History dude Posted August 20, 2011 Share Posted August 20, 2011 Back in the 70's and 80's there was a craze for keeping tropical fish in tanks. Lots of shops catered for them, so I thought I start a thread seeing if other members remember them or use to keep fish in tanks. Perhaps some of you still do? I've touched on Mace's, in another thread, but they as you know stocked alsorts of animals and didn't just keep fish. My favourite was Aqua Marine Tropicals, just up Broad Street. But most people called it "Gordon's" after the chap that ran it. I could spend a good hour figuring out which fish to buy, but Gordon didn't mind! He was always helpful about setting your tank up, what things to buy for it, when the fish got sick you went to him. He soon have it sorted. I think he knew I like Loaches and so he would say if he got one in stock. But as they are right sods to catch, he would say to me you'd better have the net! Sadly it's closed down now. The other big place was on West Bar. It was called the International... something or other... It was dived into two parts, the shop part at the front were they sold the tanks and stuf to go with them. But in the back were the tanks, as you went inside the tank room the heat just hit you. It was the nearest you could get to tropical conditions in Sheffield in the winter There was another shop on the Wicker, which the name escapes me, but all the tanks were arranged against the wall on the right side of the shop as you walked in, while on the left were on the materials to keep the fish. I remember it being cheaper on air pumps and materials than other Fish shops. The only other place that I have fond memories of is the one in Sheaf Market, called Ogliys (probably spelt wrong). They got to know me and my loach thing too and any newbie shop girl was given the task of catching them! Till I said let me try!! Here's a picture of any shop girl's nightmare to catch Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DaveH Posted August 22, 2011 Share Posted August 22, 2011 Never kept fish in the 1970's or 80's History Dude. However in the late 1990's my son started keeping goldfish / shebunkins / black moors etc after winning a goldfish at a fair. None of them seemed to last very long so we invested in better equipment and a larger tank. At this point I thought for a bit of extra outlay why not set up a freshwater tropical tank, - so in 1999 I set up our first tropical tank. We kept all the usual fish in it, - guppy, molly, all different types of tetras, a few catfish etc. Eventually they all started to die out and after my son lost interest I didn't bother restocking. I was down to just one last fish, a rummy nosed tetra and was considering restocking for myself but fate stepped in when the heater, maintaining a constant temperature of 25degC, malfunctioned and sent the temperature soaring, killing the last fish. My response to this in 2008 was to scrap the heater and return to coldwater fish instead, - so I bought a couple of goldfish and shebunkins which we still have today. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stuart0742 Posted August 22, 2011 Share Posted August 22, 2011 The shop on the Wicker was John Hutchinsons according to my 1970's Kelly it was at 39/41 Wicker at the junction with Stanley St <iframe width="562" height="314" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" src="http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&source=embed&hl=en&geocode=&q=Wicker,+Sheffield&aq=0&sll=53.800651,-4.064941&sspn=14.797856,43.549805&vpsrc=0&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Wicker,+Sheffield+S3+8,+United+Kingdom&t=h&layer=c&cbll=53.386985,-1.462573&panoid=SasXZL4fL14c9tZC9ItyQw&cbp=13,243.99,,0,0&ll=53.379604,-1.457062&spn=0.016076,0.048237&z=14&output=svembed"></iframe><br /><small><a href="http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&source=embed&hl=en&geocode=&q=Wicker,+Sheffield&aq=0&sll=53.800651,-4.064941&sspn=14.797856,43.549805&vpsrc=0&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Wicker,+Sheffield+S3+8,+United+Kingdom&t=h&layer=c&cbll=53.386985,-1.462573&panoid=SasXZL4fL14c9tZC9ItyQw&cbp=13,243.99,,0,0&ll=53.379604,-1.457062&spn=0.016076,0.048237&z=14" style="color:#0000FF;text-align:left">View Larger Map</a></small> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SteveHB Posted August 22, 2011 Share Posted August 22, 2011 The shop on the Wicker was John Hutchinsons according to my 1970's Kelly it was at 39/41 Wicker at the junction with Stanley St picturesheffield Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
History dude Posted August 22, 2011 Author Share Posted August 22, 2011 Some fish don't live long anyway. But you have to get a balance between feeding and water quality. Food left around in a tank will rot and send the water off. Tropical fish generally have low tolerence to water quality. Whereas Goldfish are long lived and tolerate poor water conditions better than the others, which would have lived in fast flowing (therefore well aired) water. When I packed it up many years ago I was into Marine fish and coral, very expensive and even harder to get the water quality right! All we have now is water barrel, which has frogs in, plus is full of freshwater shrimps, tiny things about 6mm long! Your Goldfish would love it in there, with those shrimps! Mind you if you have a water container in your garden and it's got midge larve in it (the odd things you see on the surface moving around). Feed them to your fish! Nothing better for them! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DaveH Posted August 22, 2011 Share Posted August 22, 2011 Some fish don't live long anyway. But you have to get a balance between feeding and water quality. Food left around in a tank will rot and send the water off. Tropical fish generally have low tolerence to water quality. Whereas Goldfish are long lived and tolerate poor water conditions better than the others, which would have lived in fast flowing (therefore well aired) water. When I packed it up many years ago I was into Marine fish and coral, very expensive and even harder to get the water quality right! All we have now is water barrel, which has frogs in, plus is full of freshwater shrimps, tiny things about 6mm long! Your Goldfish would love it in there, with those shrimps! Mind you if you have a water container in your garden and it's got midge larve in it (the odd things you see on the surface moving around). Feed them to your fish! Nothing better for them! You are forgetting that I am a chemist History Dude. The tank water was tested for pH, hardness, nitrate, nitrite, ammonia, phosphate, dissolved oxygen and chlorine (gets in from untreated tap water) on a regular basis. In fact on a number of occasions I have helped students pass A level Geography when the Geography teacher couldn't help because as part of their field course work they have to look at rivers and monitor the water quality. To do this I direct them down to the tropical fish shop to get the standard testing kits, show them how to use them and then send them off on their studies. We have 3 big water butts in the garden and a further 3 on the allotment. Of the 6 4 of them are connected to gutter drainage to collect water from a bigger area. There is always plenty of wildlife in it but never used it in the fish tank. In fact in recent months my wife has emptied the barrels watering the garden faster than the rain we have had has been able to fill them up again. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DaveH Posted August 23, 2011 Share Posted August 23, 2011 Never kept fish in the 1970's or 80's History Dude. However in the late 1990's my son started keeping goldfish / shebunkins / black moors etc after winning a goldfish at a fair. None of them seemed to last very long so we invested in better equipment and a larger tank. At this point I thought for a bit of extra outlay why not set up a freshwater tropical tank, - so in 1999 I set up our first tropical tank. We kept all the usual fish in it, - guppy, molly, all different types of tetras, a few catfish etc. Eventually they all started to die out and after my son lost interest I didn't bother restocking. I was down to just one last fish, a rummy nosed tetra and was considering restocking for myself but fate stepped in when the heater, maintaining a constant temperature of 25degC, malfunctioned and sent the temperature soaring, killing the last fish. My response to this in 2008 was to scrap the heater and return to coldwater fish instead, - so I bought a couple of goldfish and shebunkins which we still have today. Images of my current, coldwater tank with goldfish Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DaveH Posted August 23, 2011 Share Posted August 23, 2011 Images of my current, coldwater tank with goldfish Here is the same tank with its earlier (circa 2004) tropical set up. Spot the fish Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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