From my earlier days......scanned photos of cuties

So....I got my scanner working, found some old photos of my earlier days of fish-keeping.
I had much better facilities than I do now, and hence why I once had a much larger array of monster fish (but I can only find the electric catfish pictures at present)

1. Electric Catfish……my mad days of fish keeping I guess. It was like a 3 foot pig in water.



2. Cowfish….from my days of Marine Keeping



3. Anostomus in a Cryptocoryne tank



4. Blue Discus (quite young and had not fully coloured up at this stage of life, but a monster)



5. Severum….superb full grown beauty.



6. Melanochromis johanni……this 7ish inch bully could never really be kept with any other fish. Also, spot a major problem of undergravel filters and Malawis.
I cannot remember if this was one of my wild ones or the F1 wild offspring of mine (too too many years ago….and this was an angle-iron tank)



7. Severum…..wild



8. One of my early breedings of angel fish.



9. Blue Discus (about 18 months old at the time, so not fully coloured up at that time…..lived for 15 years, and was a pure killer).



10. Chunky….Exodon paradoxus (Bucktooth Tetra). I loved these fish even if you often only end up with a single specimen fish in a tank.


Thank you for looking, I may find some more old photos hanging around.

This is all part of my celebration of 40 years of fish keeping.

ian

Congratulations on 40yrs fishkeeping there, Ian. Quite some way behind you myself! Some lovely fish you had, thanks for sharing.
LoB

Some real beauties Ian made my day what did the discus kill on ya?

Thanks for sharing your photos Ian and your long history of fish keeping.

dave.

Cheers.

The Blue Discus had a problem with other discus. He ignored all the smaller fish (Including the large cardinals) originally put in his tank, those fish lived happily (until their eventual aging could up with them).
It could not tolerate its brothers and sisters, but I did manage to get it to accept a few wild greens as it got older.
Tank bred Discus could not cope for a day with it.

A lot of the food I fed was home-made from carrots, prawns, peas and beef=heart.
The early food used (after being weened off the parents) was a stuff called 'Warley-Burger' (a paste you made into a burger thing), then when Tetra started to market decent foods such as Doromin and then (in the latter days) I tried a new food called Tetra Prima I used those instead as the main foods.
Also, of note, Aquarian made one half decent food....it was a vegetarian food, and the discus loved that.

This discus actually ended up being a family pet (so I remember quite a lot about it), and was the longest lived discus I'd kept.

It was the offspring from wild parents, and the parents were as aggressive as this one !!

It died in a mad accident during his feeding as a lorry struck off the side of our house. The vibration made the fish dive upwards out of the tank water and it struck its head on the glass lid with some force.

ian

Congrats Ian.

Great to see, do you still have any fish that have stuck around for all those years?

That catfish is a beast by the way!

Melander

Melander wrote:

Great to see, do you still have any fish that have stuck around for all those years?

That catfish is a beast by the way!

Melander

All those photos are from well before the 90s; all fish are now in fishy heaven.
I closed down all tanks and gave all fish and tanks away before moving to Ireland in 98. So, my present lot are quite new.

Having to start up again in Ireland was not easy (and quite expensive).
I do, however, like my fish to last as long as they can as I am not into swapping and changing too much.

The electric catfish was a fingerling 'rescue' from an aquatic shop when first bought. A bit of problem fish to keep really, and not one which I go back to in a hurry.

Great stuff Ian.
I'm sure with all that experience, you've probably forgotten more than most of us will ever know !!
Thanks for sharing.

Paddy

@Paddy.....sometimes forgotten things just means one is getting senile.

igmillichip wrote:

@Paddy.....sometimes forgotten things just means one is getting senile.

Not exactly what I meant Ian, but I see where you're coming from !!
I'm only a boy (30s) and can't even remember tomorrow.

paddyc1 wrote:

igmillichip wrote:

@Paddy.....sometimes forgotten things just means one is getting senile.

Not exactly what I meant Ian, but I see where you're coming from !!
I'm only a boy (30s) and can't even remember tomorrow.

Yeah, I bet.
When you get to my age and still have a 'young' mind, you'll wonder why you ever thought old codgers were 'old codgers' when you were 30!! (remember the days of thinking some of your teachers were like ancient, but may have only been 15 years older than you? ).

30 years ago....phew, I was getting engaged to be married (and that then took me down a slightly different road in fish-keeping).

ian

nice pics Ian, that electric catfish looks like a serious pet, did you have a name for it? a creature that imposing does not go unnamed

joemc wrote:

nice pics Ian, that electric catfish looks like a serious pet, did you have a name for it? a creature that imposing does not go unnamed

Sparky by any chance???

Kev.

Great photos Ian given everything was manual slr etc.

Kev.

stretnik wrote:

joemc wrote:

nice pics Ian, that electric catfish looks like a serious pet, did you have a name for it? a creature that imposing does not go unnamed

Sparky by any chance???

Kev.

That could have been a good name, but I would probably have expected it to help supply some electric for its own heaters.

Alas, I was more of serious fish keeper in them days and didn't give names to the fish. The catfish did, though, get called the odd Fat Pig Thing (and often with In The Basement added on).

If I had it now, as I'm not so much a serious fish keeper anymore, it would probably have a name as silly as most of named fish nowadays. Just a note though.....although each emperor tetra has a name, we're not so sappy as to give give each cardinal or endlers guppy a name.

Interesting pictures , did the cowfish ever get scared and wipeout the tank that would be my fear with that fish

Jambomac wrote:

Interesting pictures , did the cowfish ever get scared and wipeout the tank that would be my fear with that fish

Interesting point.
The cowfish was fine and no problems.
I can't remember what else was in with it as that picture would have been taken somewhere in the mid to late 70s. That would be pushing my memory too much.
I had quite a few marine tanks, and also kept some of my marines (eg the batfish) in the public aquarium.

I was more concerned at that time with keeping Moorish Idols alive (yes....all that info is now at hand, but not in those days), how to avoid water changes on Marines, and breeding clownfish.

I am glad I found my picture of the cowfish as that is one of only a few species that would tempt me back to marines (I simply found marines too boring in the end).

ian

Would love a Boxfish only tank as they are such an odd fish.

Also Batfish is definitely a fish i aim for one day just need a pretty big tank for them.

Jambomac wrote:

Would love a Boxfish only tank as they are such an odd fish.

Also Batfish is definitely a fish i aim for one day just need a pretty big tank for them.

Triggers, puffers, boxfish (ie the trigger fish family); the lionfish group (inc frogfish); and batfish would be amongst my favourites.
I probably still have a soft spot for Copper Banded Butterfly fish as that would have been the fish that tempted me to marines.

A foot to a foot-and-a-half Platax pinnantus is just an animal to behold in real life. Possibly the only true 'pet' marine that doesn't want to rip your fingers off.

Yes copperband is definitely a fish i love,they just float about grazing.

Why don't you venture back into marines there seems to be a passion still or at least what if
factor of having such interesting fish and somebody with your expertise could possibly
breed these great fish.

Congrats on your 40th by the way

This thread really promotes a reason for fish photography often overlooked, as a tool for keeping a record.

I would love to have some photos from my early years(even though it's not that far ago).

Melander

love the electric catfish ,was it a quick grower ?

@Jambomac.......I have much more of a passion for my freshwater fish. There are still challenges I'm wanting to fulfill with freshwater.
My other-half does, however, like the same marine fish as I do.....so maybe we'll get a few one day.

I'm going to rest on my laurels with marine breeding.

I'm happy with what was achieved in the mid to late 70s....the only thing that I wanted was to beat the Waterlife (they used a different name for the marine side of things) team in raising marine fry in proper captivity: they beat me to it (but they also produced the best marine salt of that time as well, and I used their salt !!).
It was from breeding clownfish that I worked hard on developing my denitrification systems.

My parents must have been saints to allow me to take over so much of their house with my buckets and pipes.

@Melander.....one day you'll be an old codger as well with many memories to look back on.

@Brian.....bursts of growth, then no growth for years. It was in a constant water-change system in the basement.....water straight from the tap and run over zeolites was constantly trickled into the tank. It was not fed Tetra flakes !!

On a related note, I believe JohnH did an article somewhere on the early days of fish-keeping.
Looking back to the 'early-days' it wasn't so much that they were 'better' but they were certainly more comical in parts:

My memories of the 'best external power filter' of the day was one that needed cleaning out everyday and cost a packet !!
People would WOW if you happened to have the Rena Undergravel filter system (which was simply an air-driven undergravel filter but made of small join-on plates).!!
'Protein skimmers' were called 'Urine Skimmers' and were no more that a piece of tubing with a plastic coffee cup plonked on top and powered by the most powerful air pump you could get.....but they kept falling over etc etc.
A brand new tank would leak for weeks after being first installed.....that was normal as you had to wait for the glass putty to settle.
Marine tanks would fall apart before your eyes, and it didn't take long before you couldn't see the fish from massive deposits of rust formed outside the glass from the tank's frame.
Very few aquatic shops had heard of silicone sealant when I got my first all-glass tank.

And my first book on keeping African Cichlids had only about 3 or 4 species of Malawi or Tanganyikan cichlids in it (and no info on how to keep them).!!

Hey....I'm a grandad now, so I have to develop all them stories of '.....when I were a kid...' (usually followed by our rock bands were the best )

ian