It is know that for more than 4500 years, people kept fish in pools and later in tanks as food. The first we know were the Sumerians which used them as food in 2500 B.C. But I am quite sure that Chinese people did it at the same time - maybe earlier. But they didn´t keept fish as food for only purpose. They discovered also the beauty of some fish and breed them. This can be proven in frescoes in Egypten or by mosaic frescoes by rich Roman families. The main fish were sweetwater fish, while the saltwater fish was catched out of the sea. The first known scientist was Aristotle who lived in Greek from 383 till 322 B.C. He was the teacher of Alexander the great. Hefound 115 fish species in the Aegean Sea. Nowadays we know that more than 20.000 fish species are around this planet! 1000 years ago carp and goldfish were professional breed in China (long before in Japan). In 1600 the goldfish was brought from Japan to England and around 1800 to America. Because of its popularity he was breed in lakes throught the country and if there was no lake close by a glass vessel had to be enough. In the middle of the 1900 century (around 1853) the first public aquarium was opened in London/Regents Park (it might be also the first in this world). This was starting signal for England, France and Germany to open throught the country public aquariums and the aquaristiic was born. The technic was very rudimentarily. Imagine that electricity didn´t existed at that time but the interest was very high and so technic was improved from time to time. In 1856 in the USA the government established the Division of Fishes of the Smithsonian Institution of the National Museum. In the next decades there was an increasing interest in fish and its enviroment. The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institue (1885) and the Institute of Oceanography (1903) were founded in this time. They offered public aquarium tanks and the awaken interest was hugh. Today the popularity of fish pets is only beaten by dogs and cats and so it comes that more than 7.4 million households own a aquarium and fish. As the technic improved it became easy also for public people to hold their "house pet" fish. it took till 1950 till the first undergravel filter was invented. The seawater or marine ornamental fish began in 1974 to be commercial. One of the first marine fish were clownfish. Today even the marine aquarium is easy to keep successfully alive. Click on animals if you are more interested on animals.

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