Victorian Era pico reefs

[brandon429]

I was linked by my friend Mark (Warlion) to reefbuilders.com to read the article about 1800's vase reefs thought you guys might like that.

 

http://reefbuilders.com/2010/07/03/evoluti...bby/#more-20826

 

 

Knowing what to type now for searches "Lloyd's propagating glass aquarium" yields some clips from the original works, really detailed works with funny archaic terms

one would imagine they were able to culture reds, greens purples and all the colors available on live rock and marine plants, it was impressive to see them do so much in bare bones setups so long ago. Their works reflect the systems were uncirculated...that goes against current knowledge, so which is it?

 

Other antiquated machinery was awe-inspiring for what it accomplished so on the other hand maybe these guys knew something that allowed an uncirculated tank to run like this? a mystery.

 

To me, the drawings looked like concept drawings, not those of aged aquariums. This doesn't detract from the story to me, it just sets the angle.

 

other links on the web will show romans keeping anemones in vases back in their day as well...

 

things that came to mind after reading this link above:

 

-how close did you have to live to the ocean to have one? (pre instant ocean days lol)

 

-does that drawing depict a full ecosystem in a still container? If you can see, the artists rendering in the pictures shows literally a mud system and refugium in a jar

 

Other things that really strike me about this article:

-nothing new under the sun as stated in that article

-what happens to our live rock if we put it in a still container on a windowsill with no heating and no tank circulation? Has anyone tried to replicate this with modern technologies, a perfectly still ecosystem?

-some of the terminologies sound just like us that shocked me most, they did their forum work with quill pens and welled ink.

-they listed cycling methods (remove the scum layer from the glass and wait for it to recede) for ancient pico reefs, do you know how neat that is

 

 

what do you think

[BLoCkCliMbeR]

my guess is they were short lived like 80% of the picos out there now

 

your one of like 3-4 freaks i know about that can keep one alive for more than a year

[brandon429]

heh its just water changes

 

I was able to read further on their printed stuff where those guys were sending messages to each other about keeping the water clear for days on days without a change, you never know what those freaks found out lol

 

the only conclusion I can draw is the illuminati must have silenced their discoveries until a later date how funny the pico reef gap jumps from 650 ad to 1850's to 1970's

 

google reader had exerpts from their old aquarium manuals I want one for sure in written print if I can find it. Its a nano reef blog from eons ago must have on the shelf

[thesmallerthebetter]

well crap! haha

 

thats awsome brandon....great read too. couldnt help but identify with the last few paragraphs haha.

 

i was just the other day digging through my aquarium crap and seeing that i had a few old slate bottomed tanks, and a few aquarium manuals from the freaking stone age (early 70s).

 

i got the itch to try and set up a tank with period equipment, and a few mods that would have been available at that time and try and run a modern reef in one.....

[c_k_kuehne]

Very interesting article. Yup back in the late 1980's I had one of those 1st wet/dry trickle filters. At the time it was thought to be "state of the art". My how things have changed and yet the basic principles stay the same.

 

 

your one of like 3-4 freaks i know about that can keep one alive for more than a year

 

Hopefully at the end of Jan 2011 you will be able to add 10 or more people to the list of successful pico reefs over the 1 year mark

[c_k_kuehne]

I did google "Lloyd's propagating glass aquarium" and got some very interesting articles to read. Thanks for posting this Brandon

[Sword]

Hopefully at the end of Jan 2011 you will be able to add 10 or more people to the list of successful pico reefs over the 1 year mark

My pico is at 15 months or so. It's become my blue crab's lair though. The glass needs to be cleaned but it still has zoanthids, blue cloves, and green star polyps growing out of control. I upgraded and took most of the coral out of it and have just let those take over.

[brandon429]

http://books.google.com/books?id=9CMZAAAAY...p;q&f=false

 

 

 

Thats some high tech stuff for the 1800's

[Mr. Microscope]

Awesome stuff! Thanks for sharing.

[brandon429]

And thank you for reading, did you happen to scan that old book (must have!!) to see where the lady of Paris had a cuttlefish tank in the 1800's, seriously that book is written by some kind of distant kin

 

 

in that book he talks about long term anemone farming, crytpic zones (called something else but its the tanks half dark/half daylit) the more I read the more it shows we are doing literally nothing different after as many years thats a little discouraging

[Weetabix7]

There is nothing new under the sun.

[brandon429]

+1 except for tyree gold that's new.