all these different procedures

[lee8040]

how comes theres suddenly all these different thngs that have to be done all the time, like water changes, test kits, vacuaming etc. when i was a kid my dad had a big tropical tank, had live plants and a standard undergravel filter and airstone. thing was hardly ever cleaned out as it never needed to be, had loads of different fish, plenty of live plants which neither of these died, and never did any water changes and water stayed crystal clear and fish lived for years. now i read people doing all these stuff but is it really neccessary?

if my tank now looked like that i'd be a happy man

 

[dwarfgourami]

I had a tropical tank perhaps at about the same time as your Dad, never did any maintenace, hardly ever did water changes, had no test kit - and my fish all died!

I know lots of stories like mine, but of course they don't get told as often.

There is also the point that many species are less hardy these days due to overbreeding. Also, many water supplies are less pure and more heavily chlorinated these days.

In your Dad's case, having a large tank (= more stable than the small tanks many people on this forum start out with) and lots of plants was probably part of the secret of his success.

how comes theres suddenly all these different thngs that have to be done all the time, like water changes, test kits, vacuaming etc. when i was a kid my dad had a big tropical tank, had live plants and a standard undergravel filter and airstone. thing was hardly ever cleaned out as it never needed to be, had loads of different fish, plenty of live plants which neither of these died, and never did any water changes and water stayed crystal clear and fish lived for years. now i read people doing all these stuff but is it really neccessary?

if my tank now looked like that i'd be a happy man

[snapback]900397[/snapback]​

 

[annka5]

I agree with the above, but also:
Other factors could be stocking levels - if you have a higher number of plants and lower number of fish, a tank will need less maintenance.
Also, my understanding is that in the past, most people had to feed live food as the dried food alternative was ants eggs -which have almost no nutritional value in them. This causes less pollution, arguably is better for the fish, etc etc.
AND, don't be offended, do you really accurately remember how often and how much water your Dad changed, etc? I know i wouldn't.

 

[Tiggs]

2 factors at play:

1) people have rose tinted views of the tanks their parents kept years ago - it may have been crap but you'd still recall it as being superb!

2) the internet/fish shop trade gets off on lots of rules/ways of doing things. LFS does so you buy more gear to do it with - forums do because it lets people feel a bit clever "what......you dont use the fishless/deep sand bed/fert dosing/undergravel c02 pumping/fuel injected system...are you mad"

In reallity if you do more than your dad and less than the "internet pros" suggest - you will prob be fine.

T

 

[kat and james]

also now we know more about keeping fish, the water conditions they require etc, also fish keeping is a more widely practised hobby than before, therefore there is plenty of info available so we can all give our little babies the best chance of a happy life

 

[yvez9]

how comes theres suddenly all these different thngs that have to be done all the time, like water changes, test kits, vacuaming etc. when i was a kid my dad had a big tropical tank, had live plants and a standard undergravel filter and airstone. thing was hardly ever cleaned out as it never needed to be, had loads of different fish, plenty of live plants which neither of these died, and never did any water changes and water stayed crystal clear and fish lived for years. now i read people doing all these stuff but is it really neccessary?

if my tank now looked like that i'd be a happy man

[snapback]900397[/snapback]​

I know lots of people never do water changes, they just top off the tank. Although I don't really know if it's a requirement to keep the fish alive, i think about this: fish pee and poop all the time. IMO, the only way the pee and poop goes away is if you take it out. Filters won't filter that jinda crap.

Now let me ask you this. How would you like to swim in you and your surrounding's pee all day?

 

[Tiggs]

how comes theres suddenly all these different thngs that have to be done all the time, like water changes, test kits, vacuaming etc. when i was a kid my dad had a big tropical tank, had live plants and a standard undergravel filter and airstone. thing was hardly ever cleaned out as it never needed to be, had loads of different fish, plenty of live plants which neither of these died, and never did any water changes and water stayed crystal clear and fish lived for years.  now i read people doing all these stuff but is it really neccessary?

if my tank now looked like that i'd be a happy man

[snapback]900397[/snapback]​

I know lots of people never do water changes, they just top off the tank. Although I don't really know if it's a requirement to keep the fish alive, i think about this: fish pee and poop all the time. IMO, the only way the pee and poop goes away is if you take it out. Filters won't filter that jinda crap.

Now let me ask you this. How would you like to swim in you and your surrounding's pee all day?

[snapback]900665[/snapback]​

think you'll find thats what filters do!

 

[The-Wolf]

how comes theres suddenly all these different thngs that have to be done all the time, like water changes, test kits, vacuaming etc.

[snapback]900397[/snapback]​

The short answer is
that we (society) care more about the life of a fish than we(society) did in bygone years.

 

[Firebelle_uk]

I'm a newbie myself, and basically decided to keep tropicals because of those wonderful tanks my Dad had. I can't remember him doing any water changes or treating the tap water, he just used to set everything up leave it a week and stock with fish. I can't remember how many fish he lost at the start, very few I think. But I do remeber that sometimes we would buy new fish and OH BOY! That usually led to trouble fin-rot, white-spot etc you name it. Also our only source of reference was the local library which had five books on tropical fish - we borrowed them at different times. So like people have said a lot of lot is that people have studied fish more - actually I bet if you ask at your local Secondary it would be quite possible at least one science teacher is a landlocked marine biologist! And the information is there right in front of us on the net, when we had to do whatever we felt was best a few years back.
That said I was still sceptical, and despite warnings I haven't cycled my tank exactly the way a lot of people have advised because it takes to long and I'm impatient. I have kind of cut the middle ground so it was my own fault when I got a nitrite spike, and as a result panicked by what I'd read instead of leaving things to take their course I did a water change. The amazing thing is not only did I take advantage of the fact I wanted some of the water out, but by using a thin syphon tube I vacummed everything too, and was stunned how much muck there was, I also discovered that where one or two of my plants had dead leaves the vacumming effect removed a lot of the debris etc. Overall the tank looked exceptionally fresh and bright afteer the water change, and whther or not it does the fish any good I can't say, but I certainly enjoyed doing it and the effect it has had on my viewing pleasure, for me water changes are going to be a regular occurence just for the pure self indulgence of sitting back after and enjoying the view.

 

[OohFeeshy]

I agree with the rose tinted glasses thingy. Think about it- people are always like that about the past. You know 'oh, back in my day us kids used to stay out from dawn till dusk and we never had to worry about being abducted'. Etc. It seems to be exactly the same story with everyone- if it was true in every case they'd never sell many fish.

 

[Synirr]

I know I would like to say the tanks my parents and I had in the past were wonderful and clean and everything was just dandy, but when I really think about it that's not the way it was at all. Sure, the water looked crystal clear, but I remember buying a whole lot of replacement fish because sometimes our fish would just die "randomly" like "fish sometimes do". Yeah, that's what we thought at the time. Now I know better.

We'd buy new fish and they'd often die within a week, almost certainly because they were unable to handle the water that hadn't been changed in a year or so. When we did clean the tank, we'd take it completely apart and scrub everything down, so it would have to completely recycle every time. The end result is that the only thing that ever lived in there for long were extremely hardy fish such as goldfish, who could probably manage to survive in toilet water

 

[annka5]

But, it is true to say that there is more choice of gear now, particularly if you consider the internet.
In the past, UG filters were The Thing, so the gravel you used had to be a certain grain size. You'd never have a dilemma re: sand.
Then lighting wasn't as good, which made CO2 injection & fertilizer for plants pointless.
Test kits weren't as used, so instead, if there looked to be a problem, either your fish died or you changed some water or both. The question wouldn't be "what are your stats" it'd be "whats your maintenance schedule" or "when did you last do a water change" which actually makes more sense.
Even the choice of fish food was incredibly limited.
Generally, things had to be simpler, in that there was no choice to make, but not necessarly better.
I reckon the issue now is that people have forgotten to use COMMON SENSE.
Also, on a forum, a lot of questions are going to be either looking for advice in setting up, or when things have gone wrong, so it does seem like it's more complex and whatever.