Reefing before the internet

[Greybeard]

Anyone here active on Compuserve Fishnet in the day?

That's when I was getting started in reefing.

Yup. The internet wasn't born fully fledged... BBS's, newsgroups, and other 'online' services were around for many years prior to what we now call 'the internet'. Heck, I'm not so sure what we call the internet, in a few years, won't look like the more primitive forms of online look to us today.

alt.aquaria
Compuserv Fishnet
KCAquaria BBS

Martin Moe Jr., Bob Goemans, Julian Sprung, don't know how I'd have gotten started without these (and other) authors.

Books were useful, but as it is now, by the time a book is written, edited, published, and distributed... parts of it may well be out of date. The latest greatest advances were always found on the BBS's and newsgroups.

 

[jda]

Sure! But it isn't even a small percentage of what is available at your fingertips now. I'm impressed with anyone that took this on then!

This is not even close to true. The publication process vetted people, sources and techniques and the people who wrote books were usually pretty spot-on. Anybody can be on the internet and posts are seen as equal between people who are talented enough to write a book and thumb-sucking noobies with a few-month-old reef with boogers that have not outgrown their frag plugs yet. When you also take into account the paid-for "publications" and "articles" from some of the current manufacturers that are not even close to being fair and unbiased, then reefing twenty years ago was in some basic ways easier than today.

I honestly believe that if I gave some folks a few books that are 20 years old, they used live rock and some metal halides that more people would have success than they do today.

Identification of things is a lot easier. ...so is hobbyist selling and trading.

 

[jda]

Wet Web Media was also an invaluable resource that offered no bias or wanted nothing in return. It was around when the internet was very young.

Dr Ron was very helpful with bio stuff and inverts.

 

[Flippers4pups]

Early 93. No internet at my house then. LFS and books was the only info back then. Come along way since!

 

[Humblefish]

Read every book I could get my hands on. Hung out at the local fish stores and talked to anyone that would listen.

^^ This. I learned something new every time I walked into a LFS. Some of it conflicted with what I was reading in books, but worked once I tried it for myself. Of course, other advice I got just never panned out (so I guess the book was right ). Either way, I learned never to believe (or dismiss) anything I read or heard unless I tested it out for myself. Seeing is believing. ;Watching

 

[atoll]

Harr back in the day. In the UK back in the 80s we were somewhere between some of the other countries in Europe and the US. Not as advanced as the say Germans but in many respects ahead of the US. Before the tinternet we had more marine clubs and regular seminars which have all but died out there. The net has destroyed the local marine clubs. There was much hobbyists could discover and DIY was often at the forefront of the hobby. I recall making skimmers and my very first calcium reactor, using Kalkwasser and mercury vapour lights which were low K then onto HQI lamps. Growing Caulerpa in the DT before sumps and later in the sump of course. I had 2 friends and we experimented with Oxydators, lighting, making our own sumps and filters. We went against the advice and made our own foods and told we would wipe our tanks out needless to say we didn't and I still make my own foods. Those were exciting but challenging times indeed but we made many discoveries back then.