The early days of the hobby

[davidtcb1]

Anyone ever do any homework on the pioneers of the aquarium hobby? The first people to figure out they could use the nitrogen cycle, home water, etc to keep fish in a glass box. Always been curious about how long the trial and error period was before there were successful hobbyists, when that was and how far removed their practices were from ours today.

[spacebug]

Your comment prompted me to do a little google search. Sure enough, there are some books out there on the topic. I wonder how in depth the books get on the actual day-to-day upkeep of the tanks through the years.

I think the idea of weekly water changes is actually fairly new. It would be interesting to find out when and how they discovered the nitrogen cycle.

[davidtcb1]

I think weekly water changes were invented by people selling dechlorinator and filter cartridges .

[eyebedam]

I kinda anal about water changes but some of those folks over on MFK crack me up, talking about 75-90% water change 3 times a week... It can get over the top.

[davidtcb1]

Yeah, I think "too often" is possible and actually not beneficial. I have heard of some discus breeders changing 90-100 percent a day so the tanks aren't even filtered. I try to do it every two weeks. Sometimes it's three if life gets in the way lol.

[spacebug]

LOL. There are a lot of people out there on some forums who blame EVERYTHING on not changing the water enough. If you change 25% once a week, then you should be changing it 50%...or maybe two to three days a week..or more.

I'm no scientist, but if the point of water changes is to keep nitrates low, then wouldn't there be a point when your fish are grown and your tank is stocked that it will all level off and increasing your water change schedule would become useless?

It would be interesting to know and compare the practices from 50 years ago to today and then compare it to fish mortality rates.

[davidtcb1]

Depends on what you're keeping I guess. I've had a hard time keeping plecos because I believe the tanks are too clean. They literally starve.

[spacebug]

Hey Eyebedam, what's MFK?

[davidtcb1]

www.monsterfishkeepers.com

[spacebug]

Oh...haha...I've seen that site before. I don't keep monster fish, though .

[davidtcb1]

It's cool to browse. It's not all big fish all the time.

[eyebedam]

I change about 75 gallons a week... Sometimes a little more, normally 2 times a week... I'm gonna try & let it go 2 weeks & just see how it goes...

[signde]

yeah monster fish keepers is pretty good. i used to hang out in the african section. some knowledgeable folk over there.

[spacebug]

Back to the original subject, I just ran across this article on angelfish:

www.tpangels.com/angelbreedinginfo.htm

In the article, he recommends 25% water changes every week (and only 10 gallon tanks for a mated pair of angelfish). If you click on the "about" tab, it says that he and his family have been breeding angels since 1966. Makes me wonder how long they've been following the advice he gives in the article, or if it's something that's evolved over time.

[davidtcb1]

Interesting. I try to alternate taking just water and cleaning the gravel each time as I think some buildup in the substrate is good. But I usually clean it every other time.