beginner marine setup? HELP!
Matthew Bennett
setting up a marine tank. I have had pretty good luck in keeping
freshwater fish, terreriums, etc. and now I'd really like to try salt. The
question I have is exactly what equipment will I need and how much should I
expect to spend. I'd like to keep inverts too, I guess I should expect to
use a wet dry, right? Has anyone made their own? Please e-mail any
responses. Thanks....
Matt
JEFF PFOHL
A great place to start is the FAQ. Here is the pointer! Hope this helps!
Aquaria Archive Notice File v2.3, 2/3/94 Dustin Laurence
This is a pointer to the Aquaria Archive, normally posted on the
first and fifteenth of every month to the rec.aquaria, alt.aquaria,
and sci.aquaria USENET newsgroups (the *.aquaria groups) by a friendly
daemon. My name is Dustin Laurence; welcome to the archive.
The Aquaria Archive, formerly the Reefkeeper's Archive, is a
repository for text information about all topics of interest to marine
and freshwater aquarists, and will remain so as long as space allows.
In intent, the archive serves all aquarists with access capability.
In practice, it will of necessity primarily serve the *.aquaria groups
on USENET, but access and submissions from other sources are
encouraged.
Currently, the archive contains about 3Mb of material sorted and
filed in the main archive. A further Mb+ of material is in the
incoming/ directory, waiting to be sorted and filed. It would be
ideal if all material were filed as it came in, but as Caltech does
not seem to consider maintenance of this archive to be progress toward
my degree I do not have much time to shuffle files. Feel free to
browse in the incoming/ directory in the meantime; the files there are
fairly well organized as they are.
***** Location and Connect Information *****
THE SHORT VERSION:
The archive site is:
The archive root directory is
pub/aquaria (the old directory, pub/reefkeepers, still works)
The README file should describe everything you need to know to get
started. If it does not, let me know how it can be improved. There
is a list of contents in the Info/contents file, and there are a
number of good FAQ files in the FAQfiles/ directory.
THE LONG VERSION:
If you are new to USENET, the following _may_ (but is not
guaranteed to) tell you how to access the archive and get started.
This should work on most UNIX installations, at least.
(1) Decide where you want to put information from the archive. You
will probably want to "download" (bring from the archive to your
account) some information files which will help you to use the
archive. A good idea is to make a new directory for this purpose.
(2) Change to whatever directory you chose in (1). On UNIX systems,
you would type "cd <directory>", where <directory> should be replaced
by the name of the directory.
(3) Connect to the archive site. On most UNIX systems, you can use a
program called "ftp" to do this by typing "ftp ftp.cco.caltech.edu" .
The Caltech site will ask you for a login name; type "anonymous". It
will tell you "Guest login ok, send ident as password." Type your
internet address (if you don't know what it is, just type in your
login name). Yes, I know that if you type in your address it isn't
anonymous, but who said it had to make sense?
(4) Change to the archive root directory. Using ftp this is done just
as it is in the UNIX shell (the thing you type commands to), by typing
"cd pub/aquaria" .
(5) Look at the directory to see what is in the archive. In ftp, type
"dir". ("ls" works, but gives you less information. In UNIX terms,
dir is basically "ls -l".) Here is an excerpt from what you would
have seen if you had typed dir in the main archive directory on
2/3/94:
drwxr-xr-x 4 laurence grads 512 Jan 14 06:19 FAQfiles
...
-rw-r--r-- 1 laurence grads 6648 Jan 24 07:36 README
...
The first cryptic string tells you the mode of the file. Of most
interest is the first character, which tells you that "FAQfiles" is a
directory (first character of the line is a "d"), and that "README is
an ordinary file (first character is a "-"). You can't download
directories; you must use "cd" to enter them and then use get to
download the files which they contain. You can move back up the
"directory tree" by typing "cd ..". You also see the size of the
README file (6648 bytes). This sort of thing is useful if you don't
have room in your account for some of the larger files in the archive.
One of the files you see is named "README"; that means, logically
enough, that the person who set up the archive (me) wanted you to read
that file. You might as well actually read it, as a personal favor to
me.
(6) Download the archive README file. It will hopefully tell you what
you need to know to use the archive. In ftp, type "get README" .
When you exit ftp, a new file named "README" will have appeared which
will be an exact copy of the file "README" in the archive.
Now you have the README file, have no doubt dutifully read it, and
know everything. However, some of you are the impatient sort, and
want to explore around now rather than go read my deathless prose.
Well, since I can't send the net.police to force you to read the
README file, I might as well help you a bit here. A good place to
begin exploring the archive is in pub/aquaria/Info, which contains a
list of the archive's contents, submissions policies, and other items
about the archive itself and other resources available (as well as
this file). However, if you couldn't be bothered to read the README
file, will you really read these? Also check out the Frequently Asked
Questions files in the FAQfiles directory.
***** In Case of Problems With The Archive *****
***ALL*** problems, questions, or requests regarding this archive
should be sent to me, Dustin Laurence, at laur...@cco.caltech.edu .
Please DO NOT harass the system administrators.
***** Obligatory Disclaimer *****
This archive is maintained as a storage site on a volunteer basis.
I am not responsible for the accuracy of the contents nor for how they
are used; neither is Caltech nor anyone else. It is maintained "as
is" for your enjoyment.
--------------------------------
Version History
v1.0 10/02/93 Dustin Laurence (First posted 10/3/93)
v1.1 10/03/93 (Mentioned the location of the FAQ files, misc.
editing)
v2.0 12/15/93 Name changed to Aquaria Archive, minor changes.
v2.1 1/23/94 More stuff in main archive, minor editing.
v2.2 2/ 1/94 Minor editing
v2.3 2/ 3/94 Clarified usage of dir and cd, directories.
JEFF PFOHL
E-MAIL: PF...@NUCMAR.PHYSICS.FSU.EDU
PHONE : (904) 644-1598 work
(904) 224-0707 home
(904) 644-9848 fax
"Two wrongs do not make a right, but three rights make a left"
NG WAI KEUNG
Read the FAQ:
Pointer to FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) for *.aquaria
The FAQ for sci.aquaria, rec.aquaria and alt.aquaria is posted monthly on
the first on of the month. It is posted with an extended expiration time,
so it may still be on your news machine.
The FAQ (and any other useful information that is submitted) will be
available through anonymous FTP on caldera.usc.edu (128.125.51.17),
located in Los Angeles, California. Login through ftp with 'anonymous' as
your username. The FAQ files are located in the directory pub/aquaria.
Correspondence regarding the FAQ should be directed to Tony Li
(t...@cisco.com) AND Patti Beadles (pa...@hosehead.hf.intel.com).
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In short, you must decide what you want to keep, eg fish only, mini-reef, inverts,
etc, since this determines the water quality and equipement required. Regardless,
you need a good protein skimmer if you can afford it. The key to marine keeping is
PLANNING; mistakes are considerably less forgiving than in freshwater. Expect to
spend anywhere from a few hundred to a thousand dollars.
Kevin
---------------------------------------------------------------
Department of Chemical Engineering and Applied Chemistry
University of Toronto
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
email: ng...@ecf.toronto.edu
---------------------------------------------------------------