How far fishkeeping has come

  • We are currently upgrading MFK. thanks! -neo
Wow I cant wait to get to see what happens to the hobby in my life time I started 3 years ago with a 55 with Oscars feeding them mice and goldfish now I have 600 gallons of water and feed nothing but high protien pellets to my dovii arowana and pbass

Sent from my SCH-I545 using MonsterAquariaNetwork App
 
I still have my dads old heater, its actually ok except its unreliable. I bet in my life time more( or hope atleast) that there will be life support for things like ceolocanths gulper eels and other deep water organisms
 
I always wondered why our fish kept dying when I was young. We had a tank for awhile and were always replacing fish.

Now that I keep fish I understand what went wrong. Bad advice and same things that op said. My mom always did a 100% change of water. She did it from the tap and added in the water chemicals after the new water was in the tank. She would take the fish out and put them in a bucket during the water change process. I always thought that was werid lol.
 
My folks had an extremely overstocked 115G and two lightly stocked saltwater tanks back in the 70s. Each used only undergravel filters and air wands for all filtration. Waterchanges on the fresh tank was simply topping off from evaporation with gallon jugs sitting under the stand. About once a month you took a few gallons from the SW and replaced with fresh. Main diet for predators were goldfish and brineshrimp for everyone else.
 
Zoodiver said:
I was just telling the story of my very first tank last night at MACNA. Four glass sides, slate bottom, metal frame holding the edges together. Filter was a 3"x3"x3" box of carbon in the corner with an airstone. After that one, I upgraded to a full glass tank and undergravel filter. Both got a 50% water change a couple of times a year after letting water 'age' in buckets with airstones overnight. Neither had any type of temp control on them.
We were comparing that to the displays we run now. Digital controls to keep every parameter possible in check. Tens of thousands of dollars in high end life support equipment.

Fish keeping has come a LONG way within our life time.
Click to expand...

Well, if you want to relive the glory days, you can pick one up just like you used to have for $75.
http://lafayette.craigslist.org/for/4076462214.html
 
ragin_cajun said:
Well, if you want to relive the glory days, you can pick one up just like you used to have for $75.
http://lafayette.craigslist.org/for/4076462214.html
Click to expand...

There's my tank! I'm sure mine was smaller though, probably a 20 gallon. I don't recall adding dechlorinator or knowing about bacteria. And actually, I never removed the fish when I added new water. I got my first charcoal/cotton filled HOB in the mid 60's and was really impressed.
 
I've been back in the hobby for a little over two years now. Last kept saltwater in 1998-2002 high school/early college. I was w/o tanks for about 10years due to moving for jobs. When I got back in the hobby, everything was different -far more advanced & fish that were once thought to be "hard to keep" weren't much of a problem anymore.

Saltwater in particular changed. Live Rock & RO/DI are now mandatory. I had never heard of a sump or drilled tanks 10 years ago.

LEDs, pythons, canister filter advancements, Prime/safe - fishkeeping is a breeze. Much more enjoyment, less work & way fewer lost fish.

But the internet is definitely the reason for the advancement in fishkeeping IMO. Out of the fish I currently keep (all freshwater) I had never heard of them in 2002. All info about a species can be found on forums(this forum & Simply Discus I read daily), importers or breeders can get you any fish you want(delivered to your door) & you can find tanks on the cheap on Craig's List.

In the coming years, I expect sump technology & new ways of doing quick water changes to see this biggest advancements.
 
decoy50 said:
I've been back in the hobby for a little over two years now. Last kept saltwater in 1998-2002 high school/early college. I was w/o tanks for about 10years due to moving for jobs. When I got back in the hobby, everything was different -far more advanced & fish that were once thought to be "hard to keep" weren't much of a problem anymore.

Saltwater in particular changed. Live Rock & RO/DI are now mandatory. I had never heard of a sump or drilled tanks 10 years ago.

LEDs, pythons, canister filter advancements, Prime/safe - fishkeeping is a breeze. Much more enjoyment, less work & way fewer lost fish.

But the internet is definitely the reason for the advancement in fishkeeping IMO. Out of the fish I currently keep (all freshwater) I had never heard of them in 2002. All info about a species can be found on forums(this forum & Simply Discus I read daily), importers or breeders can get you any fish you want(delivered to your door) & you can find tanks on the cheap on Craig's List.

In the coming years, I expect sump technology & new ways of doing quick water changes to see this biggest advancements.
Click to expand...
doubt it, im looking forward to keeping deep water fish and captive breeding of many many species. personally fish keeping is still not as modernised as some other technology, but I bet u my water change water that we will be laughing at sumps and all these new methods.fishkeeping has a long way to go yet.
 
Sounds like a glass-half-empty way of looking at the hobby. If you'd been on the planet longer that a single decade plus 2, you might actually look like you know what you're talking about. I've seen almost 50 years of changes, and studied the applications of the hobby going back to way before the Victorian Age, and feel that, while little steps have been made like seeing the benefits of a simple water change, great leaps have also been made in understanding the chemistry and physics of the hobby. And, these changes have allowed hobbyists to successfully maintain and proliferate species considered impossible to maintain just a few decades ago. With every facet of the human condition there are ways to improve. So, don't let normal progress or simple evolution sour your view on those achievements that have occurred up to this point in the fishkeeping hobby. There's my glass-half-full take on the current state of the hobby.

BTW, there are blueprints available on the internet on constructing pressurized systems for maintaining benthic species. The huge costs involved coupled with the near impossibility in obtaining live specimens are the biggest roadblocks for seeing these systems in the hands of the average hobbyist.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
MonsterFishKeepers.com
Top Bottom