An Alleged History:A chronological history of the events that shaped the reefkeeping hobby
By Peter Eichler
50 - The Roman's, the first known marine aquarists, use glass glass panel on their previously marble vessels to better display their sea creatures
1600's - French inventor Denis Papin invents the centrifugal pump, though it would be many years before it would be used in any aquarium application
1830's - The Wardian case is produced which would lend inspiration to the first aquariums a short time afterwards
1838 - French biologist Félix Dujardin noted owning what today would be considered a marine aquarium
1846 - British marine zoologist Anna Thynne keeps and maintains corals and discovers that transferring water from one container to another for 45 minutes daily will oxygenate the water enough to keep them alive
1850's - The "balanced aquarium" approach is most commonly used in the hobby and involves "a tank in which the air surface of the water, aided by plants would supply sufficient oxygen"
1853 - The fish house in the London Zoo is opened and is the first large public aquarium
1854 - Philip Henry Gosse uses a mixture of chemicals in an attempt to simulate seawater
1855 Philip Henry Gosse writes A Handbook to the Maruine Aquarium and a short time prior is the first person to use the term aquarium
1856 - P.T. Barnum opens the first display aquarium in the US at the American Museum in New York City as a private enterprise. In the same year the government established what is today The Division of Fishes at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History
1858 - American Henry D. Butler writes The Family Aquarium
1870's - The practical incandescent light bulb is developed
1876 - The New York Aquarium Journal is published and believed to be the first aquarium magazine
1885 - Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute is founded
1893 - The first aquarium society in the United States is founded
1901 - American Peter Cooper Hewitt patents the first mercury vapor lamp laying the groundwork for most modern aquarium lighting
1903 - Scripps Institution of Oceanography is founded
1908 - The first aquarium air pump is produced by K.D.A. of Germany, though crude it’s design would be improved on for years to come and air was the primary means of aquarium filtration up until the 70’s
1920's - The first commercial fish breeding businesses are founded in Florida, the popularity of aquariums grow as tropical fish are offered in toy stores and electricity is more commonplace in households
1935 - The Book Exotic Aquarium Fishes by William T. Innes is published
1938 - General Electric sells the first commercial fluorescent lamp
1950's - Plastic shipping bags used to better transport fish large distances, air freight also becomes more popular making it easier to spread exotic fish around the world
1951 - Dr. Ulrich Baensch founds Tetra Werke
1955 - Dr. Baensch and Tetra develop Tetramin, the first flake food for the aquarium hobby
1959 - Reverse Osmosis is realized by Reid. Loeb and Sourirajan develop a commercial membrane later that year.
1960’s - Jäger invents the first submersible heater, they would not be available in the US market until the 70’s. Also during this time, silicone sealant is used for aquariums for the first time
1960 - Norbert Tunze invents the powerhead
1961 - Lee Chin Eng’s “natural method” gains some notoriety and the importance of live rock as a filtration method is realized
1962 - Building on Steinmetz’s work and 1912 patent, Robert Reiling develops the first reliable metal halide lamp
1963 - The basis for the protein skimmer is realized and Norbert Tunze and Erwin Sander release the first protein skimmers shortly thereafter
1964- Aquarium Systems Inc. (ASI) is founded with the intention of producing synthetic seawater for commercial use, Instant Ocean is born. About the same time Hans Biener introduces Tropic Marin and Hans Weigandt introduces Marinemix (Meersaltz)
1966 - The Aquarium of Niagara Falls is the first large aquarium to exclusively use artificial seawater
1970's - Some of the most popular ornamental marine fish, angelfish and butterfly fish, are banned from importation into Germany. This helps fuel an interest in invertebrates and corals for years to come in hat part of the world
1970 - Stephen H Spotte’s first book, Fish and invertebrate culture : water management in closed systems, is published. The first marine aquarium specific magazines will soon be published as well
1970 - Filmtec patents the thin film composite RO membrane
1971 - Peter Wilkens’ book Niedere Tiere im tropischen Meeresaquarium (The Saltwater Aquarium for Tropical Marine Invertebrates) is published. This important work will not be translated to English until years later. Wilkens helped pioneer calcium and alkalinity supplementation in the hobby by writing about the use of kalkwasser and may be primarily responsible for much of the basis of the modern reef aquarium
1974 - The first commercial fish hatchery using artificial seawater is opened by ASI
1975 - Martin Moe and Chris Turk of Aqualife Research and Frank Hoff and Tom Frakes of Instant Ocean Hatcheries are raising 3 different species of clownfish for commercial purposes. Moe would go on to publish some very important books in the hobby as well as inspire many to raise marine fish in captivity
1981 - The first automatic and motorized venturi protein skimmer is developed by Tunze
1983 - Seascope is published for the first time. This free newsletter put out by Aquarium Systems helps hobbyists learn about more advanced and ever changing methods of keeping marine aquariums. Many articles in Seascope helped shape the hobby that we know today
1985 - Stuber has a documented success of a thriving and growing Acropora species in his aquarium. During this time the Berlin Aquarium Society and Peter Wilkens were very influential in developing many of the techniques and methods used today
1985 - The wet/dry filter is introduced to North America by a series of articles written by George Smit for Seascope
1988 - Albert Thiel’s newsletter Reef Notes is published. This same year Julian Sprung influences trends in the hobby by answering questions from hobbyists in the regular column “Reef Notes” in FAMA magazine. Albert and Julian played a big role in growing the reef hobby in the late 80’s through the late 90’s. Both of these hobbyists and business owners did a lot of bring European methods of reef keeping to North America
1989 - Alf Nilsen publishes a series of articles outlining what has become know as “The Berlin Method”. This brought many of the methods developed by European hobbyists to the North American hobby. It was alleged that plagiarized versions of these articles were originally published under the name "European Minireefs" in FAMA magazine nearly 5 years prior
1992 - Michael Paletta publishes his article on coral propagation in Seascope, spawning many home coral farmers. Around the same time Dick Perrin is gaining notoriety for growing corals on a commercial scale in Michigan. Hobbyist’s are now starting to propagate coral for trading and conservation purposes
1992 - Korallenriff-Aquarium by FOSSÃ… & NILSEN is published and would later be released as The Modern Coral Reef Aquarium in 1996
1993 - Rolf Hebbinghaus develops the first calcium reactor similar to what we know today. He uses chunks of coral, sand and an Eheim 2050 canister filter fed with CO2. It is used at the Aqua zoo Lobbecke Museum in Dusseldorf, Germany
1993 - Thomas Frakes introduces the Jaubert method to the North American hobby. Many hobbyists running bare bottom tanks start incorporating deep sandbeds. Bob Goeman’s and Sam Gamble also help to popularize a version of the Jaubert method with their writings
1993 - Steve Tyree enters the coral trade and some years later forever transforms our simple little hobby by introducing corals with his name attached and calling them “Limited Edition” or “LE”. Deisgner corals are born. Tyree also played a large role in popularizing high wattage bluer bulbs to make corals their most colorful
1994 - The Reef Aquarium by Delbeek and Sprung is released. This same year Terry Siegel publishes Aquarium Frontiers, a progressive quarterly publication aimed at reef hobbyists
1995 - The internet goes main stream, connecting hobbyists from around the world more than ever before. Aqualink is soon the most popular place for aquarists to gather and share ideas
1996 - GARF starts to experiment with using “super glue” to attach coral frags to rubble. This, combined with Paletta’s earlier article and Perrin’s success with the Tropicorium in Michigan have a big impact on the home propagation of coral
Late 1990’s - During this time the hobby splits off in various directions with many taking older more simple approaches and incorporating various schools of thought into one. Harbor Aquatic's, GARF, Premium Aquatics, and the Tropicorium are shipping quality dry goods and livestock around the country. Reef Central is founded in 1999 and flourishes
2002 - Tunze develops the Turbelle Stream, which would lay the groundwork for many of the high flow propeller pumps used today
2002 - present - Though we have continued to refine the hobby in the last 10+ years, all of the key components of the hobby were in place in 2002 with the introduction of the prop pump. With that, home propagation has become more common than ever. Lighting, protein skimming, circulation and automation all continue to advance in both efficiency and effectiveness. Keeping things alive is no longer the challenge in most cases, it’s more tweaking and tinkering to get a coral’s color just right.
The Future - There is still a lot of be accomplished as far as the captive breeding of marine fish is concerned. However, it may not be a commercially viable venture for most of the species not currently being raised. There will most likely be less and less reliance on coral imports and captive propagation will become even more common. Time will tell and I look forward to updating this history as the hobby progresses
By Peter Eichler
50 - The Roman's, the first known marine aquarists, use glass glass panel on their previously marble vessels to better display their sea creatures
1600's - French inventor Denis Papin invents the centrifugal pump, though it would be many years before it would be used in any aquarium application
1830's - The Wardian case is produced which would lend inspiration to the first aquariums a short time afterwards
1838 - French biologist Félix Dujardin noted owning what today would be considered a marine aquarium
1846 - British marine zoologist Anna Thynne keeps and maintains corals and discovers that transferring water from one container to another for 45 minutes daily will oxygenate the water enough to keep them alive
1850's - The "balanced aquarium" approach is most commonly used in the hobby and involves "a tank in which the air surface of the water, aided by plants would supply sufficient oxygen"
1853 - The fish house in the London Zoo is opened and is the first large public aquarium
1854 - Philip Henry Gosse uses a mixture of chemicals in an attempt to simulate seawater
1855 Philip Henry Gosse writes A Handbook to the Maruine Aquarium and a short time prior is the first person to use the term aquarium
1856 - P.T. Barnum opens the first display aquarium in the US at the American Museum in New York City as a private enterprise. In the same year the government established what is today The Division of Fishes at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History
1858 - American Henry D. Butler writes The Family Aquarium
1870's - The practical incandescent light bulb is developed
1876 - The New York Aquarium Journal is published and believed to be the first aquarium magazine
1885 - Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute is founded
1893 - The first aquarium society in the United States is founded
1901 - American Peter Cooper Hewitt patents the first mercury vapor lamp laying the groundwork for most modern aquarium lighting
1903 - Scripps Institution of Oceanography is founded
1908 - The first aquarium air pump is produced by K.D.A. of Germany, though crude it’s design would be improved on for years to come and air was the primary means of aquarium filtration up until the 70’s
1920's - The first commercial fish breeding businesses are founded in Florida, the popularity of aquariums grow as tropical fish are offered in toy stores and electricity is more commonplace in households
1935 - The Book Exotic Aquarium Fishes by William T. Innes is published
1938 - General Electric sells the first commercial fluorescent lamp
1950's - Plastic shipping bags used to better transport fish large distances, air freight also becomes more popular making it easier to spread exotic fish around the world
1951 - Dr. Ulrich Baensch founds Tetra Werke
1955 - Dr. Baensch and Tetra develop Tetramin, the first flake food for the aquarium hobby
1959 - Reverse Osmosis is realized by Reid. Loeb and Sourirajan develop a commercial membrane later that year.
1960’s - Jäger invents the first submersible heater, they would not be available in the US market until the 70’s. Also during this time, silicone sealant is used for aquariums for the first time
1960 - Norbert Tunze invents the powerhead
1961 - Lee Chin Eng’s “natural method” gains some notoriety and the importance of live rock as a filtration method is realized
1962 - Building on Steinmetz’s work and 1912 patent, Robert Reiling develops the first reliable metal halide lamp
1963 - The basis for the protein skimmer is realized and Norbert Tunze and Erwin Sander release the first protein skimmers shortly thereafter
1964- Aquarium Systems Inc. (ASI) is founded with the intention of producing synthetic seawater for commercial use, Instant Ocean is born. About the same time Hans Biener introduces Tropic Marin and Hans Weigandt introduces Marinemix (Meersaltz)
1966 - The Aquarium of Niagara Falls is the first large aquarium to exclusively use artificial seawater
1970's - Some of the most popular ornamental marine fish, angelfish and butterfly fish, are banned from importation into Germany. This helps fuel an interest in invertebrates and corals for years to come in hat part of the world
1970 - Stephen H Spotte’s first book, Fish and invertebrate culture : water management in closed systems, is published. The first marine aquarium specific magazines will soon be published as well
1970 - Filmtec patents the thin film composite RO membrane
1971 - Peter Wilkens’ book Niedere Tiere im tropischen Meeresaquarium (The Saltwater Aquarium for Tropical Marine Invertebrates) is published. This important work will not be translated to English until years later. Wilkens helped pioneer calcium and alkalinity supplementation in the hobby by writing about the use of kalkwasser and may be primarily responsible for much of the basis of the modern reef aquarium
1974 - The first commercial fish hatchery using artificial seawater is opened by ASI
1975 - Martin Moe and Chris Turk of Aqualife Research and Frank Hoff and Tom Frakes of Instant Ocean Hatcheries are raising 3 different species of clownfish for commercial purposes. Moe would go on to publish some very important books in the hobby as well as inspire many to raise marine fish in captivity
1981 - The first automatic and motorized venturi protein skimmer is developed by Tunze
1983 - Seascope is published for the first time. This free newsletter put out by Aquarium Systems helps hobbyists learn about more advanced and ever changing methods of keeping marine aquariums. Many articles in Seascope helped shape the hobby that we know today
1985 - Stuber has a documented success of a thriving and growing Acropora species in his aquarium. During this time the Berlin Aquarium Society and Peter Wilkens were very influential in developing many of the techniques and methods used today
1985 - The wet/dry filter is introduced to North America by a series of articles written by George Smit for Seascope
1988 - Albert Thiel’s newsletter Reef Notes is published. This same year Julian Sprung influences trends in the hobby by answering questions from hobbyists in the regular column “Reef Notes” in FAMA magazine. Albert and Julian played a big role in growing the reef hobby in the late 80’s through the late 90’s. Both of these hobbyists and business owners did a lot of bring European methods of reef keeping to North America
1989 - Alf Nilsen publishes a series of articles outlining what has become know as “The Berlin Method”. This brought many of the methods developed by European hobbyists to the North American hobby. It was alleged that plagiarized versions of these articles were originally published under the name "European Minireefs" in FAMA magazine nearly 5 years prior
1992 - Michael Paletta publishes his article on coral propagation in Seascope, spawning many home coral farmers. Around the same time Dick Perrin is gaining notoriety for growing corals on a commercial scale in Michigan. Hobbyist’s are now starting to propagate coral for trading and conservation purposes
1992 - Korallenriff-Aquarium by FOSSÃ… & NILSEN is published and would later be released as The Modern Coral Reef Aquarium in 1996
1993 - Rolf Hebbinghaus develops the first calcium reactor similar to what we know today. He uses chunks of coral, sand and an Eheim 2050 canister filter fed with CO2. It is used at the Aqua zoo Lobbecke Museum in Dusseldorf, Germany
1993 - Thomas Frakes introduces the Jaubert method to the North American hobby. Many hobbyists running bare bottom tanks start incorporating deep sandbeds. Bob Goeman’s and Sam Gamble also help to popularize a version of the Jaubert method with their writings
1993 - Steve Tyree enters the coral trade and some years later forever transforms our simple little hobby by introducing corals with his name attached and calling them “Limited Edition” or “LE”. Deisgner corals are born. Tyree also played a large role in popularizing high wattage bluer bulbs to make corals their most colorful
1994 - The Reef Aquarium by Delbeek and Sprung is released. This same year Terry Siegel publishes Aquarium Frontiers, a progressive quarterly publication aimed at reef hobbyists
1995 - The internet goes main stream, connecting hobbyists from around the world more than ever before. Aqualink is soon the most popular place for aquarists to gather and share ideas
1996 - GARF starts to experiment with using “super glue” to attach coral frags to rubble. This, combined with Paletta’s earlier article and Perrin’s success with the Tropicorium in Michigan have a big impact on the home propagation of coral
Late 1990’s - During this time the hobby splits off in various directions with many taking older more simple approaches and incorporating various schools of thought into one. Harbor Aquatic's, GARF, Premium Aquatics, and the Tropicorium are shipping quality dry goods and livestock around the country. Reef Central is founded in 1999 and flourishes
2002 - Tunze develops the Turbelle Stream, which would lay the groundwork for many of the high flow propeller pumps used today
2002 - present - Though we have continued to refine the hobby in the last 10+ years, all of the key components of the hobby were in place in 2002 with the introduction of the prop pump. With that, home propagation has become more common than ever. Lighting, protein skimming, circulation and automation all continue to advance in both efficiency and effectiveness. Keeping things alive is no longer the challenge in most cases, it’s more tweaking and tinkering to get a coral’s color just right.
The Future - There is still a lot of be accomplished as far as the captive breeding of marine fish is concerned. However, it may not be a commercially viable venture for most of the species not currently being raised. There will most likely be less and less reliance on coral imports and captive propagation will become even more common. Time will tell and I look forward to updating this history as the hobby progresses
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