changes back then. So every few months I'd take all the fish out into a bucket and scrub down everything in the tank, including the gravel, and refill with fresh water. The fish somehow survived all those transfers and cycles. At least I knew enough to use a dechlorinator.

After s few years of doing that I got tired of all the scrubbing and gave everything away to my friend who already had a tank of his own.
 
My mom's dad had a 45 gallonish aquarium since about the 80s. My mom said that it had a bunch of wild caught Neons and Rams that he himself netted out of the amazon.
 
When I was a kid (we're talking late 80's), my Mom had a 55 gallon on a wraught iron stand, and I remember thinking how huge it was and the fish in it. We lived near a creek, and she had a huge (probably around 8-9") tiger oscar we call Oscar, we would catch crawdads in the creek and feed them to him, and sometimes she's buy beefheart for him. She also kept a large (7"ish) albino catfish, a smaller grey and black stripey catfish, and a big pleco in there. The albino cat jumped out on a couple occasions and I remember it screaming like a rabbit. When Oscar died, we buried him in the backyard and got rid of the rest of the fish..we were moving soon anyway. After we moved and set up again, she went community, with angels, silver dollars, neons, one kuhli, a redtail shark, a bala shark, a chinese algae eater, and some platys. Serious overstock, but it was great fun to watch and feed them...when I couldn't sleep I'd sneak downstairs to watch them all (Mom was a 24-hour tanklight person, no live plants). Cleaning was about every 4-6 months, we'd take all the fish out and put them in bowls on the piano and we would siphon all the water out with a garden hose....then we'd refilli it a little, swish all the gravel around until the water looked like mud, resiphon, do it again until the water was pretty clear, then fill it back up and put a little dechlor in, wait for the temp to get normal again, then dump the fish. I recall her changing the filter inserts very rarely, rinsing them out with tapwater when they looked mucky. I think that had more to do with being broke than knowing anything about bacteria though :P.
 
NickD said:
I also had a 10g tank as a kid back in the early/mid 70s. It had a stainless steel frame and a slate bottom. Had an internal filter with charcoal and floss powered by an air pump. We didn't know about cycling or partial water changes back then. So every few months I'd take all the fish out into a bucket and scrub down everything in the tank, including the gravel, and refill with fresh water. The fish somehow survived all those transfers and cycles. At least I knew enough to use a dechlorinator.

After s few years of doing that I got tired of all the scrubbing and gave everything away to my friend who already had a tank of his own.
Click to expand...
now this is what I remember. The stainless steel frame and slate bottom... I wonder how those things never leaked! But it was the same for us, it was in the 70's, a tank bursting at the seams with fish and a 6 month break down period is all it took. We even boiled the gravel when we cleaned it...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
AquariaCentral.com
Top Bottom