Welcome to our first reef tank ( 16 Gallon )

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We started our first reef tank on November 2001. We bought this ECLIPSE 1 tank and stand from our friend for $ 50. First thing , we bought a 13 inch power compact light. That time we did not realize that the light that we bought it does not fit the lid of ECLIPSE 1. We almost gave up using this tank for our reef tank.
But my husband adapted this lid and use it with power compact light that we bought. He took ECLIPSE 's filter out and uses Millennium 1000 filter $ 22.00 instead.
We bought most of the stuff at Pet store near my home

  

We put 20 pounds live sand and our home made salt water in the same day. The next day I went to buy live rock. ( my husband told me do not do it cause it was too soon ). After putting live rock , Ammonia jumped up so high. So, I changed water about 30% every day for 7 days.
On the 8th day , we went to buy somthing new.

On the 8th day , we bought 9 hermit crab , 1 snail , 1 fire   shrimp and frog spawn coral and torch coral. When we put all of it into our tank , Ammonia was still high. We changed water every day and put CYCLE to build up bacterial and AMQUEL to remove ammonia. About 5-6 days of changing water , Ammonia was better but Nitrite was higher. We kept change water every day about 8-9 days. That time I learned motto that mixing salt water is boring ( buying salt water is better). We put MARINE SNOW food and KENT reef starter kit almost everyday.
After checking water , My husband bought one Pajama fish and one Mandarin Goby ( goby died 2 days after).

Later, one arm of Frog spawn and on arm of Torch started to die. Then, we bought Hammer coral,1 Royal gramma , 2 common clowns , 2 damsels , 1 mandarin goby, 1orange spotted goby, 2 emerald crabs and 1 yellow anemone. We put all of that in one time. Everybody is fine expect one clown fish. ( he die cause other clown fish beat him) . We set heater at 78*. Until now, everything is still OK. i hope they will be OK for long long time.  
P.S if my i spot my fish die i will take him out and change water ASAP. but some time i can not take it out , carb and shrimps will eat it.

 

After few trys , we gave up on  madarin goby cause it was not good in a small tank, this fish eat small amount but all the time. Our small tank have no food enough for madarin goby .  TelI you the thruth, i don't like  anenome any more because he moves around and he always stay at the back of the tank. We try to clean the front and side tank every day from green alegy but the back of the tank i leave it to be food for crabs and snails 

Web site started on 02/03/2002
Last up date 02/10/2002