I've been keeping SPS since about 94. The first SPS I ever saw in an aquarium was that year in a local reefers tank. His name is Kurt Loos ( his tank is in Paletta's Ultimate Marine Aquariums book). In 1995 Kurt and my friend Dave Wodecki opened a business here in Cleveland called the Coral Garden, and was the first retail business here in Cleveland to regularly stock SPS. Back then, most of their stuff came from SDC and the availability lists looked something like this:
Brown Acro - sm, med, lrg, xlg
Green Acro - sm, med, lrg, xlg
Blue Acro - sm, med, lrg, xlg....
You get the drift here. It was a real grab bag. I agree with ROAB that everything came through LA. Fragging was not that big back then as some hobbyists believed that that "open wound" would lead to infection and death of the colony. When Sprung and Delbecks first book came out, that was the first time most of here saw Tyree's tank. He was a speaker at several of the early MACNA conferences and it was then that I started realizing that I could keep the brightly colored SPS in captivity. Most of the pictures coming out of Europe with SPS, were brown and green, but Tyree's tank was full of color!
My first lighting consisted of 2x 175 5500K Coralife w 2x40w actinic on a 40gal long aquarium. I also went through the DSB stage and the bare bottom stage, the Jaubert method, with a wet/dry trickle filter and w/o. It seemed like every few months "the way" to do it changed. My first skimmer was a Sander's Piccolo ( about 6" high, in tank skimmer with a wood airstone
As for who's been keeping them for years, I don't know if I qualify or not, but I'll add:
Sprung and Delbeck
Kurt Loos
Dick Perrin
Ryan Baker - friend of mine and mod here on RC (rbaker)
Lets hear some stories to show us some accomplishments we all strive for.
Bob
