Looking for good Beginner's Guides.

[jojo22]

I would suggest the book "the contcentious marine aquarist" by Robert Fenner. Great book. The main thing to remember is everyone does things just a little different, so if you get two conflicting peices of advise it's just that they do things different and either way may work for your tank.

[Steven Pro]

Mike Paletta's The New MArine Aquarium is an excellent beginner's book. Easy to read plain language. Fully illustrated. And, only about 150 pages or so. Not intimidating at all.

[Iconz]

Awesome, I found Robert Fenner's Book online last night, and will probably order it. It kinda scared me that it was printed alomst 10 years ago though. As with other things, I'm sure ALOT has changed since then, or am I wrong?

Thanks steven, I'll look at that one too!

Alright, I stumbled onto this this morning, can you all verify if this method is efficent, effective, and a good way to do it?

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/sh...5&pagenumber=1

thanks!

[Fatman]

A good breakdown on corals


Mushroom Corals : the soft corals that look like mushrooms growing.

LPS Keepers (Large Polyp Stony) Meaning they have big polyps in which to filter the water for food food (they usually require direct feeing but not always) and have a stony exoskeleton.

Soft Coral Keepers : These are most of the corals you see swishing back and forth, frogspawn, hammer, anything that soft and basically moving.

SPS Keepers : These are very popular are called (Small Polyp Stony) They have tiny polyps, and usually grow extremely nice, they usualyl require alot of light (Like metal halides) but Ive heard of keeping them under T5s.

Zoanthids: Also called button Polyps, they come in a varierty of colors and create a carpet of them wherever you place them depending on your tank they can grow extremely fast.

Here are the two animals ( I dont remember any others off the top of my head) that require light

Clams : They usually require metal halide, but Ive heard of people keeping them under T5s *extremely close to the top of the tank*

Anenomies(sp?): where clown fish like to "chill" these guys are also very dependent on light, I would only recommend Metal Halide for them, as mine are so happy at mid-day when the big lights turn on.

If anyone wants to add anymore info feel free.

[Iconz]

awesome info on both of my threads FM... I'm gonna go now and do some window shopping online to get and idea of the cost of these precious corals, and also to find out which ones are appealing to me. I'm kinda a visual learner. I see it once or twice and I've pretty much have it committed to memory.

I saw bobby's allards clown like chilling in the Soft Coral Keepers, at least I think from your definition of them, that what they were. Lemme get the link and I'll edit this post with it. Thanks again!

-IC

EDIT:
LINK: http://www.captivereefing.com/showthread.php?t=3910

[jojo22]

I would not personally be worrying about corals YET??? I would be concentrateing on set up and maintnence. Not to say window shopping is bad but I think it may be putting the cart a little before the horse at this point.

[Iconz]

K. note taken. I honestly am at your all mercy on this. I'm just tryin to get a lil knowledge on each, just to kinda familiarize myself with the termonology (sp?). Because some of what you all are saying is Greek to me. lol. Sumps, Refuge, T5, metal halide... all unknowns, for example! Keep it coming though, i'm tryin to find the definitions of each term as i see it! Thanks!

-IC

[Fatman]

T5 is a powerful type of compact lighting. (cheaper than Metal Halides)

Metal Halides are the most intense of lights, the ones that cause the ripple effect. *also called HQI* (also usually most expensive)

Sump is where people usually put their pump, bio balls (or live rock) and other items to keep them out of view of the aquarium, also its where you will pour your fresh water when water begings to evaporate.

Refuge (Refugium) is a small tank or part of the sump where to grow macroalgea (good type) to export nutrients with and/or have some live rocks and small items to grow pods.

Pods are like little bugs, usually good, like mini crustaceans that fish feed on in your reef and other organisms too.

[Iconz]

awesome! i'm soo on the edege of my chair at this point, itching to get started! heh. I'm a huge fan of DIY stuff too, so this is going to be like a little hobby inside a bigger one (Reefing). I just started a new job, and my boss said they have nothing for me to do for nearly 3 weeks, so I get to sit at my desk and read, which is what i've been doing for the past 2 days now! The link above has been VERY informative, by far my best source yet! Thanks for the definitions, they help alot!

[lReef lKeeper]

this is where Jojo and i disagree ... i think you should know what kind of corals you may want to keep BEFORE anything else. this way you will know the types of things you will need (example : metal halide [any coral you want and clams], power compact [most soft corals], VHO [all soft and most all LPS, and some sps corals], or T5 lighting [all soft, most LPS, and some sps corals]).

although you WILL need to start the tank AT LEAST a month before the corals can go in it, you should know what you want so you know what to buy for them !!