new guy here

[Anonymous]

Welcome new guy! Read, read, read some more, get confused and ask questions is my first advice. Do not be afraid to ask for help!

You also need a good plan for what type of critters you want to keep as animals have different requirements and compatability issues as well.

Figure out your "must haves" in terms of fish, or coral and find out what they require to thrive, and what else you can keep with them. Many people don't plan ahead and have a lot of trouble with that. Not only can bad planning cost you lots of money to fix later, but loosing a critter due to your own mistakes is awful ((( I have been there and done that))).

Oh, and lastly a word of caution about beaselbob's plantlife obsession. To put it as nicely as possible, many many many reefers feel his reasonings and methods are flawed and strongly disagree with him, myself included.

 

[aquarist=broke]

If you aren't the kind of person that "sticks" with things you might not even want to have a reef. It's work away from work, with water changes, water testing, maybe dosing, feeding, topping off, and cleaning for starters. My wife is a total slacker and all she has is a ten gallon tank of water and three fish. Sheesh......

I enjoy doing it and watching it grow is awesome. Good Luck!

 

[Mihai]

My sincere advice is to stop right now with the tank setup and read a couple of books. It is so much to learn that there is no way you'll get things right the first time otherwise. The guy from LFS has in interest in selling you stuff wheather you need it or not, I strongly recommend that you know what you need then make informed buying decisions. I don't know your LFS, but mine sells most stuff (equipment, live rock, corals) at twice the price of online stores...

Ans also what the broken aquarist said: it's a labor intensive hobby. You need to know what you get into before it's too late (money, animal loss, time, etc.).

Hence my initial advice: read a couple of books and ask questions on this board before you get any further.

M.