Reefing History! Opinion needed.

[SimplyReefing]

My uncle came to my house & saw my 2ft reef tank. Suddenly he told me about his reefing experience 20 years back. He started reefing with 0% knowledge on Marine tank. What he does is, he takes all of the live rocks, live sand & seawater direct from the sea in Changi. And place everything on his 4ft tank. Running on a over-head filter. No activated carbon, no addictives, no skimmers, no chillers, no test kits, nothing! Just flourescent bulb lighting(not sure T5 or T8) and a over-head filter. WC done every month. Stocking up fews damsels, baby groupers & 5 Copperband Butterfly Fish caught from Semakau Waters. (Fyi: Singapore waters has alot of Copperbanded Butterfly Fish) Feeding fishes on Market Prawn. He even stocks up Sea Fans, & all those common corals in singapore waters.

What Im surprise is everything on the tank survive for 3 years until a blackout cause everything to die.

How can my uncle's tank system survive for 3 years, without those equipment used by reefers today? Any explaination?

[Gouldian]

It is possible, and still possible today. It's all a matter of what you intend to keep. I can bet my last buck that he wasn't able to keep some livestock we are keeping today though.

When I was younger, the most advanced aquarium is the Van Kleef Aquarium, but even they were only showcasing FOWLR with some hardy inverts.

[JeffL]

Van Kleef Aquarium! Miss that place, only visited there when I was really young. Didn't know when I grew up I would be so interested in keeping my own aqarium

Van Kleef Aquarium

Housing a variety of marine creatures such as sharks, piranhas and eels, Van Kleef Aquarium was built through the donation of local Dutch businessman Karl Willem Benjamin Van Kleef. The air-conditional building, a rarity during that era, was completed in 1955 at Fort Canning Park.

The aquarium’s visitorship peaked in the seventies, but by the mid-eighties, there was an obvious decline in the number of visitors which sealed its fate. With the opening of the Underwater World at Sentosa, Van Kleef Aquarium was closed in 1991 and demolished six years later.