Bit of fun historical media

[Seisage]

Found this old advertisement for Old Gold cigarettes from 1946. While I don't really understand the cultural context of the slogan (not quite sure what exactly a "fancy fish story" is...), it's fun to see some familiar faces! The tetras, rasboras, and angel are always nice to see. And the platy, swordtail, and even the guppy varieties look remarkably similar to the ones available today. It's impressive how much some things have stayed the same in almost 80 years, even as the hobby has evolved over time. It's a neat look at what fish were popular at the time and it seems like livebearers always have and always will be a cornerstone of the hobby.

It's also interesting to see what the public perception of a "fish tank" might've been back in the 40s. The live plants make sense. It probably would've seemed a bit outlandish to have anything plastic in an aquarium, considering consumer plastics were still fairly novel for many people at the time. And at that point, the soft, flexible plastics used for plastic aquarium plants wouldn't have been widely available. I have to wonder when the shift from planted, semi-natural aquariums to plastic plants and painted gravel was, and why?

 

[GaryE]

I'm not so old that I was there, but I talked with a lot of people who were. In Montreal at least, tropical fish were a huge post war fad. They were very mainstream, and the aquarium club had hundreds of very active members. When I was kid, there were six aquarium stores within easy walking distance of my grandparents' flat.
The joke about treats and treatments had to do with tank size and the cycle. Because they were pre-silicone, tanks in general were smaller. A 10 gallon was seen as a good sized tank. People overstocked. And they had this almost mystical belief in the power of old water. Yellowy old water was supposed to cure everything, and water changing was frowned upon. We still get a version of that thinking in the hobby. There was a lot of talk supporting it, but not much data.
Treatments for fungus and Ich were everywhere, as were the parasites.
The older people who taught me said you needed 2-3 inches of gravel and live plants to even consider getting fish. I don't know when plastic plants came in. I got my first tank in 1966, and recall plastic plants being pricey.

If you want to see the roots of the post war hobby, William T Innes wrote a book called Exotic Aquarium Fishes. It was a massive seller, and I have found copies in thrift stores and garage sales many times. It's really a good read - both for the hacks from a pre-tech era, and for the author's passion. Every once in a while when I have need of a solution and no access to a 'modern' solution, I open it up and see how the 1950s aquarists handled it. They were brilliant improvisers.

None of my fish smoked. However, it being the deadly era it was, one of my Uncles told me if I had to euthanize a fish , put it in a jar and throw a butt in. The nicotine would be a deadly,quick poison. Then he lit a cigarette. 2+2 didn't add up.
I never tested it.

 

[Ichthys]

I love old photos like this. And Innes’s book. Huge nostalgia there.

Even in the 1990s there was a shop we supplied that had racks that were 4 tanks high. The top row had no fish, it’s tanks were just for ageing water, which they sold.

 

[Back in the fold]

Thanks @GaryE that was a blast from the past . What you described was many of the things I experienced as a lad back in those halcyon days of 1965 and my first aquarium . Yes , a ten gallon was considered a big aquarium and the first twenty gallon I saw seemed huge . Later on we met a kid in the neighborhood whose Dad had a 55 and it was definitely overstocked but we didn’t think so or even know or care what overstocked was . It was almost a Wild West days of the aquarium hobby with much of today’s thinking not even thought of yet . I’m glad I was there and got to see it and I’m glad I was so interested that I paid attention .