by: Chris Knowlton

Do you dream of watching the natural beauty of the undersea reef

life while sitting in your living room?

Whether your goal is a nano reef tank or a 150 gallon aquarium

with an ecosystem of coral and saltwater fish, the following

five steps will lead you on your way to success.

1) Commit! Decide you are going to spend the $$ it takes to

make a proper go of it. At a minimum, most tanks, (from 10 gal

to 55 gal) take between $250 and $500 to get going. Can you do

it cheaper? Yes, but usually not your first one. You have to

know what you are doing and understand how things can and will

go wrong before you can choose less expensive husbandry options

and/or equipment. Save up if you have to, but count on that

first tank being expensive.

Realize that this is not a short term commitment. And as much

fun as it is to collect the coolest coral fragments out there

and show them off to your friends, there WILL come a time when

you are hauling all of those same 'frags' out of the tank and

into temporary storage when your six year old cracks the side of

the display tank with a pool ball or some other calamity occurs.

2) Study! Spend time on the internet, in books and watching

nature shows on reefs BEFORE you get your animals. Understand

the animals that you are going to keep and how they interact

with each other. If you count on the LFS (Local Fish Store) or

your buddy down the road to keep you out of trouble and don't do

your homework.. You will fail. That is the one guarantee in

this hobby. DO YOUR HOMEWORK.

The only way around this is to be able to afford to pay someone

else to set-up and maintain your tank.

3) Mingle! (see 2 above) There are plenty of reef-keeping

societies out there with lots of experience to help you along

your way and teach you what you need to know. As long as you

are doing your own homework, they are usually happy to help!

4) Keep an open mind! There is not just one way to keep a reef

tank - no matter how loudly people on the various bulletin

boards and forums out there might shout that there is.

5) Share! It is amazing how much help people are willing to

give when they realize that you are offering a particularly nice

specimen that they have always wanted. Equipment that they

didn't even remember they had may magically appear or they might

be willing to share a very nice piece of their own reef frag

with you.

Trading frags not only is a great way to increase your variety,

but it helps maintain genetic strains of corals (frags are also

known as 'clones') that might otherwise die out in a single tank

struck by the calamity mentioned in 1 above.

You can read 5 more Steps to Success by visiting www.KnowltonsReef.com (archive: June, 2005).