First tank was 8 gal biocube. I had rocks and clown fish that was it. I was in college and really couldn’t afford much more out of the hobby. I had that for a year along side a 37 gal FW that I’d had for a long time. Finally got bored one day and decided to spend $100 to turn my FW into SW. so I bought some rocks, some sand, some water, salt, and a damsel. Eventually moved my clown in and got rid of the damsel (took back to store). Just kept using my same hang on back filter and crappy lights. At Christmas my parents go me current USA T5s and a small sump(not a fancy one, it had floss and bio balls). Someone else got me a $200 GC for livestock. So I went to my local LFS and said I have this much for fish, what can I get. They were like pretty much anything except that 3 foot shark. So I got a black clown fish, a yellow tang, and a fuzzy dwarf lion fish (4 fish in a 45 gal system, 1 tang). Went back a few weeks later said I always like the blue hippo tang. Was told it would get along great with my yellow tang. 5 fish in a 45 gallon system, 2 tangs. Went back a few weeks later, had a special on coral beautys, got one. 6 fish in a 45 gallon system, 2 tangs. Then I got a baby horseshoe crab, an electric flame scallop, and a condy nem. Eventually got Xenia a frog spawn, and overall just really loved my tank. This lasted ohhhhh about 2 weeks and one by one everything died off. Kept going to my LFS and having them test the water, couldn’t find anything. The we started testing for copper...and calcium, and alkalinity, what the heck is alkalinity? This started in January. By March the tank had nothing in it and couldn’t support life. I left the lights going and couldn’t even grow much algae. My clean up crew didn’t even survive. Good times.
