Newbie Authors Wanted
 

Hello,

I'm planning to create a new section in this part of cyberspace by dedicating an area for complete newbies. Hopefully it'd also be an opportunity for us to add a new image and design to the site as well. The goal is to have a place where the navigation, graphics, and reading is a lot easier for newcomers than to ask them to sift through all threads in the forums that we have now. Afterall, newbies don't know where to start.

Now, the exact content and layout is still up in the air but I have come up with the following, which hopefully should address most of the commonly asked and missed areas for getting started in this hobby:

Newbie Steps
1) How to get started?
2) Equipment list
3) Costs
4) Resources (boards, books, lfs, aquariums)
5) Is it really all that expensive and complicated?

Next thing you need to know...
1) water parameters
2) what light, color temperature, par
3) basic coral and fish info

Time to get started
1) Choose your tank size and type
2) Plumbing
3) Sand it!
4) Fill it up
5) Cycle
6) Stock it up
7) Maintenance

The above list looks short and easy but there could be a lot of information (even not getting into details) covered. So I'd like to know if anyone is interested in writing in one or more of the above numbered areas. For example, under "water parameters" we can have a series of articles written by multiple members on the different water parameters. And same thing goes for "how to get started" since we all have different stories for how we began.

If there are questions on how to approach this, please reply to this Sticky. If you want to go ahead and give one of the above area a shot, then post a thread with a self-explanatory title. For example, if you want to write on "Stock it up" for a new tank and suggest what may or may not be a good animal to add for newbie, just post a thread titled "Stock it up". Then anyone who wants to pitch in their articles in the same subject area just reply to the same thread. After we have a few we can vote to see which one(s) would make it a reference article on this site for newbies. Also, we may want to combine articles with credits to both authors, etc.

The overall point of doing this is to create a content and guide that doesn't delve into the nitty gritty stuff but offers a general understanding of the technicality in this hobby. For example, authors need not get into equations of how water chemistry affects pH, alk, etc but can offer a general guide of why for example pH is lower during night time and that they need to watch both alk and ca (maybe even mag) levels for proper balance. So you can see there aren't really any limits on the articles other than where creativity takes you.

Titus

I'd rather see links for the beginners to information that is already out there, and give them some guidelines for searching info.

Hello,

Great idea! Do you have any links to provide? Or you can write an article on where to find information?

We can do this in association to the articles.

Titus

Perhaps you could define who is allowed to post here and who isn't seeing as I am not allowed to, I would appreciate the required qualifications listed.

Hello,

Articles and experiences only. Not questions such as:
this, or
this

That is also why I asked in the Lounge should I create a separate forum just for the newbies to ask newbie question as I want to have this forum only for articles, not questions.

Titus

You can just delete my lippy post any time...... (please)

what a great idea.

abbrevs
 

Hi. Speaking as a newbie, something which would help me a lot in understanding the posts is a glossary of terms and especially, abbreviations. "LFS, gf, nori, and orp" went swimming right over my head when first encountered, and there are bound to be more I haven't seen or figured out yet.
Looking forward to reading more articles here!
A.

aquamarina, here is a link that should get you started with more acronyms than you care for!! :razz:

http://reefcentral.com/modules.php?s...&eid=2&ltr=all

the proper format for using abreviations is to use the whole word first followed closely (or in brackets) by the normal abreviation. for example: I love my long tentacled anenomone (LTA), my tank raised percula clownfish have finally made it their own. LTA's seem to like a medium current and the percs seem to be drawn into the swaying tentacles.