I've been looking for one of these rare vintage tanks for about 5 years now. I finally found one that is complete with the original bulb edge glass and bronze plating. This is a 4 gal. "Modernistic" tank made by the Jewel company of Chicago around 1930. It has bronze plated cast iron corners and bases sitting on top of a thick piece of slate and four iron legs underneath that look like pipes with rubber in the ends of them. The four corners are screwed down into these feet I believe. The Jewel company only made a total of 300 "Modernistic" tanks which included both 4 and 8 gal. models as well as bronze plated and silver painted models. So these tanks are exceedingly rare. I had some acrylic pipes made for my inflow and output going to my Eheim Ecco 2236 which is in the Egyptian themed base along with a UV sterilizer and inline heater. I've had the tank running for several weeks now waiting for a suitable light. After doing extensive internet searches I came upon these vintage X-ray shades. They were used by businesses in the 1920's and 1930's so they are contemporary with the tank. They came in different shapes and colors but their "golden armor" model I thought would look great with the bronze patina of the tank. They are glass and have a highly reflective mirror coating on the inside. This one I found on ebay came with its original black metal socket holder. I found that it originally had a ceramic socket that was used with this holder so I found one on ebay that matched it. I then had to hunt down some wire and a plug that looked vintage. I found this gold cloth covered pulley wire and a repro white plastic plug made to look like an original ceramic one. I just finished wiring it and installing it a few hours ago. The shade has some small spots where there is paint loss so you can see the light shining through them but this is to be expected from an 80 year old shade. I've only placed some eco complete in the bottom of the tank and threw in some cuttings from one of my other tanks along with hornwort that just doesn't stop growing. I need to clear all this out and do some aquascaping but I wanted to share this because you just don't see these every day.
Salt & Metal dont go good together.. So it makes sense for a brackish tank to have rust problems. Freshwater, though? Shouldnt be a problem. Ive had SS mesh pieces in my 75G for like 2 years now and no problems with a PH of 7.5 or so.
I just got these two beautiful large Seiryu stones and couldn't resist putting them in this tank. I know they're so large that the scale seems off compared to the size of the tank but I like the end result. There's even a cave under the largest of the two stones. I also am going to try growing a moss wall on the back wall of the tank. I had a large mass of various mosses that have survived the warm alkaline water in this tank and thought I had enough but only got half of it done. I have more moss on the way. I'm going to try growing some mini pellia in the cracks of the rocks. I may do away with their "shrimp home" in the middle back of the tank as they now have a natural cave to hide in plus it looks out of place in the new scape I think.
I had a duplicate of my Xray shade so decided to get some lamp parts and made a chandelier for my tank. The original shade was for a 4 gal. tank and this one is 8 gal. so I need more light coverage but wanted to keep the 1920's look so made this up. It's not perfect but it's my first try at anything like this.
Thanks, glad you like them. I did a little tweaking on the lights and bent them inwards so they point downwards now. Just took these photos of the shrimp:
Did you just bend the ends down? Or did you make some more changes? That fixture is made pretty well! That center connection piece really looks similar to xray shade! That black part on top of the right fixture is a different though?
Thanks, that was the look I was going for. Yes, I just bent the ends down. The black parts are the original shade holders. They are different but they're hard enough to find let alone a matching pair so that's what I'm going with.
I recently obtained this very rare antique aquarium microscope attributed to Collins of London and made c1860. I had never seen one outside of a museum and I got this from the collection of one of the world's foremost authorities on antique microscopes, Professor Yuval Goren, of the Tel Aviv University in Israel so I'm confident that it is an aquarium microscope.
Thanks, my wife has commented on both and she doesn't like the time or money spent on my current passion. She thinks I should do more mundane chores around the house. When I tell her that I can't let the forum subscribers down she's unconcerned, how rude! Although the saving money, paying off debts part she's probably right but then where's the fun in life if you don't have something that you enjoy doing?
Exactly... Seven tanks and counting. When I face and "defeat" one challenge, it opens me to a new one.
Have managed to keep and breed cherries,chocolates, tigers, crystals. Working on opae ula, then maybe some Sulawesi species of shrimp. And that's after growing orchids for many years getting many of those to grow and bloom successfully under lights.
Facing and conquering the challenges that our hobbies give us. If it wasn't for them, what would we live for? LOL!
Well my Cardinals were doing pretty well and reproducing until I rescaped the tank back in Oct. I added two large Seiryu stones and a moss wall. The moss wall didn't do well even though I tried several different varieties of moss. I think the higher temps that Cardinals like, 82-83, in this tank and the alkaline pH aren't the best for moss. It was however, great for some kind of dark green slimy looking growth that started on the moss wall and started spreading to the rocks. The shrimp wouldn't touch it. Over the course of the 4 months after rescaping my Cardinals were all but gone.
So I decided that the stones and moss wall weren't helping them and I rescaped again. This time I used the smaller Seiryu stones like I originally had and also made a little cave for them out of the rocks and added a couple pieces of Mopani wood to the tank. I also added an Anubias nana variegata and decided to only run the Vuppa when necessary (when I notice a film on the surface) as the shrimp seem to be more active when it's off and the water is calm.
I only had three adult Cardinals and two babies up until this week when I added 12 more that I got from Liam.
I just noticed today that I have one female with either very mature eggs under her tail or babies before their release. So I'm hopeful I can rebuild the colony.
I also noticed within the last couple of weeks that I have planaria. I didn't have them before the rescape so I'm guessing they came with some of the moss I bought. I'm going to try using one of the Gush Catch Pens tonight to see if I can get rid of them. I don't want to use any chemicals because I have a nice colony of Tylomelanias with several babies in with the Cardinals and White Orchids (Starry Nights). I'm not sure if planaria are actually harmful to the shrimp but if they attack the babies then they definately need to go. It's hard enough to keep these shrimp and they're expensive enough that I'm not going to allow some flatworms to harm them.
I sold the shrimp and have cleaned out the tank. I will be listing it here and on ebay in the near future. If anyone is interested PM me. I'm asking $800 which is what I have in it. Thanks
I sold the antique aquarium microscope to the same collector that bought my unique brass aquarium with the underneath lighting, again going to a good home.
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