How to take care of your pet fish


Cycling Aquariums...

It really took the introduction of the
undergravel filter to get the idea of cycling* Glass Dip Tubes - for catching smaller
started. By then, you didn't want too manyfish. Sneak up on them, take your thumb off
fish until the gravel bed got established.the stem to let the air out, and the fish
The first ones I saw came as a set of greenwould get sucked in. A great way to catch
plastic tubes and elbows, with little holesfry.
drilled in the tubes. I've wondered if
reviving the tube system might be a* TFH Magazine - always with the subscription
compromise for an undergravel with plants-page with the native guy with the huge plate
the roots could steer away from conditionsin his lip reading a copy. You got a couple
they  didn't  like.loose-leaf pages for your giant TFH
encyclopaedia,  two  new species every month.
A really good pet store would only sell you a
few fish to start off with - usually a pair* Really Big Livebearers For Sale - the fish
of guppies for your 10 gallon. The chain fishfarms had not yet discovered good business
store was normally a 5 and 10 cent store.principles, and sometimes messed up and grew
They had pictures of the fish next to thefish to spectacular size. Sometimes the
prices, because the staff knew nothing aboutMollies offered for sale were healthy and
fish.vigorous!
Before that "The Balanced Aquarium" was in,* Lots of fishkeepers were trying to develop
if you were an advanced aquarist. You wouldtheir own strain of guppy, platy, molly, or
put heaps of plants in the tank, with theswordtail. Some would sell their culls to the
idea that the plants would absorb the fishfish store, but most were afraid that the
waste. Incandescent light was what you got,competition would get the jump on them, so
in stainless-steel hoods. Somehow, peoplethey'd have some oscars to act as garbage
with a green thumb could raise spectacularcans.
plants without CO² tanks! Maybe the coal
furnace  helped?* "Cichlids" meant angelfish, discus,
severums, Jack Dempseys, "Ports", etc.
Other  "old-time"  fishy  stuff:"African Cichlids" were Kribs and Egyptian
Mouthbrooders. Angelfish were very hard to
* Stainless-steel frame tanks, or evenbreed, and discus were almost impossible. The
better, the "lab" tanks with the funkyparents of "domestic" strains were better
spatter  paintjob.about  rearing  their  young.
* Filter Floss - this was spun glass fibers,* Killies would occasionally show up in the
and you would get the darn stuff in yourstore, but the "secret society" of guys
hands when you put it in the filter, justsending fish and eggs through the mail was
like a million cactus thorns. No way to rinseactive back then, too. They had little ads in
it- when it got dirty you just threw it away.the  back  of TFH magazine to join the "AKA".
A million whacky filter systems have come and
gone- some using huge amounts of activated* Corydoras were "garbagemen", and people
charcoal.didn't get that excited about them. Sometimes
strange ones would come in that would cost a
* Those antique Chinese take-home containersfew cents more- so you could snag some
- instead of plastic bags, the fish storesterbai, natteri, etc. The idea was that you
would fold up these wax-covered paper boxeswould pay discuss prices for catfish would
with a little wire handle, with your fishhave made people faint, back then.
inside.



1 A 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71