Well, since you asked . . .
A long, long time ago, back in the mid-late '70s while I was attending College full time, I worked weeknights in a few of the larger aquarium stores here on Long Island. These included Tropical Wonderland out on Montuak Hwy in Bayshore, Tropical Showcase in Hicksville and maybe the most famous of all, Ed's Tropical Aquarium in Bethpage and Lynbrook.
Worked in these shops weeknights and on weekends worked the deck of a then-major charter boat - the Bluefin II out of Woodcleft Canal, Freeport. Jeesh, I guess I couldn't get enough of the fishies, even then.
My job was generally as "The Closer" - I was given the responsibilty of completing those sales that would yield the greatest revenue to the stores. In a pleasant, but purposeful way it was my job to move the customer into the better lines of tanks, filters, higher-priced glass gravel - explaining in simple terms what was required to maintain the system and above all - sell the guy on the higher-priced "Consumables" like Ed's house brand of activated charcol, for example.
You see back then at least, people assumed that you made a killing on the tank and accessories, but that wasn't where the money was, it was in the fishies and the consumables - filtering media, fish food, live food, chemicals and the like. Maybe still that way, I really cannot say. But that is what I did, and now looking back I suppose that's where I picked up and honed what little salesmanship abilities I've carried fwd to this day. Talking isn't my weak point as is regularly pointed out to me.
Anyway, those jobs gave me lots of exposure to the maintenance side of things too and pH, dH, salinity, nitrate levels, these were terms and concepts that I dealt with all the time.
All this exposure to aquariums made me quite jaded to the "Run-of-the-mill" species - though veiled angels and the such were and are quite beautiful, I had an eye for the exotic. At the time SW aquarium-keeping was in its infancy and seeing the losses we took even in the stores soured me totally to them, so what was left?
Well there was this whole new type of fish just starting to be imported into this country from Africa - and they collectively became known as African "Rift Valley" Cichlids from Kenya and Mozambeque - distant relatives to the very popular South American cichlids, like the Oscars, Jack Dempseys and Convicts that had been around for years, but these new AFRICAN cichlids were strikingly different - really brightly colored in all sortsa combinations, many strangely shaped and they were above all, EXOTIC and EXPENSIVE.
None were yet bred in captivity, so all had to be laboriously hand netted, bagged and then flown into this country for eventual sale to the rich American public.
I was in love. I had to have the most diverse collection I could afford. My 55-gal tank was clearly insufficient for this, so a 100-gal was quickly purchased at employer-cost and all the accoutrements required for a tank of that size as well.
These fish were quite pricey in those days, more than SW fish even, but I didn't care - I got a nice discount and had to have them.
So over about 10 weeks I put together a very nice assortment of juvenile specimens and was really quite proud of my tank with these unique fish displayed in the reef-like surroundings that they were collected from.
Because these fish were REALLY new, there was not much know about them at the time. But I got plenty of experience and quite quickly.
Lesson 1 - these fish were EXTREMELY territorial and would beat any adversary just to death that dared to try to inhabit ITS part of the reef. Lost plenty that way, particularly when they started growing up and the males started exerting their "maleness."
Lesson 2 - Not much was known at the time about the water chemistry these fish required - we knew about the high alkalinity and the saltiness of course, but who thought that nitrates were important to such a hardy-appearing fish? Lost ENTIRE tanks of them to a parasitic protozoan that inhabited their intestinal tracks and was just waiting for a water chemistry-induced stressful situation to weaken them. Hundreds and hundreds of Dollars worth of them would just quit eating, get a nasty case of bloat and then turn upside down and float up to the surface dead. Water changes, careful monitoring of pH and dH were ineffective as were most of the antibiotics available to us back them.
It was just heart-breaking watching this scenario repeatedly play out time and time again as these beautiful fish that had travelled half-way around the world to live in my tank just bloated up and died. Despite my best efforts.
After about 2 years and a few thousand hard-earned part-time dollars wasted, I just gave up and sold the entire setup.
I always wondered if that bloat problem was ever solved, I was sooo turned off and soured to the whole situation that upon graduating college and moving on in life I never really kept track of that side of the hobby. Or any other side, for that matter. Plus about that time I decided I wanted a boat more than dying aquarium fish - so that's wherethe money started going. Not to mention the weekend "Trolling" we discussed on another thread.
I wonder if the problems specific to those fish were ever licked, maybe with nitrate filtration via protein skimmers.
Anybody ever get involved in this somewhat arcane side of the hobby?
Well, that's my Aquarium story anyway.
rgds,
Leprechaun
