Reefkeeping History

[Misled]

Mike, BB was around for years before the sps stuff. Like Paul, I did the undergravel filter for a while. On the BB's we used to use 2 inch PVC sliced long ways and set under the rock to keep it off the glass. On one I had a sump and had the return go to a manifold with openings at each half pipe to keep stuff from building up under the pipes.

I can say we experimented a lot more back then. Few could say they knew a whole lot about it, so it kinda was the norm. Everybody around here spent time checking other peoples stuff. I remember seeing my first surge machine. I thought, my wife would kill me if my tank was that noisy. I also remember the first time somebody brought live sand up here. We were like kids in a candy store.

 

[Peter Eichler]

Mike, BB was around for years before the sps stuff. Like Paul, I did the undergravel filter for a while. On the BB's we used to use 2 inch PVC sliced long ways and set under the rock to keep it off the glass. On one I had a sump and had the return go to a manifold with openings at each half pipe to keep stuff from building up under the pipes.

I can say we experimented a lot more back then. Few could say they knew a whole lot about it, so it kinda was the norm. Everybody around here spent time checking other peoples stuff. I remember seeing my first surge machine. I thought, my wife would kill me if my tank was that noisy. I also remember the first time somebody brought live sand up here. We were like kids in a candy store.

Sprung and maybe a couple others were big advocates of bare bottom tanks in the 80's. In fact some of the authors of that time, I believe it was Sprung mainly, led many North American hobbyists to falsely believe that "the Berlin method" meant having a bare bottom tank.

It would be funny for some of us to dig up some crazy quotes from old books and magazines in this thread as well.

Not a quote, but I can recall how impressed people were that I could propagate xenia and that it pulsed and grew fast in my tanks.In the mid to late 80's, if you could keep xenia you had arrived I paid for a new redox/ph meter by selling frags to local fish stores... I decided shortly after that it was fairly pointless to measure redox.

 

[rjallen]

Paul Peter & All

"I also started diving in 1970 or so, my first dive was on the Great Barrier Reef in Australia while I was on R&R from Nam so we both have service experience."

Paul
How you managed to hit the Great Barrier Reef during R&R would be a story in itself. I was in RVN in 70-71 and tried desperately to get to North Austrialia. I even managed to wrangle an extra day but the plane connections were directly to Southeast Australia with connecting flights, it would take the better part of 2 days just to get to Carirns. I figured one day of diving before starting back. In my unit you didn't want to get back late from R&R. One of my fellow officers was actually written up on charges [later dropped]. They made their point!
I ended up going with a buddy to Thailand, even got around to some diving.Went down to Phu Cat. It was not an international destination as it is today. Much fish life and pristine corral reefs. That was my first time in the tropical Pacific- really different from the Keys!http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/images/smilies/biggrin.gif

"In the 80s or 90s I started an urchin collection business where I collected purple urchins in New York to sell to hobbiests"

Did you ever collect any tropicals riding the Gulf Stream up to New York waters?

"I also enjoyed snorkeling more in Hawaii more than diving. You couldn't reach the depths but you could stay out all day"

Misled
Snorkeling gives you a lot of freedom. Most of my students simply did not have the conditioning to deal with the surge and currents for any length of time and I required pool laps, wearing mask fins & snorkel, of my students at the end of each of their 8 two hour pool sessions. That snorkeling made you a better diver I bet. I used to do a lot of collecting w/o scuba on shallow reefs. Bubbles=scared fish.

"I was lucky enough to live a couple miles from Dick Perrin's place."

Neil, are you talking about my Marine World collecting station. The name Dick Perrin is familiar but I cannot link it to Little Torch Key. Most of the time, I dealt with an older lady, late 50s or early 60s circa 1968-1969. I remember a long cinder block one story building with Marine World on the side . There were some outside pools and I seem to remember a green house. Nice people.

"I'll post mine up later.."

Peter, I am looking forward to it.

RJ

 

[Peter Eichler]

RJ, Dick Perrin set-up a coral farm near Detroit in the 80's. If I recall correctly, he was the first person to propagate/farm SPS on a commercial level in the US, perhaps even beyond that.

 

[buildinboats]

I was racking my brain trying to remember what is was called and couldn't get fishlink out of my head... Any idea what year fishnet first became available? I feel like it was '95...

I became active on Fishnet in '92-93 and it was already up and running strong when I joined. Keeping those early dial up Hayes and US Robotics modems
humming was a chore in itself. Remember init strings? Thankfully the advent of Navcis helped keep the outrageous phone bills in check.

 

[rjallen]

RJ, Dick Perrin set-up a coral farm near Detroit in the 80's. If I recall correctly, he was the first person to propagate/farm SPS on a commercial level in the US, perhaps even beyond that.

Thanks Peter. As I said the name was familiar but not Keys familiar.

I am hoping there is someone out there that can fill in the blanks about the collecting station. From it's size and the shipments going out, I believe they were a major player in the Atlantic Tropical Market.

In the late 90s, I tried to find the place but it was long gone. I think some condos took its place. There were a lot of small time collector folks that took it up the kazoo when the commercial collecting moratorium went into effect. Heck boats from the Bahamas would come over to Marine World to sell.

RJ

 

[NeilFox]

Hi RJ. Peter is correct, Dick Perrins place is in the Detroit suburbs. I think I have seen the collecting station you are talking about. There are a few around Islamorada, Little Torch etc. I think the place may still be there. I worked for Caterpillar a few years ago and did some repairs on one of the collecting boats on Little Torch Key.

I actually fell into the same situation in a way. I was trying to scrounge up some live rock and got in touch with a guy named John Netherton. He used to work at Florida Brine when they were collecting rock. He started his own thing called Reef Harvest. He invited me to come down and visit. He was also a PADI instructor. I got my first scuba lesson and never looked back. I actually got into the commercial diving business and I'm still at it today.

At any rate, John went out of his way to get some real quality rock. Not that rubble pile stuff. I brough a couple hundred pounds of the stuff back up to Michigan with me. I showed a couple pieces to Dick Perrin and he was interested in making a purchase. I think he ended up getting over 20,000 lbs from Reef Harvest. I remember when he started making his own frags and growing them. I don't know if he was the first but what he was doing was pretty radical for that era. He certainly was the first on a large scale.

He was at some kind of a seminar that a buddy of mine went to. Alot of people really envied Dick because he always had alot of really good stuff. Anyhow this guy gets back and tells me, "Hey, your not going to believe what Dick Perrine was doing, he just hacked apart an acropora with a pair of side cutters!".

Well we all know how that turned out! Pretty soon he was chopping up coral like nobody's business and growing it too. Even more impressive when just about every scientist at the time didn't believe you could maintain a coral let alone propegate them...

 

[NeilFox]

Misled. I noticed you had a stack of old FAMA magazines in your previous post photo. I saw the April 1993 issue. You wouldn't happen to have the Jan 1993 issue by any chance? I actually wrote an article in that issue. I lost my copies during Hurricane Ivan. If you do would it be possible to scan a couple pages? Not trying to be a nuicance it's just a nostalgia thing. I see you have been at this quite a while also!!!

Regards

Neil

 

[Misled]

Most likely I still have it. I guess it's the nerd in me. I'll look when I get home. If it's there, I can email you a pdf.

 

[NeilFox]

Thats awsome Jesse. Thanks for the reply! I never expected it to get published. I think it was about a year after I sent it in. It would be interesting to see what kind of BS and misinformation I was spreading around back then.

Regards

Neil

 

[Misled]

Sorry Neil, I didn't see it. It may be in a different box, but it wasn't with most of them. I'll look at some other stuff and get back to you sooner or later.
On a side note, I found something else some of you may remember.

 

[Paul B]

How you managed to hit the Great Barrier Reef during R&R would be a story in itself.

Well I can't tell all about my Australian experience but we had a choice of Thailand, Bancock, Hawaii and a few other places, but my childhood dream was to go to Australia so thats where I picked. I was in the jungle up in the mountains on the Cambodian border for 10 months before I get that R&R so I wanted to make it worth while.

Did you ever collect any tropicals riding the Gulf Stream up to New York waters?

I never saw any tropical urchins up here but now I collect tropicals every year here in NY that come up on the Gulf Stream.
I also went to Hawaii and dove on 4 Islands but that was on my Honeymoon after the Army.
I collected these butterflies here.

This burrfish

Jacks

This is a NY Urchin. This picture (or one just like it )appeared in an issue of FAMMA but I forgot what year that was. I still have the magazine.

 

[NeilFox]

Thanks for looking Misled. Really surprised to see those old Sea Scopes! I love that Burrfish Paul. Did you catch that thing? Really great looking fish.

 

[KayHouse]

This was cool. +1

 

[Misled]

So I took a glance through a couple of the mags and figured some of you , at least Paul, Peter ans RJ, would remember these guys.

And another old buddy.

A couple ads.

 

[Peter Eichler]

Hah, I forgot all about the carbonate baths for live rock to get rid of mantis and pistol shrimp. That was the old school curing process

 

[sirreal63]

Way before my time Jesse, I am just a baby here.

 

[Misled]

Hah, I forgot all about the carbonate baths for live rock to get rid of mantis and pistol shrimp. That was the old school curing process

Peter, I've told that method probably 20 times on RC. I remember it working for me. The mantis was in the second to the last rock. It was also the ugly gray one. I did keep it in a ten gallon in my shop for 5 years though.

Yea Jack, old I be!!! :lol:

 

[sirreal63]

It makes me feel good to know there are some geezers older than I am here.

 

[Misled]

I also like the Hamalton lighting ad. The only MH is 5.5k. The other funny part is, the VHO's are about the same price today, 20 years later.