LesMelling
Registered Old Reefer
Back in the day.
Some of you will have Paul Bs book The Avant-Garde Marine Aquarists. I also bought the E-version as (I live in the UK and hard copies are not available) but when my hard drive on my laptop died I lost Paul's E-book and recently got another (no I didn't pay again I just emailed the company and told them what had happened and they sent me another), that was kind of them.
I have just been reading Paul's section on Pests and Manajo nems in particular. I recall back in the day encouraging them to reproduce and gave many away to other reefing friends. We didn't consider them a pest of course but welcome freebies. I don't recall having any Aiptasia nems either they seem to have been introduced much later and yes many cultivated them. I don't recall seeing flat worms either then, they were another later introduction as far as I am aware not that we tried to encourage them to breed, they did that fine without our help. They particularly enjoyed sunbathing under metal halides and they seemed to appear when HQI lighting took off X years ago.
Before HQI lighting we just had a couple of T12 light tubes over our tanks and all that was available then were northlight a kind of daylight tube, warm whites and growlux tubes and little else certainly nothing we could call daylight tubes of today. The blue of the growlux would help neutralise the yellowness of the warm white tubes many used. Most just had a tube of each over their tank but of course we had no SPS corals back then apart from white ones that never grew apart from growing hair algae on them. We didn't realise these white corals were already dead and we would try to bring them back to life by scrubbing them and bleaching them white again but despite our efforts they would died yet again.
Sometimes we would put baking foil under the tank canopy to help reflect light down but over time it would deteriorate and much of it would end up in the tank. We did lots of DIY then as much of the high end equipment, well what there was of it was extremely expensive with Thiel Aqua Tech being amongst the most expensive lol along with Tunze and Dupla. I recall paying £300 (about $400) or my first 250w HQI light which had a 4300k double ended bulb in it, later I exchanged it for a 5400K bulb. This would be around 25 years ago so in truth much of the equipment we now use can be considered cheaper. Not that I have given up on DIY far from it I still enjoy making filters and what not for my tank.
In many ways reefkeeping was so much easier back then as we had little in the way of fancy equipment, no skimmers but there were sander ozone reactors that were far from reliable and expensive with it. We kept few corals maybe a few softies and surprisingly the odd nem if you had the lighting for them. On the front cover of one of Alberts books entitled "Ten Easy Steps" and on some editions early ones I think there is a pic of my H.Magnifica nem hosting my common clowns.
Alberts book was bublished in 1991 by which time I was running 2 X 250w HQI lamps on my 6'6" tank along with a 120w 5' actinic T12 lamp. That nem was considered by the "experts" back then impossible to keep for more than a few months, Mine lasted me many years until I broke the tank down and sold it on. Happy pioneering days indeed.
The book by Albert has seen better days now but here it is.
Some of you will have Paul Bs book The Avant-Garde Marine Aquarists. I also bought the E-version as (I live in the UK and hard copies are not available) but when my hard drive on my laptop died I lost Paul's E-book and recently got another (no I didn't pay again I just emailed the company and told them what had happened and they sent me another), that was kind of them.
I have just been reading Paul's section on Pests and Manajo nems in particular. I recall back in the day encouraging them to reproduce and gave many away to other reefing friends. We didn't consider them a pest of course but welcome freebies. I don't recall having any Aiptasia nems either they seem to have been introduced much later and yes many cultivated them. I don't recall seeing flat worms either then, they were another later introduction as far as I am aware not that we tried to encourage them to breed, they did that fine without our help. They particularly enjoyed sunbathing under metal halides and they seemed to appear when HQI lighting took off X years ago.
Before HQI lighting we just had a couple of T12 light tubes over our tanks and all that was available then were northlight a kind of daylight tube, warm whites and growlux tubes and little else certainly nothing we could call daylight tubes of today. The blue of the growlux would help neutralise the yellowness of the warm white tubes many used. Most just had a tube of each over their tank but of course we had no SPS corals back then apart from white ones that never grew apart from growing hair algae on them. We didn't realise these white corals were already dead and we would try to bring them back to life by scrubbing them and bleaching them white again but despite our efforts they would died yet again.
Sometimes we would put baking foil under the tank canopy to help reflect light down but over time it would deteriorate and much of it would end up in the tank. We did lots of DIY then as much of the high end equipment, well what there was of it was extremely expensive with Thiel Aqua Tech being amongst the most expensive lol along with Tunze and Dupla. I recall paying £300 (about $400) or my first 250w HQI light which had a 4300k double ended bulb in it, later I exchanged it for a 5400K bulb. This would be around 25 years ago so in truth much of the equipment we now use can be considered cheaper. Not that I have given up on DIY far from it I still enjoy making filters and what not for my tank.
In many ways reefkeeping was so much easier back then as we had little in the way of fancy equipment, no skimmers but there were sander ozone reactors that were far from reliable and expensive with it. We kept few corals maybe a few softies and surprisingly the odd nem if you had the lighting for them. On the front cover of one of Alberts books entitled "Ten Easy Steps" and on some editions early ones I think there is a pic of my H.Magnifica nem hosting my common clowns.
Alberts book was bublished in 1991 by which time I was running 2 X 250w HQI lamps on my 6'6" tank along with a 120w 5' actinic T12 lamp. That nem was considered by the "experts" back then impossible to keep for more than a few months, Mine lasted me many years until I broke the tank down and sold it on. Happy pioneering days indeed.
The book by Albert has seen better days now but here it is.
