Aquarium filter history

[Pepere]

As a child in the late 60s everybody I knew used box filters. Poly fill on top with activated carbon on the bottom, air driven filtration.

 

Fancy tanks had undergravel plates, but they were considered too expensive for the majority.

I saw photos and descriptions of powered hang on back filters, but never saw one in real life back then.

Never ever heard of a sponge filter back then.

Were they used then? When did they become more common?

 

And when did the Canister Filter enter common use in the hobby?

 

Edited May 26 by Pepere

[Fish Folk]

I'm not sure that I've got a good answer for you -- my living hobby memory doesn't stretch back earlier than the 1980s.

But sometimes you can review old copies of Tropical Fish Hobbyist magazine from the 1960s and note what equipment is advertised. Here is a searchable example from Internet Archive of an issue from 1961. You'll see "outside filters" advertised (HOBs), and the classic Box filters too.

https://archive.org/details/Tropical_Fish_Hobbyist_Volume_63_Number_9_/mode/2up

 

 

[BF McUmber]

My grandfather and father remember a filter that looks like todays sponge filter but was rock wool. It was air driven. That's all the information they can remember about it though.  

[Tanked]

I have read that cannister filters were intended to be used for drinking water.  I don't know when they came into common use, but the transition makes sense.  Eheim claims to have invented them in'62-'63. https://eheim.com/en_GB/company/history/#1970-1979

My older brother introduced me to aquariums in the early sixties. He could not remember the filters , but I clearly remember  a wall full of Metaframe aquariums and the centrifugal pumps clattering in the darkness.  As a kid I also had the box filters sitting in the corner.  They seemed to require cleaning even more often than the aquarium.  Beneficial bacteria didn't exist back then.😷

Cory visited LRB Aquatics about 6 years back and the video shows a lot of old aquarium equipment. search: WORLDS BIGGEST Aquarium Antique Paraphernalia Collection on YouTube.  If they got into filters, I missed it, but it is still interesting.

[Odd Duck]

I remember corner box filters mostly but also remember sponge filters from very far back (late 60’s when I was old enough to notice and remember).  When I got my first tank in 1975 it had some very well-used HOB filters that were at the very least several years old.  I limped by with them for another 5 years, then finally installed an UGF when the tank got moved once I got married in 1980.  I had mostly sponges or UGF’s for fresh, very different filtration for the reef tank we first started in 1983.

I was still using mostly UGF or HOB through to the 90’s (except the reef).  Tried a few different canister filters in the 80’s and 90’s, always a bit disappointing, then had a catastrophic event with a canister that was overdue for cleaning when we had a power outage.  Still used the canister when we changed that tank into a wet bottom, sort-of paludarium/terrarium since it was the easiest way to get water out of one side and over to the other to trickle down the waterfall, but never used another after we finally sold that tank, which was the end of my fishkeeping for a good while (10-12 years?).

Been using HOB’s mostly with the fairly recent start back up with fishkeeping, until around a year ago when I started switching my smaller tanks over to matten foam substrate over UGF.  Very happy so far other than when my airline comes loose.  That issue will get solved once I consolidate into the Offish and run an air loop.  Every airline is going to get secured with zip ties plus cats won’t have access anymore.

I don’t even remember using dechlorinators way back, we put water into a bucket and ran an airstone in it for at least 24 hrs to off-gas the chlorine.  Then you did your water change.  I think I started using dechlorinators sometime in the mid-80’s when I first started getting a lot of tanks.  I don’t remember hearing about bottle bacteria until around the early to mid 80’s?  They weren’t highly thought of back then and I’d never tried them until very recently - like last week.  😆 

[nabokovfan87]

On 5/25/2023 at 6:52 PM, Pepere said:

Were they used then? When did they become more common?

Here's one of em

 

Honestly, for me when I was a kid our filter was UGF plates, but our actual cleaning mechanism was to remove everything once in a while and then to clean everything at the sink.

We did eventually upgrade to a penguin filter too.

[Pepere]

 

[Bev C]

 Way back when I was younger, in the 60s, my Uncle had the corner box filter  do not remember a sponge filter ....  I did not get in the hobby till way later ,,, the AuquClear was already out ... but I bought an old corner box filter to use when I need an emergency filter or need a extra quick filter … When needed. Using it now. With an extra temporary baby nursery tank