Aquarium: The glass house for our finned friends was invented by a seamstress!
Fish make great pets, don’t you think? They are low-maintenance, calm and soothing to watch. They look even more beautiful in a brightly-hued well-lit aquarium, isn’t it? Well, aquarium was invented by Jeanne Villepreux-Power, a French seamstress-turned-marine biologist, in 1839! But fish-keeping has been around for much longer than that. In fact, the Chinese and Romans have been keeping fish as pets for a staggering 4,500 years! However, their methods were vastly different from the modern glass aquaria used nowadays. So, what did their aquaria look like, and how did a seamstress invent one of the most popular mechanisms to preserve fish? Let’s dive deep into the history of fish-keeping and learn how Villepreux-Power's invention revolutionised the way we care for our finned friends.
Fish keeping in ancient times
People have been keeping fish as pets for centuries. People from the Sumerian civilization (4500–1900 BC) in the Arabian Peninsula were among the first people to keep fish in artificial ponds. They were followed by the ancient Egyptians, who also kept fish in the same manner. But the Chinese were the first to successfully breed fish, particularly carp, a type of freshwater fish, for food. They even started selectively breeding goldfish for their beauty! Later on, the Japanese took this idea and perfected it by creating even more beautiful ornamental fish. The ancient Romans were the first people known to keep fish as pets. They had ponds that were filled with fresh seawater from the ocean! However, in the 19th century, our finned friends got their beautiful glass homes. Let’s see how that happened!
The invention of glass aquarium
In 1839, a remarkable marine biologist Jeanne Villepreux-Power, who was originally a seamstress, invented the first glass aquarium! Her motivation for this invention was to keep her marine specimens alive in the lab because they would die quickly once taken out of the ocean. She recognised that a glass container would allow her to observe the creatures more closely while keeping them healthy and safe. Thus glass aquarium came into being. However, Villepreux-Power was not content with just one type of glass aquarium. She created three different designs. One was for indoor study, one for shallow water and the third was anchored to the ocean floor. With her marine specimens thriving, Jeanne's research progressed, and she came up with the idea of using fish raised in aquaria to repopulate the rivers. Unfortunately, most of her research was lost in a shipwreck. What a tragedy! Later on, several people improvised on her concept of aquaria to bring forth the modern versions.
Modern aquaria
After Villepreux-Power’s ground-breaking invention, many people created new and advanced aquariums. Anna Thynee, a marine zoologist from Britain, built the first marine aquarium in 1846. With this invention, she brought the wonders of the ocean to the city. But it wasn't until 1850, when Robert Warington, a chemist from Britain, came up with a modern design, that aquaria really took off. His idea was to create a glass structure filled with sand, snails and plants that could provide oxygen. The plants would give oxygen to the fish, snails would eat decaying plants and lay eggs and the fish would feed off these snail eggs, a perfect cycle, isn’t it? This idea was so successful that aquaria were set up using this principle for many years without the filtration and heaters that we have today. It was in the 1950s that the first filtration system, called the undergravel filter, was introduced.
The journey of aquarium from science labs to our homes is fascinating, isn’t it?