We never used to cycle tanks...

C

CaptnDan

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Back when I got my first tank, people didn't cycle tanks. Things were much different then.

You bought the tank and all the decorations, gravel, and so on. The helpful person at the LFS told you to get it all set up and let the filter run for at least 24 hours before adding fish.

"What??? You mean I can't put them in there tonight? Why?"

"Because the water needs to age. Longer is better, if you could hold out a week..." Nobody did. Not a whole week!

Some of the cutting edge people actually proposed using some magic elixir that would remove the chlorine and let you stock fish right away. I'm sure they were branded as heretics by their peers and fiercely scorned.

So people anxiously aged their water (whatever that meant), then returned to the store with cash in hand (no debit or check cards back the either - and no magnetic strips on credit cards) and they selected their fish. Freshwater, of course - you had to have a tank the size of one of the Great Lakes and a Master's Degree (PhD preferred) in chemistry to be able to do saltwater. Oh, and a really fat bank account. Bill Gates style - well, Nelson Rockefeller back then.

The fish were taken home and the bag was plunked into the tank. After the eternity of 15 minutes or so, the fish were released into the tank. You could go from bare wall space to overstocked in 24 hours!

Within a week or so, fish started to die off. The cloudy water killed them, no doubt. "But why do I have cloudy water?" "Because it's a new tank. That happens. Sorry about your fish - too bad you're out of the 24 hour warranty period. You have your checkbook with you, right?"

The best thing you could do for your fish was a water change, and of course remove and replace all of your filter media. After all, look how dirty it looks! That can't be good... It's full of bacteria!

More fish died. You must have done something wrong when you cleaned the filter. Or your lights are on for too many/few hours a day. Just buy more fish, it'll be OK...

We didn't cycle tanks back then - we cycled fish and cash. Paycheck in, Dead fish out, Money out, live fish in.

Today it's sooo much easier. There was no internet then. There is usually more knowledge logged in on this forum at any given time than you could find in all the pet stores combined in a major city. A lot of fish have died over the years to get us where we are today. What's considered an appalling loss of fish today was normal back then - all part of keeping fish. The wisdom spread slowly, until the 'net that is.

Trust me on this folks, I know it seems like it takes forever to cycle a tank - but that bit of patience is orders of magnitude better than the way things used to be... If this is your first tank, remember, you've lived your entire life without one - what's another few weeks to do it right?
 
I second that. It's definately one to grow on!
 
It really took the introduction of the undergravel filter to get the idea of cycling started. By then, you didn't want too many fish until the gravel bed got established. The first ones I saw came as a set of green plastic tubes and elbows, with little holes drilled in the tubes. ( I've wondered if reviving the tube system might be a compromise for an undergravel with plants- the roots could steer away from conditions they didn't like ).

A really good pet store would only sell you a few fish to start off with- usually a pair of guppies for your 10 gallon. The chain fish store was a Woolworths or other 5 and 10 cent store. They had pictures of the fish next to the prices, because the help knew nothing about fish.

Before that "The Balanced Aquarium" was in, if you were an advanced aquarist. You would put heaps of plants in the tank, with the idea that the plants would absorb the fish waste. Incandescent light was what you got, in stainless-steel hoods. Somehow, people with a green thumb could raise spectacular plants without CO2 tanks! Maybe the coal furnace helped?

Other "old-time" fishy stuff:

Stainless-steel frame tanks, or even better, the "lab" tanks with the funky spatter paintjob.

Filter floss- this was spun glass fibers, and you would get the darn stuff in your hands when you put it in the filter, just like a million cactus thorns. No way to rinse it- when it got dirty you threw it away. A million wacky filter systems have come and gone- some using huge amounts of activated charcoal.

Those antique Chinese take-home containers. Instead of plastic bags, the fish store would fold up these wax-covered paper boxes with a little wire handle, with your fish inside.

Glass Dip Tubes- for catching smaller fish. Sneak up on them, take your thumb off the stem to let the air out, and the fish would get sucked in. A great way to catch fry.

TFH magazine- always with the subscription page with the native guy with the huge plate in his lip reading a copy. You got a couple looseleaf pages for your giant TFH encyclopedia, two new species every month.

Really Big Livebearers for sale. The fish farms hadn't discovered good business principles, and sometimes messed up and grew fish to spectacular size. Sometimes the Mollies offered for sale were healthy and vigorous!

Lots of fishkeepers were trying to develop their own strain of guppy, platy, molly, or swordtail. Some would sell their culls to the fish store, but most were afraid that the competition would get the jump on them, so they'd have some oscars to act as garbage cans.

"Cichlids" meant angelfish, discus, severums, Jack Dempseys, "Ports", etc. "African Cichlids" were Kribs and Egyptian Mouthbrooders. Angelfish were very hard to breed, and discus were almost impossible. The parents of "domestic" strains were better about rearing their young.

Killies would occasionaly show up in the store, but the "secret society" of guys sending fish and eggs through the mail was active back then, too. They had little ads in the back of TFH magazine to join the "AKA".

Corydoras were "garbagemen", and people didn't get that excited about them. Sometimes strange ones would come in that would cost a few cents more- so if you were a weirdo like me you could snag some sterbai, natteri, etc. The idea that you would pay discus prices for catfish would have made people faint back then.
 
CaptnDan said:
Some of the cutting edge people actually proposed using some magic elixir that would remove the chlorine and let you stock fish right away.
Click to expand...

That crazy chemical was "hypo"- something that amateur photographers used to develop film. They used it by the barrel- and you only needed three grains per gallon. Everyone knew all those darkroom chemicals were poison, so putting some in your fish water? I don't know!
 
Brings back memories for me too.

I remember my first tank. A 10g that my father got me. Pink gravel, blue and red lights in the canopy (very mod and very, very long ago). And a pike (don't know where he got that one) and 2 paradise fish.

Needless to say, they didn't last long (I believe 2 weeks). Went through alot of fish back then.......

Had to stop the hobby when the intake popped off inside of the filter (they did that occasionally, or at least mine did) and flooded the floor in my bedroom, leaked through the a/c ducts and it started "raining" in the family room downstairs..... :eek: Dad said "no more fish".

Started again after college and was a little, but not alot more educated.... have been keeping fish on and off (a lot more on these days) since then.
 
coupedefleur said:
That crazy chemical was "hypo"- something that amateur photographers used to develop film. They used it by the barrel- and you only needed three grains per gallon. Everyone knew all those darkroom chemicals were poison, so putting some in your fish water? I don't know!
Click to expand...
I remember that stuff...then years later walking into a friend's darkroom and wondering, "Where have I smelled this stuff before?"

We had a 15g stainless framed tank with the then-revolutionary UGF. That was a big tank back then.

Definitely showing my years! :hi:

Did you mean 3 grains or grams? 3 grains is an incredibly small measure of weight!

v/r, N-A
 
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