extreme newbie here

[reeffreak]

very cool, guys. i found some of them and there is alot of reading (sweet!)
what brand is good for most things like filters, protine skimmers,ect? i have been seeing lot of red sea products. i have visited a few shops but have not really found any one to be knoweldgeable, we are going to see a shop today that only deals with saltwater aquariums.
also is there is cheat sheet on here for us newbies explaing the shorten words like LFS ? lol trying to figure them out, not having any luck..lol
oh and what do i look for when searching for good live rock? there are many here however they are in large tubs and some of the rocks are sticking out of the water.
thanks again every one for the great tips!

There are really no good filters for saltwaters.Protein skimmers and live rock will do most of of the filtering,per say.The best in cost and quality is the Octopus brand of skimmers.The majority of us use a sump/refugium that houses all our equipment-skimmer,ATO(auto top off),heaters,etc.

There are alot of abbreviations out there.If there are some you aren't familar with then just ask.Here are some of the more common ones we use here.

LPS-large polyp stony corals
SPS-small polyp stony corals
GAC-granular activated carbon
GFO-granular ferric oxide(use to reduce phosphate)
RO/DI-reverse osmosis/deionize water
PPM-parts per million
PAR-photosynthetic active radiation(light that corals use)
dKH-dissolved carbonate hardness(it's a 'k' instead of a 'c' cause it's taken from german, where it's spelled with a 'k')measurement of alkalinity.
meg/L-milliequivalents per liter(another measurement of alkalinity)

I'm sure there are more but my brain is crapping right now.LOL.

When I look for live rock.I tend to look for odd shapes,porous and some coralline coverage.

 

[Vincenzo]

Welcome to the site! Im a newbie too, but I took a different route on my tank rather than having a protein skimmer I built an algae scrubber, works great for me! I learned so much information on this site that you just can't get from books since they don't do live Q&A for specific questions to you obviously lol. Good luck! :Cheers: