Your First Tank vs Your Current Tank. How Much Has Changed?

[Gumbies R Us]

Our tanks change over time. Sometimes we upgrade to a bigger tank; sometimes we stick with the same tank for 20+ years. I want to hear from all of you about how your current tank looks different than your original tank. Share photos, stories or anything with all of us!

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Technologies move on...

First tank was wild Florida rock from TBS.
Second tank was aquacultured Florida rock from TBS.

LED replaced metal halide.
DC return pump (Jebao) replaced AC return pump (Iwaki).

Skimmer technology (now Tunze, was ETS or Thiel Aquatech and Iwaki) to make bubbles changed, and takes much less pump to drive it.

Heater controllers (Inkbird now; previously Dynasense) are much better and web enabled.

Coral and anemone selections are far more plentiful.

AFR replaced kalkwasser (a space issue for me).

AWC via peristaltic pumps replaced AWC via diaphragm pumps (Reef Filler).

ATO (Tunze) replaced old ATO using big float switches (Omega Engineering and Reef Filler pump).

Tunze auto-shutoff of RO/DI stops overflows!

 

[ColorMeGone]

in the mid 90's I had a 100 gallon ( I think it was 100 ) might have been a bit larger with a canister filter and a blue spotted grouper, lion fish, and a snow flake eel.
My 40 gallon reef was corals and damsels with a few other fish? This tank ran on florescent T5's and my DIY wet dry sump. Also had a 10 gallon with just corals and not filters with smaller florescent bulbs of some kind.. lol
Now I just roll with a 8.3 nano with 7 gallons of water, LED's, doser, ATO and no filters.
I'm OLD.

 

[vlangel]

I have had basically 4 reef tanks in the past 25+ years. My first was a 90g All Glass Aquarium on a black pine cabinet. It had a HOB filter, the type with bio-wheels. It also had a couple penguin powerheads for water movement and VHOs for lights.
Eventually I downsized, added sumps, and skimmers. However last September I reverted back to my roots and bought a standard Aqueon 75g with the same black pine stand I had used with the 90g, LOL. This tank has a canister filter, an mp 40 and a tunze nanostream powerheads. The lighting is a ReefBreeder Photon but the basic function is pretty much the same.

 

[Staghorn]

My first reef tank was a 29 gallon with an overflow box and a 20 gallon diy sump. Hang on back seaclone protein skimmer, current power compact fixture(it hurt me to shell out like $360 for this thing). I dosed kalwasser by hand, fed super heavily with frozen food and rotirich, and did 2 or 3, 5 gallon water changes weekly. This was a super productive tank that produced thousands of Xenia Frags. And all the other Coral did really well.

 

[Jay Hemdal Verified Community Expert]

My first marine tank was in ~1968 - a fifteen gallon with no light, an air driven UGF and a $3 Asterias starfish as the first animal. I don't recall what else I added to that tank though (but they soon died, I'm sure!).

My current office tank is a 16 gallon AIO Biocube that's been up for 5 or 6 years now. I certainly prefer the latter....