so I bought a 38 gal tank with a 2 tube 39 watt t5 fixture,i bought 2 aqua clear filters,a marine land 400 circulation pump and 40 lbs of crushed coral. I washed out the coral and sat it in the tank then I mixed r.o water with salt by myself at home and put it In the tank.i then waited 4 days later and checked my salinity it was 1.024 which is a pretty decent level for a FOWLR aquarium. I then went to petco on day 4 and bought about 10 lbs of live fock for my tank.
So far so good.
Then things start to go a bit awry.
i then waited 2 more days and added 5 astrea snails to my tank.
Inverts are extremely sensitive to ammonia. Adding them during the cycle is a problem right from the get go.
5 days later I decided to buy a fire fish goby and put it in my tank.
Without testing for your completed ammonia cycle, adding any fish was premature.
i waited 1 week and then I added another 7 lbs of live rock for my tank.
Even if your initial cycle was complete (which I don't believe it would have been), you would have jump started a new cycle by adding more live rock. Ideally you would have added all the live rock at the same time when you first set up your tank. Adding more LR after the fact, unless your tank is extremely well established, is problematic at best.
after that I then made a terrible mistake and bought a pair of maroon clownfish.
Agreed, terrible mistake for a couple of reasons. First, it was much too soon. Second, in a tank that small adding maroon clowns is a problem due to aggression, dominance, if you plan on adding additional fish. If it is a species only tank, and the maroons are the only pair of fish, no worry.
after 3 days of them being in my tank one died from a mouth fungus.so I got rid of the extra one in my tank and then bought a pair of the ocellaris clown fish on the 18th.
Sorry to hear of the loss of your maroon. It's no surprise though. Glad to hear you decided to remove the other maroon. Not a good solution to add the ocellaris.
after 2 days of them being added to my tank the smaller clown died.
Again, not a surprise at this stage of your tank maturing.
so then I decided to make another water change and let my tank cycle for another week,
Unless you performed water tests, you wouldn't know if the time elapsed during that week was sufficient to complete the erratic cycle you've got going on.
i then added a small leather coral to my tank .
You no longer have a FOWLR
then on 5/31 I bought 2 lbs of live rock a curlyque anemone ,2 bangaii cardinals and 2 Hawaiian featherdusters.
Read the above about continually adding LR. You're about six months early to add any anemone. Needless to say, adding more fish is premature without knowing the exact parameters and state of the cycle. Also, more evidence you no longer have a FOWLR.
yesterday 1 cardinal died and then like 2 hrs ago the other died.
I'm sorry to say I would have expected this.
