Have you ever read something and knew it was so wrong that it just made you cringe like fingernails on a chaulkboard? About.com's Choosing a Filtration System for a Saltwater Aquarium article made me cringe when I read it. Here's some excerpts...
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With the reef system your live rocks, corals, plants, sponges, anemones, etc., will act as your biological filter, so a filter bed base (gravel/sand on the bottom of the tank) is not required. ...
... The charcoal does absorb a great deal of the copper sulfate, which we use in our system to control parasites that may be brought in from the wild on the stock we collect, until it becomes settled. |
I don't know about you, but I don't know of any corals, plants, sponges or anemones that can withstand the presence of copper sulfate... and we'll just ignore the unethicalities of bringing in and collecting wild stock.
| QUOTE |
| After you have installed the filter, all you have to do is add water. If you are not fortunate enough to live near a body of saltwater, you will have to purchase a quantity of sea salts, such as Instant Ocean, and mix it with tap water. Because tap water contains chlorine and/or chloramine, be sure to de-chlorinate the water. |
Ok, now I know the author has never owned a saltwater tank in his life. At most this guy had a betta bowl in college.
If you want a good laugh or cringe, you can read the whole article here:
http://saltaquarium.about.com/cs/filtersel...2297chosfil.htm Interesting. For the most part their articles are pretty decent. That's pretty weird though about the copper sulfate. We could go on for days about the ethics of capturing wild caught fish and inverts.
I sent an email to about.com about the article and got a response that stated that the article was written over ten years ago, which explains many of the errors.