Reefing in '06...

[AlyciaMarie Verified Admin]

Picture this - It's 2006. Popped collars and low-rise jeans fill the mall. The Nintendo Wii is shaping up to be at the top of everyone's Christmas list, and this new thing called YouTube is causing more and more chatter. But for you, the most in-style thing you owned was blinding, hot Metal Hallides!

For those who were around to see it, what has changed the most in the last 20 years of reefing? And for those of you who came after, which "old-school" reefing trends and events do you wish you had been there to see?

hmmmm...These colors in this image look familiar?

 

[CHSUB]

Not much. My tank around 2000 had a Neptune system Aqua controller, 2 part Alk/cal with a dosing pump, kalk on a aqualifter pump, protein skimmer, denitrator that used methanol, chiller…not much different than my tank today.

 

[Gumbies R Us]

I wish I could have seen the pre-YouTube era of reefing. Before all the influencers started getting into the hobby, and before it was the "cool" thing to share your reef tank on a social media platform (no hate towards these people! Just would be curious to see the difference between then and now)

 

[Paul B]

which "old-school" reefing trends and events do you wish you had been there to see?

I was here when we invented dirt and used trilobites for a CUC.
I have seen everything that was ever invented for a fish hobby including fish.

 

[Reefer Matt]

There are waaay more choices for equipment now. My first light was a retrofit highbay warehouse mh fixture from eBay. I also made my own dryrock from cement, as the marco rock of today wasn’t widely available then. The only info I knew at the time was from the lfs owner while designing their website, I learned a lot of the names of livestock and general reef tank care from that shop. I had a brief journey in reefing back then, but it shaped my comeback years later.

My first tank (110 gallon tall) circa 2005-2006:

 

[Reefer Matt]

I wish I could have seen the pre-YouTube era of reefing. Before all the influencers started getting into the hobby, and before it was the "cool" thing to share your reef tank on a social media platform (no hate towards these people! Just would be curious to see the difference between then and now)

The marketing was done at the lfs mostly. There was no shipping coral to hobbyists, at least not as common as now. Sharing reef tanks isn’t cool to me, it’s a responsibility to lead by example. But yeah, lots of flair out there, lol!

 

[vlangel]

Ha ha, I was sort of a newbie back in 2006. I had been into reefing about 8 yrs but only more seriously about 2 or 3 yrs. It was in the early 2000s that I bought my 90g tank with VHOs in the canopy, and set up my 1st sump with a protein skimmer. It was predominantly a softie tank (including a gigantic sebae anemone) with a frog spawn coral and some dragon's breath macroalgae. I wished I had just 1 pic of that tank.
I feel like lighting is the area that changed the most, we'll except metal halides. They are timeless. In my early years we used power compact on nano tanks and VHO's or VHOs with metal halide on bigger tanks. Then came T5s and coming near 2010 LEDs were on the scene but you had to know something about how to DIY diodes, which I did not, LOL.

Hey, I found a few pics of the 90g on my FB page. These are 2010 so a couple years later. Sorry there isnt a FTS.

 

[Biokabe]

I didn't start until '09, so I'm not quite there...

But one thing I do remember and miss was just how available and affordable both corals and live rock (especially live rock!) was. For my first tank, I picked up 30 pounds of real Pacific live rock for something like $150. And I didn't have to order it in from Florida - I just drove 20 minutes to the nearby pet shop that didn't even specialize in saltwater, but they had a 400 gallon holding tank just full of the kind of live rock that people dream of getting, all for $5-$6/pound. Instantly cycled - I thought I had stalled out because it was already processing ammonia like a champ.

And the corals... $15 frogspawn. $20-$30 torches. $5 mushrooms - didn't matter what it looked like. If it was a mushroom, it was $5. And so, so much xenia.

 

[me & my baby]

My tank and sump from 2006-2008 . it was a 240 with 4 250w radiums with 4 72" vho actinics on icecap Ballast .Thing have changes , Leds, controllable dc pumps . So much more equipment choices. Sand no sand barley little sand . No phosphate to now we want some phosphate. I am still using the same sump now .

 

[Abominable Snow Crab]

I was there, started in 2005. Besides obvious changes in technology the biggest difference IMO was the popularity and availability of South pacific liverock.

I used to love going to the LFS to dig through the liverock tanks searching for the coolest and most unique pieces. Its what got me into the hobby. Having literal rocks from the ocean, full of cool critters and life was just amazing.

Koralias, wooden airstones, wet web media, sea CLOWN skimmer

 

[MegabiteOG]

I actually got my first reef tank in 05’ - 06’.

The biggest mainstream changes for me are:

Hardware - ac pumps to dc, halide/ T5/ VHO to LED’s, on the fly spectrum and intensity changes, remote controllability of almost all hardware via wireless.

Livestock - Yellow tangs (amongst other fish/ inverts/ corals) were relatively cheap, PO4/ NO3 were supposed to be at 0, almost all reef tanks were started with ocean live rock that you can pickup at any LFS, and many corals were considered expert only that are considered easy today.

Here’s my two of my old tanks circa 2008.

 

[Abominable Snow Crab]

I actually got my first reef tank in 05’ - 06’.

The biggest mainstream changes for me are:

Hardware - ac pumps to dc, halide/ T5/ VHO to LED’s, on the fly spectrum and intensity changes, remote controllability of almost all hardware via wireless.

Livestock - Yellow tangs (amongst other fish/ inverts/ corals) were relatively cheap, PO4/ NO3 were supposed to be at 0, almost all reef tanks were started with ocean live rock that you can pickup at any LFS, and many corals were considered expert only that are considered easy today.

Here’s my two of my old tanks circa 2008.

Wow, beautiful tanks you had there. Idk if its the lighting, the photography, the coral selections, or the aquascape trends but I cant help but feel that tanks from this time period looked better (to me) on average.

 

[Reefing102]

My old pics got lost in the photobucket disaster. But I started in late ‘03.

Lighting has certainly changed. I remember when PFO, one of the primary commercial LED manufacturers got sued out of business because someone had patented the use of LEDs as aquarium lights. Now look at where we are.

https://reefbuilders.com/2009/02/03/big-trouble-brewing-future-aquarium-leds/

The spread and availability of equipment as well. The cheaper knockoffs were a lot harder to come by.

There’s also the good old “every number needs to be 0”. Looking back, I feel that was the downfall of many aquariums as a lot of the TOTMs at the time dosed a variety of things which I think actually fed nitrates and phosphates.

I also miss all the old live rock. Being able to buy a 2 foot table piece of live rock to use as a shelf. Scrounging through the “rubble” bin and finding all sorts of cool hitchhikers and stuff that the LFS gave for free cause they didn’t buy them. And of course the pricing for true colony’s. Not even the cost of frags today

 

[Ufuk's reef]

My marine aquariums from 2006, 2007, 2008 and 2009 in that order. Oh, those were the days!

 

[mfinn]

As mentioned, metal halide lighting was the normal.
For me the led lighting was my biggest change. I could do away with my chillers. My power bill dropped by $50 per month. ( wife pointed this out).

Back on 06 I was just setting up my brand new Glasscages 240.
This is a picture of a freshwater test in my garage.
Note the tall canopy for mh lighting.
On this tank I had 3 x 250 watt 14k Hamiltons and 4 x 160 watt VHO actinic.

 

[RobynR]

Vancouver, Canada in early 00’s

Lighting is completely different, and while I loved the look of halides/T5, I did not love the heat and bulb changing. I was also terrified water was going to splash on the halides and explode them (not sure rational or not, but it was a real fear) . They were starting to release LED back then, but it was more than $1200 - equivalent to over $2100 today, for a Biocube LED fixture. Lighting prices (for LED) have come so far down.

Corals mostly came in colonies. Frags existed (we had a frag tank and sold/traded), but they were less prevalent than colonies. I had a softball sized favia that I miss so much now that I’m back. I think it was $15

Live rock was only slightly less expensive where I live, it’s $19.99 now, and if I recall correctly, was $9.99-15.99 depending on where it came from and availability. It was real though, fully stripped from reefs, and back then, likely not in anything resembling an ethical manner. I suspect my new Fiji live rock is mariculture, but I am fine with that. I just got a few pieces from last new batch at LFS and it has lots of nice green encrusting porites on it.

Fish prices. Wow that was a shocker. Spending upwards of $100 for almost every fish was not really a thing before. But I am okay with it, as there are now captive bred and hopefully less cyanide caught wild. It should also give some people pause to consider spending that, you have to really want that fish in your tank, I would hope that with pricing like that people might be more invested in the care of their livestock. I remember when yellow tangs were $35 and that was so expensive.

Tech equipment, most of the equipment did the same thing, but now everything is connected to an app. I am not mad about this, but I appreciate having buttons/dials on devices to control them as well. As someone who works a lot and doesn’t have help with maintenance, automation is key.

There was not a lot of shipping. It was LFS or bust. I think we may have got a few mail order/online items, but it would have been mainly dry goods, maybe zoanthid frags.

Forums and clubs. There were so many forums. And local clubs, I miss tank tours and group meets.

 

[MegabiteOG]

I actually got my first reef tank in 05’ - 06’.

The biggest mainstream changes for me are:

Hardware - ac pumps to dc, halide/ T5/ VHO to LED’s, on the fly spectrum and intensity changes, remote controllability of almost all hardware via wireless.

Livestock - Yellow tangs (amongst other fish/ inverts/ corals) were relatively cheap, PO4/ NO3 were supposed to be at 0, almost all reef tanks were started with ocean live rock that you can pickup at any LFS, and many corals were considered expert only that are considered easy today.

Here’s my two of my old tanks circa 2008.

Thanks. I think a couple of things contributed to your thoughts. MH's produce a very crisp look compared to LED and are much more camera friendly lights in my opinion. The shimmer was amzing. This main tank was running three Phoenix 250W HQI 14k bulbs and was supplemented by (what was pretty new tech back then) nine PowerBrite 12" LED bars that put out 460nm lighting. It really made colors pop. I'm pretty sure the T5 were offline.

The shallow tank had 4x T5's running a couple of actinics and a couple of white spectrum bulbs. The center light was a Viper 150w HQI MH. I just couldn't live without some shimmer.

 

[gkprevite]

These were the days. I had a 150 with the corner overflows plumbed through the wall with the sump in the garage. With a giant Hamilton fixture above running 3 x 250 phoenix 14k and 4 60” t5’s to supplement. Beautiful live rock and a nice variety of fish and corals. My only regret is I have no idea where any photos if the system are and I wish I still had the lights and rock.