[Acme1234]

Hello all!

Just getting back to marine aquaria after a 30 year hiatus. I kind of got away from it when (in the 1970s) it was apparent that most home aquariums were death sentences for whatever happened to be unfortunate enough to find there way into my tank. It was Robert PL Straughn (may he RIP) and undergravel filters with activated carbon and cured coral skeletons which eventually would wind up being algae fields... I did manage to keep things (fish) alive for years at a time, but nothing ever "thrived."

Most heartbreaking was my experience with anenomes. Even worse, now that I'm aware of their longevity in the wild and their importance to their reef environment.

So very much has changed. Things actually survive and thive now. Coral propgation (and just husbandry) has become commonplace. Lighting. It seems that collection with dynamite and cyanide is on the wane. At last I could maybe keep the tridacnids I've cherished my entire life!

However, at the moment I don't have space (or a permanent enough lifestyle) to allow me my own aquarium, so I volunteer at the Long Beach Aquarium of the Pacific (I like to call their main reef display (~4K gallons), "my tank")!

I'm happy to be here and have enjoyed reading many threads (and have learned very much). I thought it was time to end the lurking and say hello!

- Joe

[BLKBRDTA]

Welcome to the reef Joe, I enjoyed that background and past experience story very much. Your very correct, things have changed drastically in the Aquarium industry over the past few decades (especially since the 70's.) We will certainly help you in achieving your Tridacnid goal, the equipment to do so is readily available these days. Just let us know when your ready to get back into the hobby and away we go!

[pogodzib]

Welcome to RB Joe! You're right with how things have changed over the years. Even the difference between 10 years ago and now is huge. So many of the corals that are now considered fairly easy to keep used to be next to impossible to keep. I'd be interested in hearing more details about you setup from the 70s.

[Acme1234]

Hello again!

This is likely overly-long. I just type fast. But here's a basic history of my experiences with SWTs.

My setup on the 70s... My first SWT was in 1973. I was 9. At 5 I'd been bitten by the bug, and by 8 I had 11 FWTs in my bedroom. The hum of 12 blue "whisper" air pumps was deafening. Most of those tanks were 10-gallon, but I did have a 20-gallon "show" tank and a pair of stacked 35-gallon tanks. They all had steel frames and incandescent lighting. A technological marvel to me at the time, the 35s had flourescent lights. They were a gift from my father (may he RIP) at Christmas in 1970. The 35s had single 5”x5” air-lift box filters in them. About every three months, my dad and I would go from tank to tank with a diatomaceous earth filter (A Vortex unit which I still have, and which looks pretty much the same as they do now). Water changes? What?

My marine experience started with a plastic (not acrylic) 12-gallon tank. It was 2-3 inches wider at the top than the bottom, and had a single 110-watt incandenscent bulb in a plastic "cover" for lighting (and a single-lift, flat UG filter beneath the substrate). As far as I recall, the substrate was plain, standard, fine beach sand.

The tank was selected because all-glass tanks were exceedingly expensive at the time (if available at all?). RPLStraughn had written that metal-framed tanks were impossible because they'd poison the water. So the little plastic tank (which I'm pretty certain was meant more to be a habitate for pet turtles), was the choice. It was very thin plastic.

It had a few dried coral skeletons as decor.

Even the three-spot damsel died. At that point, no one yet quite knew about the nitrogen cycle (or at least, *I* didn't know, and neither did Mr. Philco, the owner of my LFS "Tropic Seas" in Buena Park, CA). Of course, this same Mr. Philco would later sell me a black ribbon eel and tell me regarding food "...oh, nothing special - it'll eat the flake food you're feeding everything else."

Fortunately, I had one of the aforementioned 35-gallon tanks in the garage which had a prodigious population of breeding guppies. Keep them fed, and you'll always have food for your piscavores!

I kept the 12 for about two years - eventually a percula clown survived for over a year, and was the first fish to go in when I got a a 29-gallon hand-made glass tank. My dad got it from a neighbor.

That tank fared somewhat better. It had a 4-tube UG "wavy" UG filter and there was a hang-on filter on the back, as well. The hang-on required siphon (2 of them!) to get water from the tank into it's floss/carbon filter container. They would lose siphon occasionally (it was a huge pain to "prime" and keep running). The outlets for the lifts on the UG filter were oriented such that it made the water circulate in a counterclockwise "gyre." A very slow one. Air was provided by a “Little Giant” air pump which produced a lot of air and was pretty quiet. My gang valve on the air supply was still brass. I’m sure plastic is better for the tank, but those brass valves were certainly well-crafted!

It was a constant battle against algae and salt creep. The ribbon eel lasted about 6 months before I returned him to the LFS after he got out of the tank (I'd sealed it pretty darn well, but to no avail). Scared the s**t out of my mom. I think my mom made it from one end of the house to the other haviing to touch the ground only once in the middle of the living room to change direction. We still talk about it. Went through about 6 anenomes in the course of two years. Mr. Philco said to feed them cocktail shrimp. They were also under a single flourescent bulb. They didn’t stand a chance. They *did* eat the shrimp… …so I didn’t know why they weren’t making it.

By this time I had a lot of books, including the TFH "Anenomefishes" and the TFH "Anenomes." Neither spoke about what it took to keep things alive. I still have two binders worth of the TFH 3-RING "Tropical Fishes" series which had monthly update pages in TFH magazine (back when it was small format).

I hear HR Alexrod has his own burdens now... He was a hero of mine at the time, and so was Rodney Jonklaas and Gerald R. Allen. Of course, Jacques Cousteau...

Knowing what I do now – I feel pretty guilty that my desire to have these things in my home outweighed the fact that they were starving to death. Banded coral shrimp would do OK, but then suddenly pop up dead the day after they’d been happily scarfing things off the coral.

In 1975 my family moved to Denver, and the tank came down. I was 11. I set it up in our basement as a FWT and bred deepwater haplachromis in it for a few years.

The saltwater bug never went away, and when I was 15 I set up a small 10-gallon tank which I thought I’d just put a little something in. Again it was a combo of UG/Hang on filters. Things did OK. Just some small gobies, damsels, etc. Eventually, that tank wound up empty and my LFS had a acquired a small (8”) pacific octopus, soo….

The octo did quite well for three years. She could undo screw tops to get her food. She was very cool. Watching her catch a goldfish was amazing. Her tank was right next to the hap tank. Occasionally, I’d notice my fish count in the hap tank was down by a fish (and not be able to find a corpse). Of course, one night, I’d fallen asleep on the couch in the room. As I got up to go upstairs to bed, something caught my eye and I turned to see the octo on the wall between the two tanks (they were only about 6” apart). She dropped into the hap tank, grabbed a fish, and made her way back to her tank. Her tank was also pretty well sealed – so well that she pretty much destroyed the hap getting back in through the hole she’d used. I was stunned. And also very very impressed, of course!

So – not wanting her to eat any more of my haps, I rolled her aquarium to the other side of the room – about 20’ away. Four days later I found her dead on the floor, ½-way to the hap tank. I guess I should’ve moved it out of sight.

For the next few years I kept a 55-gallon tank with Angels, Yellow Tangs, a leopard Grouper (mistake!), maroon clown, powderblue tang… I even had a small clown trigger at one point. Everything survived pretty well, until I realized it was all far more hassle than I thought it worth (just keeping the algae down as a royal pain), and I donated all my livestock back to the LFS and got out of the hobby. That was about 1985. Again, this tank was UG/Hangon maintained. By this point I was (at least) doing 20% water changes every 3 weeks.

Part of the reason I got out of things is that at this point MiniReefs (wet/dry filters) were just hitting the scene, and people were realizing that lighting was what was required to keep inverts alive and thriving. I could see how much healthier they were. I also could simply not afford the investment. It was also becoming obvious that “bigger is better” and everything was getting large and expensive.

Unfortunately, I can’t even think about having my own setup at the moment. I start thinking that a nano would be nice, but then that’s just “not enough.” I need 300+ gallons, SPS, a refugium/algae scrubber and a 55-gallon Carlson surge device. And lights. I need lights. And water movement with surge/turbulence! Wave action baby!

This why I volunteer at the Long Beach AoP. I can enjoy it all without spending any money. Just my time! …and I love being there, and telling folks about what they’re seeing so it’s a very good thing.

So mostly the same for me now - and Sylvia Earle is a current hero. Google her and watch her TED prize video. I'd love to propogate coral, if only to help it in the wild (or help maintain it until such a time as the reefs can recover)...

Thanks for reading my sclurge!

[Acme1234]

For those interested - here's a link to Sylvia Earle's speech where she's accepting the TED prize...

Sylvia Earle's TED Prize wish to protect our oceans | Video on TED.com

[carym]

Nice History, I wasn't bitten as bad with having fish but I always grew up with at least one tank in my room. I didn't start with Saltwater until about 6-7 years ago and love it, always wanted one and when we finished our basement that is when we put in the tank, granted I had already started a smaller 38 gallon tank but hey, knew what was going to happen a few month later.

Oh by the way welcome and again very interest history you have there and I bet you love "Your Tank" at work...

Cary