First off, Yes I see this thread is two years old. (I read slow) I just saw it by searching for undergravel filters, (which I actually still use). No really!.
I started this hobby in 1971, I think it was on Tuesday about 2 or 2:30 in the afternoon. That is also when the hobby started in the states. At that time we had no technology, not even credit cards. We also had no artificial salt or gravel. (I used blue driveway gravel and water from the East River) We had incandescent lights and that's about it. No powerheads only piston air pumps. Our fish lived. They hated us, but they lived. When they got sick (and they always came to us sick) we used human medications as there were no salt water fish medications. Ich was called oodinium, then white spot disease, then coral fish disease then something else. I don't know what it is called now as my fish are not allowed to get it. Eventually they invented powerheads. But they were not submersible. At least you were not supposed to submerge them. (there also were no GFCIs, but we were Men and the shocks kept us awake) They sat on top of the tube to the undergravel filter as that was the only type of filtration except the HOB filter with fiberglass in it that we all used.
Our corals were dead, white corals that we bought in furniture stores, (they used it for decoration) The only electronics we had was our doorbell that someone would ring as they came door to door trying to sell you vacuum cleaners or brushes.
Our fish lived fine.
We didn't dose anything but we did take out our corals every week to soak in bleach or acid to make them nice and white. The first fish food sold was dried ants. (That is not a misprint) I used earthworms, clams, sardines or anything else they would eat. My fish lived, but they started to like me more.
In 1972 my blue devils spawned. There was no food for them and they would not eat meat loaf. Eventually I learned how to keep the fish healthy and spawning, but only blue devils, dominoe's and sergeant majors were for sale. Oddly enough Moorish Idols came a little while later. Guess what kind of luck I had keeping them alive?
Gradually different systems came about. Jaubert, bioballs, etc. I had them all and discarded them all in favor of my still running reverse undergravel filter and dolomite gravel. (The driveway gravel just didn't cut it)
Martin Moe was around then but no one else. I know Albert Thiel and he started a few years after me. All the rest of them came about later.
I have had fish continuously over 60 years and I love this hobby. For me it is not even a hobby but a way of life. Some people love the technology, some love the colors of the SPS, some (like me) like to see everything spawn, and some are here for the Supermodels.
I can't say if technology has made more people leave the hobby, but it takes a special type of person to stay with this. There are a few of us around who have been doing it for over 20 years, but not many. The vast majority sadly leave before 5 years.
Here is my tank circa 1972. You can see the bleached corals and that Male model next to the tank.
Here is the first page of my log book showing how I killed all my fish.
Blue devil over his nest of eggs in that barnacle shell (Circa 1972)
Blue devil eggs.
