I found my Log Book starting in 1974

[Paul B]

This is the first page of my log book. I also found a book that I started writing at that time. I was listing the fish that I kept and wrote a page or so for each fish. The pictures were drawings that I did at the time. It's a little out dated now. Remember this was before just about anyone carried salt water fish and there were no salt water medications or any information. We had to figure out everything through guesswork. I noticed most of my notes were about diseases.





I found it interesting that I had a Moorish Idol and a copperband butterfly in 1976

 

[Paul B]

In 1976 I was still living in my apartment and the tank was 40 gallons. I had that copperband, French Angel and a Moorish Idol in a 40 gallon

 

[Frankie]

That's pretty cool Paul!

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[DaveK]

What a lot of memories reading that brings back.

Yes, diseases in SW were not understood at all. Lots of bad information out there, just like today. Except today, you can get on here, and at least get some good answers. Durring this time I did find out that if your treated a tank with tetracycline the water would turn red in about 12 hours. I have no idea if this rendered the medication ineffective, or if this was just a color change. This color change doesn't occur in FW.

I started my first SW tank about 10 years earlier. It was a 20 long, so I had to stick with mostly smaller fish. At first, most of the fish were being collected from Florida and the Caribbean. SW fish from the Pacific were fairly rare and expensive. About 5 years later, there was a massive influx of Pacific fish, and at low prices. I found that most fish I bought at this time didn't live very long, even with good care. I believe that this was when collecting of fish using cyanide got going in a big way.

At that time, I also collected SW at Cape May. At one place it was easy park near the beach, and collect water. I always found it a little low in SG, and I had to let it settle out, but because it had at least some bacteria in it, a new tank didn't go through the usual bacteria bloom with slightly cloudy water.

It was really hard to find a LFS that even carried SW fish back then. I'd hear from others about how a store did carry SW fish. I'd visit the store and find that the either never did or got out of that. That's where I became willing to travel long distances to obtain SW livestock.

Thanks for posting!

 

[Paul B]

Dave the first store here in New York that carried salt water was Aquarium Stock Company about 3 blocks from the Trade Center. I started my tank when I got back from Nam in 71. I would use human medications if I could get them. I collected my water here near the East River in Manhattan.

 

[cracker]

After reading a few entries I can Say You have come a long way ! My 1st saltwater tank was in 1977. It was a high school science project. My buddy and I were going to show that oysters could filter an aquarium with fishes. we collected sargeant Majors at the jetties ,got our oyster clump at low tide and collected our water there. I'm sure that's why the floor pans in my VW rusted out.The project didn't work out very well but I have been interested ever since. Brings back lot's of memories Thanks for sharing.

 

[DaveK]

Yes, I remember the "Aquarium Stock Company". I got to the store one time. It was interesting, but I didn't buy anything. Because it was downtown Manhattan, the store was actually small, and had extremely high prices compared to what I was seeing in the Philadelphia area.

I would have thought the East River would have been diluted quite a bit, and somewhat polluted.

Medications made for FW tended to not work too well, and a lot of books had a lot of bad information in them, at least as far as diseases went. It was sort of a breakthrough when copper sulfate was found to kill the worst parasites, SW ick and velvet. Since most of the systems were FO and did not have any live rock, the main display tank was usually treated.

 

[DaveK]

... we collected sargeant Majors at the jetties ,..

When I first started in the hobby that fish was the recommended one for a first fish. The only problem was that none of the LFS ever seemed to carry them. It was several years before I saw a few available for sale, and even then they were uncommon.

 

[Paul B]

I think it is interesting. I read it and laugh at the medications I tried.
I have not seen this book in decades.
I probably used medications I was taking as there were absolutely no salt water fish medications. I think we may have had copper but that's it. The log is full of trial and errors and plenty of dead fish.
Sergeant Majors, blue devils, and dominoes' were the only fish available then. You are correct, I used copper in my tank almost continuously as all fish had parasites and all of them were on the verge of dying. I see I was using my diatom filter then as I do now and I was trying very hard to cultivate algae. Remember the "corals": were just dead pieces that I bought in a furniture store for decoration.
I didn't really collect water in the East River, but from the Long Island Sound at the mouth of the East River.

This was the only publication.

 

[rostervandross]

That was neat to read. makes me feel more normal about some of the fish I've tried and lost earlier this year. But how about those prices and $4 for a single hermit crab?

I enjoy it hanging around here with you gents that have this sort of grounded perpective from long time experience

 

[Paul B]

Rostervandross, reading through this log I seemed to have killed more fish than StarKist Tuna

 

[Paul B]

This is from the day I moved from Queens New York to New Hyde Park, Long Island. A trip of about 9 miles. I put the water and fish in 2 five gallon buckets for the trip and dumped it all back in in my new home. I still had not gotten the new 100 gallon tank here. I think it took me a few months to afford that. In those days there was no live rock or coral to worry about, it was just water and gravel. The decorations were just dead coral skeletons that I removed and soaked in bleach whenever they turned green. That's how all salt tanks were run then. We didn't know or consider bacteria as a helpful thing much. But it seemed the move went well.
I see my tank was also plagued by HLLE possibly because I had so many fish in a 40 gallon tank and the food was most likely flakes or pellets. I don't remember but I am sure I will find it in my notes. I was also using tap water in those days.

 

[Paul B]

This picture from probably 1979 or 80 shows the green dead corals that were transported from the tank in my old home and the new, bleached white ones must have been the new ones I bought to take up the extra space because this tank was much larger.
I can see I was building my basement around the tank as it was under construction here

 

[Paul B]

From my notes it looks like my tank had nothing but diseases but then I realized that I only wrote something in the log book when something happened, like a disease. I rarely wrote anything if nothing was happening as I have months in between logging anything. In the very beginning it was all diseases because the fish all came on the verge of croaking. The stores would throw out all their fish in the first few days if they didn't sell because they died anyway. Eventually we figured it out and kept copper pennies in the water to control parasites.