Old school tank

[CKW]

Things were very basic- Undergravel filter, florescent lights, floating hydrometer, instant ocean, reef safe treatments that rarely worked, like tetra Oomed, and a hang on power filter. Lots of salt creep, rusty components but easy to maintain

Yep, whippersnapers… 65 years ago it was under gravel filters, some HOB charcoal filled filters, no such thing as dosing, floating thermometer, fluorescent bulbs, messy water changes, metal ugly stands, back yard rocks and we were still happy.

 

[Sophie"s mom]

Yep if you do a regular maintenance on a canister filter they were good in the day . Ehiem canisters were Bomb proof. Plenty of people have great reefs running on canisters

I currently use a canister. I have a 90 gallon, and use an Oase biomaster 600. This filter is amazing. It has an easy access Pre-filter that I clean weekly, and then clean the whole thing once a month. They really put a lot of thought into the design for sure.

 

[Sophie"s mom]

Yep, whippersnapers… 65 years ago it was under gravel filters, some HOB charcoal filled filters, no such thing as dosing, floating thermometer, fluorescent bulbs, messy water changes, metal ugly stands, back yard rocks and we were still happy.

65 years! Heck that is exactly what I did just 20 years ago. And it worked like a champ! I did have a UV and a skimmer back then too though.

 

[Rick cowen]

One for the oldies , how were tanks kept thriving back in the day BEFORE all the trickery we have now , ie mechanics and chemicals ..how did you maintain nutrients or were you just not bothered then ?? I would love to try a "natural-ish" tank ..HOW THE HELL DID YOU DO IT ha ha ..

Well, it depends how far you want to go back. My first reef tank was in 1969. My dad gave me a 29gl and said fill it up.(i grew up in the Florida keys) i used natural saltwater, beach sand. Live rock and corals(soft) and fish I collected myself. For lighting, i used natural sunlight. For filtration, i used a very old style little in tank filter that had a little floss and a bit of carbon in it. My very first “fish” were seahorses, back then they were easy to find. Large and small, and had beautiful colors. I fed them natural live food. I had great success with that initial setup. And ever since then, I’ve incorporated natural sunlight in all my systems.

 

[maroun.c]

Wet dry filters with bioballs were the thing. DSB or regular sand siphoning. Water changes to offset anything that goes wrong, fuge, skimmer abd carbon reactor.
And if course T5xMH battles.

 

[jonnywink]

Things were very basic- Undergravel filter, florescent lights, floating hydrometer, instant ocean, reef safe treatments that rarely worked, like tetra Oomed, and a hang on power filter. Lots of salt creep, rusty components but easy to maintain

Thats exactly what I remember from my tanks in the early 70’s. A lot less complicated then.

 

[Ancient Mariner]

Wet dry filters with bioballs were the thing. DSB or regular sand siphoning. Water changes to offset anything that goes wrong, fuge, skimmer abd carbon reactor.
And if course T5xMH battles.

And actual live rock from a reef.

 

[cilyjr]

When I started in 1998 it was the Berlin system, as much live rock as you can shoe horn into your tank, and a skilter filter (early protein skimmer) and penguin bio wheel filters. Lighting was t12 vho and metal halides. When I drilled my tank and put a 2nd tank under it to hold even more rock, I was pretty excited.

The general thinking was you must have 0 nitrates and po4. We bought hundreds of lbs of live rock (I bought what was called "base rock" at $3 a lb, and the good live rock for your display at $6) and all we did was stack it all up leaning against the back wall. If you saw someone with the amount of live rock most of us keep in our displays now you would think "what a noob"!

Salifert was the gold standard of testing, still is for me (I still use salifert to calibrate my Trident).
When I got my first Neptune systems aqua controller III, I thought I was the coolest kid.

 

[Ancient Mariner]

Im still reefing like 2002: my metal halide fixture, Ca reactor, skimmer, and ATO are all original from 2002 as are my Iwaki return and skimmer pumps! The only thing I do differently is dose 2 part via a dosing pump. I’m not sure if current practices are a significant improvement from the old days.

 

[tharbin]

T12 VHOs and Actinics. MH if you could afford it and fans to offset the heat. Reverse flow undergravel with MJ power heads and all the rock you could stuff in it. Mardell Labs medications that kinda worked, water changes. Primitive but it worked well. For me the big change came, I think in the mid-80s or so, when somebody figured out we could stick toy boat propellers on MJ pumps. Flow became a thing.