INSTANT OCEAN HANDBOOK: Who remembers it?

[GARRIGA]

I own just about every book I could get my hands on, there is a lot to be learned from them!

Especially that undergravel filters are the standard for saltwater.

Undergravel filters have the lowest profit margins. Plus at some point we started adding powerheads to them and ruined them for ever. This craze with flow through media popularized by canister manufacturers as a means of estimating tank size by their cylindrical tubes could handle or was it HOB?

 

[AnotherReefHobbyist]

Undergravel filters have the lowest profit margins. Plus at some point we started adding powerheads to them and ruined them for ever. This craze with flow through media popularized by canister manufacturers as a means of estimating tank size by their cylindrical tubes could handle or was it HOB?

I honestly think they seem like a great idea, I feel they would really help keep detritus from building up in sandbeds, along with using something almost all of us have ( a sandbed ) as an extremly effective bio filter.

I am only 14 so these things were already going extinct by the time I was born, and the only time I have seen one is being sold in my local petco.

 

[GARRIGA]

I honestly think they seem like a great idea, I feel they would really help keep detritus from building up in sandbeds, along with using something almost all of us have ( a sandbed ) as an extremly effective bio filter.

I am only 14 so these things were already going extinct by the time I was born, and the only time I have seen one is being sold in my local petco.

Wouldn't recommend it with a sand bed, however. The main affect is a plenum to allow water to circulate evenly through the filter although there will be higher flow areas as no substrate is ever evenly distributed. This is a good thing because where flow is slowest then an anoxic zone will exist and denitrification can occur. Although in the 80s I ran mine with 4" of dolomite and ensured the surface layer allowed nitrification and deeper down there was denitrification occurring.

 

[AnotherReefHobbyist]

Wouldn't recommend it with a sand bed, however. The main affect is a plenum to allow water to circulate evenly through the filter although there will be higher flow areas as no substrate is ever evenly distributed. This is a good thing because where flow is slowest then an anoxic zone will exist and denitrification can occur. Although in the 80s I ran mine with 4" of dolomite and ensured the surface layer allowed nitrification and deeper down there was denitrification occurring.

Interesting!

 

[Paul B]

Miss the old Stephen Spotte books the old TFH binder books and I seem to recall one from Peter Wilkins as well.

I "think" I have a TFH from 1969 and may have the Peter Wilkens book but I gave most of them away.

I think it was also in a FAMA once.

I published a couple of articles in FAMMA in another lifetime. I think one was about collecting NSW.

Especially that undergravel filters are the standard for saltwater.

I still use one. It has been in my tank for 50 years.

 

[tharbin]

Undergravel filters have the lowest profit margins. Plus at some point we started adding powerheads to them and ruined them for ever. This craze with flow through media popularized by canister manufacturers as a means of estimating tank size by their cylindrical tubes could handle or was it HOB?

I don't think most of us had yet separated the ideas of filtration from flow. We knew we needed more flow so we used powerheads on the undergravels. Once we started putting toy boat props on the powerheads things started to change but I think we had already lost track of the undergravels by then and ideas like wet/drys started to take over.

 

[tharbin]

I "think" I have a TFH from 1969 and may have the Peter Wilkens book but I gave most of them away.

I published a couple of articles in FAMMA in another lifetime. I think one was about collecting NSW.

I still use one. It has been in my tank for 50 years.

I think I remember that article. The only time I ever wished I lived in New York.

 

[GARRIGA]

I don't think most of us had yet separated the ideas of filtration from flow. We knew we needed more flow so we used powerheads on the undergravels. Once we started putting toy boat props on the powerheads things started to change but I think we had already lost track of the undergravels by then and ideas like wet/drys started to take over.

Power heads on undergravel filters and wet drys were around the same time best I recall. Although to me based on two different concepts. One to naturally decompose detritus and the other to quickly process ammonia. Berlin method could be said combined the best attributes of both. Porous rock replacing the undergravel and skimmer removing the need to decompose. Today I suggest removing the skimmer and loading that sump with pumice because porous becoming more extinct then those undergravel filters some of us loved.

 

[Paul B]

Powerheads then were metal and were not submersible. They sat on the edge of the tank and got covered in salt creep which gave us shocks so we had to un plug them to put our hands in the tank.

Wet drys came out much later. Undergravels were here since the 50s.

 

[GARRIGA]

Powerheads then were metal and were not submersible. They sat on the edge of the tank and got covered in salt creep which gave us shocks so we had to un plug them to put our hands in the tank.

Wet drys came out much later. Undergravels were here since the 50s.

I started using undergravel filters in the 70s, wet drys in the 80s and recall powerheads added to undergravel filters in the 80s but my memory isn’t getting better with age. I could be confusing when I became aware of powerhead added to the plates. Obviously, something happening before I became aware is how it always is. Kids today think everything started with them. Why would I have been different

 

[tharbin]

Powerheads then were metal and were not submersible. They sat on the edge of the tank and got covered in salt creep which gave us shocks so we had to un plug them to put our hands in the tank.

Wet drys came out much later. Undergravels were here since the 50s.

I forgot about those. They were a mess but quite an 'upgrade' from the airstones in the tubes. The submersible powerheads really started to change things.

 

[Paul B]

I wrote an article about how the hobby started on this forum:

How I Got Started in the Hobby in 1971

How and when this hobby started (for me at least) in 1971. I think it was on a Tuesday about two or two fifteen in the afternoon. I know because I was there. Here in New York where I live there used to be a very large aquarium store in Manhattan...

www.reef2reef.com

 

[dennis romano]

I "think" I have a TFH from 1969 and may have the Peter Wilkens book but I gave most of them away.

I published a couple of articles in FAMMA in another lifetime. I think one was about collecting NSW.

I still use one. It has been in my tank for 50 years.

Back in the 70's and 80's I ran the UGF with piston pumps until I upgraded to the Silent Giant

 

[tharbin]

Miss the old Stephen Spotte books the old TFH binder books and I seem to recall one from Peter Wilkins as well.

I mis-remembered. The binder books were from Tetra not TFH. Found one (Marine Invertebrates - ADI 53) on my shelf when I went reminiscing.

 

[JRS]

Ran across this thread when searching for book collectors. I remember a water logged copy of the Instant Ocean Handbook in the "library" of the LFS I used to work at in the mid eighties.

I have been picking up a lot of old books I did not have back then from the used book sellers recently; nostalgia I guess. Fondly remember SeaScope, loved free information and still have some of my issues: