srusso
Active member
Planned Obsolescence...
Those very words make my blood boil... To think we stopped trying to make the "best" and they traded that for comfortable, frequent paychecks! No different then the mob! Should be illegal for companies of the same industries to even work together to screw the customer like that!
Hey Paul! Thank you for posting this! I had no idea how the hobby got along in the early years. The air pumps with leather and oil! Wow! Slate bottom tanks?! Whale oil lanterns for heaters!! At first I couldn't even figure out how that could be done, till you explained it!!
So my fish story, I dont think I am a geezer yet but I have seen enough...
I was born in 1984 so that makes me 28, the aquarium industry was very established by that time. It was normal to go to a pet store or Woolworth's and buy a (horribly sick) fish, a tank, colored gravel, plastic plants etc. Air pumps weren't leather, and didn't need weekly attention, I can tell you that for sure! Seems like it would have been easier to pay someone to come blow air into your tank all day!
As far back as I could remember my family has (most of the time) had at least one tank setup. First family tank was a 20 gallon goldfish tank. Was in the kitchen next to the sink, my mother setup the tank for us as kids. We had three of the most standard goldfish one could buy that seemed to live forever... or it was b/c I was 4 or 5 years old and had no concept of time... those where the days....
As I got older I kept my own aquariums, my first tank was an actual goldfish bowl with a small sign that said "no fishing" and a "scuba guy with his treasure chest bubbler" that opened up on its own and multi colored gravel. :bounce1: :bounce1: It contained one fancy gold, named it spud, after the dog who was famous at the time... (I think late 80's early 90's) After three years of life in my fish bowl, it died... Great track record for an 7 or 8 year old, my family told me he died of old age... :twitch: I can remember I cleaned his tank with bleach and water too often, that bowl must have cycled every month! :facepalm: The best thing I knew was if you put bubbles in the fish dont just keep "eating air" at the top! I had no clue about the nitrogen cycle, this too was pre-Internet days... But it wasn't far off...
After sometime my brother who is a little older got a 55 gallon tank. That thing was the bee knees!! We loved it and it helped me learn a lot about how nature worked... We still didn't know it was the nitrogen cycle then but the LFS did their best to teach a young fish junkie what was happening in our tanks... My brothers tank was a tropical community tank, with a standard pet store bunch... We got a little older and started keeping newts and small turtles with his fish. During this time...
My first "tropical" fish tank was a 10 gallon with one Oscar... and it
had a heater! I was so proud of that fact, step up from bubble master! It was like all heaters at the time... Made of the cheapest glass possible and hooked into the rim of the tank... I have one very vivid memory of that tank... I was doing my partial water change, like a good keeper... Forgot to unplug the heater... I think most know where this is going but... I removed the normal few gallons and went to dump it and fill with fresh from the tub, came back minutes later to find a dead fish, glass on the gravel and the exposed coils of the heater dangling... I was heart broken, first thing I felt responsible for killing in my life! After all spud died of "old age"!
My oldest brother had a small 15 or so hex, with a few of those black gold fish with the popout eyes... lol funny still dont know what they are called! Could google it, but its funnier that way! He was all art deco with all white gravel, black fish, a black plastic plant... I thought it was cool but not as cool as my other brothers 55...
My mother wouldn't let me get any more fish for my tank... My eldest bro with the hex, my other with the 55 gallon and me the youngest who just killed his fish from his 10 gallon... I am sure she was actually relieved! lol So I got my aquarium fix off my brothers 55 gallon through most of my pre-teen years. He always let me help with cleaning or just watching the tank, after all, you could hog the nintendo but you could never really hog the fish tank. At one point he found a small box turtle in the street while doing his delivering papers. It was not in great shape, we believe it was from the local pond, but it was probably someones pet at one point... Anyway we dropped the tank water level like 5", built a mini dock from scrap balsa wood. The water level made the aquaclear 70 have a real mini water fall effect... we enjoyed this tank for a long time... So did the turtle, when it got to big we let it go back in its "home" in the pond. He also at one point got a snakehead, are cool, but died in a heater failure.
thats all for now...
Those very words make my blood boil... To think we stopped trying to make the "best" and they traded that for comfortable, frequent paychecks! No different then the mob! Should be illegal for companies of the same industries to even work together to screw the customer like that!
Hey Paul! Thank you for posting this! I had no idea how the hobby got along in the early years. The air pumps with leather and oil! Wow! Slate bottom tanks?! Whale oil lanterns for heaters!! At first I couldn't even figure out how that could be done, till you explained it!!
So my fish story, I dont think I am a geezer yet but I have seen enough...
I was born in 1984 so that makes me 28, the aquarium industry was very established by that time. It was normal to go to a pet store or Woolworth's and buy a (horribly sick) fish, a tank, colored gravel, plastic plants etc. Air pumps weren't leather, and didn't need weekly attention, I can tell you that for sure! Seems like it would have been easier to pay someone to come blow air into your tank all day!
As far back as I could remember my family has (most of the time) had at least one tank setup. First family tank was a 20 gallon goldfish tank. Was in the kitchen next to the sink, my mother setup the tank for us as kids. We had three of the most standard goldfish one could buy that seemed to live forever... or it was b/c I was 4 or 5 years old and had no concept of time... those where the days....
As I got older I kept my own aquariums, my first tank was an actual goldfish bowl with a small sign that said "no fishing" and a "scuba guy with his treasure chest bubbler" that opened up on its own and multi colored gravel. :bounce1:
:bounce1: It contained one fancy gold, named it spud, after the dog who was famous at the time... (I think late 80's early 90's) After three years of life in my fish bowl, it died... Great track record for an 7 or 8 year old, my family told me he died of old age... :twitch: I can remember I cleaned his tank with bleach and water too often, that bowl must have cycled every month! :facepalm: The best thing I knew was if you put bubbles in the fish dont just keep "eating air" at the top! I had no clue about the nitrogen cycle, this too was pre-Internet days... But it wasn't far off... After sometime my brother who is a little older got a 55 gallon tank. That thing was the bee knees!! We loved it and it helped me learn a lot about how nature worked... We still didn't know it was the nitrogen cycle then but the LFS did their best to teach a young fish junkie what was happening in our tanks... My brothers tank was a tropical community tank, with a standard pet store bunch... We got a little older and started keeping newts and small turtles with his fish. During this time...
My first "tropical" fish tank was a 10 gallon with one Oscar... and it
had a heater! I was so proud of that fact, step up from bubble master! It was like all heaters at the time... Made of the cheapest glass possible and hooked into the rim of the tank... I have one very vivid memory of that tank... I was doing my partial water change, like a good keeper... Forgot to unplug the heater... I think most know where this is going but... I removed the normal few gallons and went to dump it and fill with fresh from the tub, came back minutes later to find a dead fish, glass on the gravel and the exposed coils of the heater dangling... I was heart broken, first thing I felt responsible for killing in my life! After all spud died of "old age"!
My oldest brother had a small 15 or so hex, with a few of those black gold fish with the popout eyes... lol funny still dont know what they are called! Could google it, but its funnier that way! He was all art deco with all white gravel, black fish, a black plastic plant... I thought it was cool but not as cool as my other brothers 55...
My mother wouldn't let me get any more fish for my tank... My eldest bro with the hex, my other with the 55 gallon and me the youngest who just killed his fish from his 10 gallon... I am sure she was actually relieved! lol So I got my aquarium fix off my brothers 55 gallon through most of my pre-teen years. He always let me help with cleaning or just watching the tank, after all, you could hog the nintendo but you could never really hog the fish tank. At one point he found a small box turtle in the street while doing his delivering papers. It was not in great shape, we believe it was from the local pond, but it was probably someones pet at one point... Anyway we dropped the tank water level like 5", built a mini dock from scrap balsa wood. The water level made the aquaclear 70 have a real mini water fall effect... we enjoyed this tank for a long time... So did the turtle, when it got to big we let it go back in its "home" in the pond. He also at one point got a snakehead, are cool, but died in a heater failure.
thats all for now...
Last edited:
