Homemade Fish Tips Book???

 

How about this?:

 

Cycling the tank. Unlike a freshwater tank, it takes time for a saltwater tank to be ready for a new fish or other creature. Once your tank has been set up, you’ve added your sand, filled it with saltwater, turned on the heater, started the filters, now you can add your live rock. What your tank needs is bacteria, and you need to breed it before your new pets are added. A very easy way to do this is to buy one or two uncooked cocktail shrimp from the deli at the supermarket. Just throw them in the tank and let them rot. As they do, bacteria will grow as a result. Ammonia levels will rise in the tank over the period of a week or 10 days, then it will suddenly drop (you’ll observe this with your Ammonia test kit), and Nitrites will rise quickly over a period of another few days. Finally, the Nitrites will drop off completely (reading 0 with your Nitrites test), and Nitrates will begin to register on your Nitrates test kit. As soon as your Ammonia and Nitrites tests both read 0 on the matching test kits, it is safe to add the new fish.

 

 

Anyway, that quote is actually from Marc Levinson's wbsite under the beginners section. I agree with most of what he writes, but if I could attand the meeting, I would be asking him why he doesn't write a beginners setup procedure that keeps up with the times and technology.

 

Mike