ANY OLD TIME FISHKEEPERS ON THE FORUM?

I've only had fish for 18 years so I don't really count as old time - I came into the hobby after all-in-one heaters and internal & external filters had been introduced. It was even after UG filters had fallen out of favour 


But I did find an old 'how to repair....' book with a page on aquariums when we were sorting out my mother's house ready for her to move a few years ago that talked about those heaters. It talked about replacing diaphragms in air pumps, resealing the putty and it had a cut-through diagram of a filter - a box containing carbon with a bit of filter wool on top.
Fishkeeping sounds like a lot of work back then, but I also read that water changes were done only once very few months, so maybe not has hard as all that 

You must be really really old if you come from a time before fluorescent tubes. They were introduced in the 1930's. My uncle used them in the steel-framed tanks he used from when I was wearing short trousers, early 1960's) until he died in the late 1990's. Along with air-powered filtration.

I couldn't give you too many details because although I was interested in the fish, I wasn't really that bothered about the process of fish-keeping.

I had my first tank when I was at school, late 1960s, given to me by a friend of my father's when he upgraded to a bigger one. I think it was 60 cms, with a solid metal frame. Started with no filter at all, but later added an under gravel and an air stone at which point I was most surprised to see that fish did not always hang around the surface for choice, but would actually use the whole tank when it was aerated and circulated.

Light was a single 60 watt tungsten bulb. Water would condense on the metal hood and if you lifted it up too quickly the water would splash onto the bulb which would explode. Heater was at one end of the tank and the thermostat at the other.

Fish were an odd mixture, all ones and twos. I do remember the angelfish. Once I saw a female guppy give birth to a ball of young which the angelfish sucked in all in one go, life expectancy of the guppy fry 1 second. Strangely fascinating at that age.

Strangely, I hardly ever had a fish die, in spite of overstocking and no regular water changes. I partly put this down to temperature, the thermostat was set to 68 - 70^oF and I'm still convinced that most tropical fish live longer and healthier lives at lower temperatures than are generally recommended these days. There are good physiological reasons for this.

Two friends also had tanks and we bought our fish from a chap who used to breed and sell them from his house in a village about 10 miles away. None of our parents had cars and so we used to ride our bikes down, buy a fish or two and pedal home as fast as we could with the fish in the saddle bag. In winter, they were pretty chilled by the time we were home, but they always pulled through and recovered remarkably quickly.

We were avid readers at that age (I still am) and I would often get books from the library and could identify most fish pretty well. I still prefer books to web sites, at least one knows that the author must have some knowledge and experience to get a book published. We also belonged to the local aquarists society and would go to talks and slideshows in the evening.

All good things come to an end. One day when I came home at the end of a university term the tank was gone. My parents were tired of looking after it and had given it to a younger cousin. It was 40 years before I took up fishkeeping again .................

Still, fish were part of a general enthusiasm for anything living which eventually led me to a degree in zoology. I still find fish and other living things far more interesting and attractive than any human "art".

I also did three subjects in my first year including chemistry, but went the other way. Mind you, in a fairly short career as a teacher, I did find chemistry much more interesting to teach than biology. This was particularly true in my years in Africa where the students had never seen a real experiment before I arrived. They would actually applaud when a particularly dramatic demonstration worked!

No, nearer to where you are now, at Durham. I believe there is no longer separate zoology and botany available, everything is "biological sciences", with emphasis on the molecular. That's where the money is.

I'm a Durham alumna, what college did you go to?

i went to the university of hard knocks 

huh i only went to London polytechnic 

Having parents who both left school at 14 and growing up in a council house I had no idea of perceived  differences between universities. I chose Durham because it seemed to be the best place where I could get housed and fed for all three years, which appealed to me more than living in some rented house and doing my own cooking  . I ended up in my college by chance not choice and felt quite out of place with all the ex public school types, most of whom were on minimum grants (£50 a year) while I was on a full grant.

Mind you perceptions of universities have changed greatly. Bath was new at that time and considered a bit of a joke, a friend of mine got in with only a D and E for A levels, but today I understand that it is relatively well regarded.

Everyone has such interesting stories! I can imagine Castle being a bit of a shock as a non-chosen college, though I'm surprised you made most of your friends in Hatfield as that has a similar reputation of mainly private school kids!

My brother and I were the first in my family to go to Uni - my brother stayed at home in Leicester but I wanted to try further afield. I'd chosen Durham as my 5th Uni to apply to and had dismissed it generally as being too far away... but I went to an open day there with my mum, and then an overnight post-offer open day and soon decided it was the place for me! It was just soooo friendly and lovely. I was the complete opposite of you Richard - I wanted to be self-catered so applied to the new college there Josephine Butler. In the end I didn't quite make my grades but my department still let me in, the college on the other hand said no - I ended up going in to a college 'pool' and ended up in Trevs and catered! But I absolutely loved my time there, I moved out in my second and third years though for a bit more choice and independence (the food in Trevs was really rather terrible!).

Three of my closest friends from school went to Cambridge though - one of whom has just graduated from the Bar. A friend from Durham has just started her PhD in Oxford. Compared to them I feel much less posh hehe.

Still even having a degree from a top Uni hasn't meant much for me at the minute... the job market being what it is and my chosen field being apparently impossible to break into!