Barb the tank progressed as the hobby progressed.
There is an article that was published about 15 or 20 years ago but it is on the RC cite.
Reef Central Online Community
So if you are not a member there you can't access it.
This picture about 1972 or so shows the tank when it was in a 30 gallon tank. It was changed to the 100 gallon glass in about 1975 or 6.
All salt tanks then were decorated with dead coral skeletons, one of which you can still see in my new picture. It is shaped like a deer antler and is at the very right side of the recent picture.
Here the male blue devil is over his nest full of eggs. The lower picture appeared in Marine Fish Monthly magazine.
The tank was started as brackish with mono's, scats, archerfish and bumblebees because thats all that was available before salt water animals. The damsels were the only thing out followed by yellow tangs and triggers. Oddly enough, moorish Idols were one of the first fish available and I had them in the early eightees.
The only inverts were hermit crabs and cleaner shrimp, oh I forgot anemones, they were common in the eightees.
My tank then progressed to eels, triggers, puffers, boxfish, and filefish.
When reefs became the thing, I gave away orhttp://www.breedersregistry.org/Articles/baldassano2004/SolarPoweredSlug.htm traded my predators for angels, butterflies, tangs, clowns and gobies.
I was in seahorse mode for a while and collected and bred a bunch of them. I even patented a seahorse feeder and sold 6000 of them.
JoM Article: A New Feeding Strategy for Hippocampus sp., and other fishes, by Paul Baldassano
I was also in Lettuce Slug mode for a while too
JoM Article: Elysia crispata Sea Slug Spawning in a 100 Gallon Reef Aquarium, by Paul Baldassano
The lights, filters, stand, skimmers, auto fills,and even one of the ozonizers I built. Some of the water is NSW and much of the rock is homemade like those snakey looking pieces in the picture.
I used to keep records of all the fish I had, what they ate, when they bred, how much I paid for them, where I got them and when they died. I have that around somewhere.
Take care.
Paul