Reef keeping in the 1980's

[Will Milberger]

Who remembers the Skilter filter? It was a HOB with a protein skimmer built in. That's what I had on the back of a 55 for filtration in the good ole days of 1984.

 

[dantimdad]

I was a 90's saltwater keeper. I bought my first full setup used off eBay for $600 (pick-up). A 72 bow tank & stand, Marineland wet/dry with media trays and large bio-wheel, all live sand and rock. I still think a wet/dry is a great form of filtration and wish it was improved upon. In the 90's, the Mag Drive pumps were the best. I had 10K CFL mixed with blue actinic.

What were those first submersible titanium heaters in the 90's? They came in different colored packages for wattage but worked really good. The red one was the highest output. I miss those.

The equipment seemed to last much longer back then. I never had to replace a single piece of gear for the 3 years the tank was up and running before springing a leak.

Back then, LFS's used to carry a plethora of fish that should never be kept in most tanks, like the Panther Grouper (and most grouper species). Even my cute little Longhorn Cowfish, that was like a little sugar cube, would've grown far too large. Unfortunately, most predator fish that are cool looking also get quite big. They never seemed to tell you that part and the myth that the fish will grow to the size of the tank was in full affect.

I think nowadays we have focused a bit too much on new tech over what works. Nothing specifically, but some of the old school ways are still very much sound ways of doing things.

I couldn't agree more.

 

[dantimdad]

Circa 1993.

Definitely "Berlin" method back then. Mixed tanks were the thing.

Heck, that tank looks better than some of the mega buck techno tanks of today.

 

[Lowell Lemon]

Started my wholesale company Inland Sea as a distributor of George Smit's Reef Lake products. Added Aquarium Products, Tunze, Phillips Actinic lamps, Aquanetics Systems, Quality Marine, Tenecor, Furniture Design, Eheim and others to my list of manufacturers supplies offered to stores in the Pacific Northwest. Changed the company name to Tricon Technology Inc. and started to manufacture our own filters, acrylic aquariums, store holding systems, light systems and related equipment.

Lost lots of money but had a blast....Tricon is still in business today as a fabricator of Dupont products Corian and Corian Quartz counters, shower enclosures, and related for residential and commercial use.

Best aquarium I ever had was all Tunze during that time. Lots of Lps, Soft corals, fish and inverts. Sps was dreamed about but not available at the time.

 

[Teddyboy16]

Who remembers the Skilter filter? It was a HOB with a protein skimmer built in. That's what I had on the back of a 55 for filtration in the good ole days of 1984.

I had one on a 29 Gallon tank. I thought they where neat, but kinda noisy.

 

[dantimdad]

I had one on a 29 Gallon tank. I thought they where neat, but kinda noisy.

Had several of those. Modded them by removing the venture hose, drilling a hole in the lid and putting in a small coralife limewood stone on a small air pump. Made them much quieter and actually able to adjust the consistency of the skimmate.

 

[Flippers4pups]

First skimmer I had was a CPR backpack. I knew better than buy one of those seaclone skimmers.

 

[Lowell Lemon]

I still have hundreds of lime wood airstones from that Era...just in case anyone is still running air driven protein skimmers. Lol

 

[dantimdad]

First skimmer I had was a CPR backpack. I knew better than buy one of seaclone skimmers.

Uhm... who, me? Buy a seaclone? And then try to modify the heck out of it to make do something other than put microbubbles in the tank? uhm, no, I never. I promise. ;Wacky

 

[Captain Quint]

First marine tank was October 1971. After four years in the Air Force, I entered the Texas Maritime Academy in Galveston, Tx. I got hooked into the ecology of our environment the first semester with Chemical Oceanorgraphy 101. During those days, GI Bill was $175 a month. Nothing in the budget for reef tank inhabitants.

My first marine tank was 55G. It came with an undergravel filter and air pump with uplift tubes. Armed with the science of Oceanorgraphy 101, I settled on crushed up oyster shells for substrate to stabilize pH. Two inches of substrate was crushed up oyster shells from chicken “feed store”. Inhabitants were collected in Galveston Bay as well as on the jetties on Gulf of Mexico side of Galveston Island. Peppermint shrimp and Condalacta Anemone came from jetties. Live rock consisted of oyster cluster with barnacles and fan worms collected in the Intracoastal Canal. Ghost shrimp, green mollies and Sheepshead minnows were seined in salt water marshes.

The above “set up” served me 15 years. A real reefer commented on seeing my tank for the first time, why are you growing all of that cynobacteria. I thought the thick burgundy colored mat was pretty.

Laissez les bonne temps roulee,
Patrick

Yes, sir.

Started salt in the early 70's as well.

I had a tank while stationed in Okinawa in the mid 70's. Local tank because I lived at the seawall and collected all my substrate, water and critters 100' out my front door.

I have a small piece of LR from Vietnam I've used in several tanks. It is in a current tank I'm running. EDIT ***For the record, a friend gave me the piece from Vietnam. I didn't go into the service until 1976*** Thanks Vietnam Veterans.

Times have sure changed.

 

[Teddyboy16]

I bought this book when I went with my Dad and Uncle to Scripps Aquarium many years ago. Probably around 1977-78 when I was a Freshman in high school. This is a book about the Natural System. It was developed by Lee Chin Eng from Indonesia. The Copyright of the book is 1971. Some of you might recall viewing on YouTube Mike Palletas talk at MACNA 2014 when he talk about the history of reefkeeping when he briefly talked about this method. As far as I know, this is the only published work on Engs natural system method.

 

[robbyg]

I bought this book when I went with my Dad and Uncle to Scripps Aquarium many years ago. Probably around 1977-78 when I was a Freshman in high school. This is a book about the Natural System. It was developed by Lee Chin Eng from Indonesia. The Copyright of the book is 1971. Some of you might recall viewing on YouTube Mike Palletas talk at MACNA 2014 when he talk about the history of reefkeeping when he briefly talked about this method. As far as I know, this is the only published work on Engs natural system method.

Yeah I had a second hand copy of it also, but have no idea what happened to it.
My Brother and Myself tried some of his techniques but had almost zero success. It's hard to remember but I think we failed because his system was built around only having a couple of fish and doing things very slowly. We did get a gravel filter running and the bacteria was working but ultimately you just cannot get a bunch of teenagers to be patient and also just keep a couple of fish.