My favoriite books ( two part series) The Reef Aquarium Vol.1 by Charles Delbeek & Julian Sprung and Vol. 2. All the basics to advanced.

More advanced but very interesting and informative...REEF INVERTEBRATES by Anthony Calfo and Robert Fenner

Besides Canreef I like this site...http://reefs.org/phpBB2/viewforum.php?f=1


Best of luck, the more you learn before you buy any thing the better.
Always get bigger and spend more then you want, it's a hobby of upgrading.

Dave

Re: Thanks
 

I have bought a ton of used equipment when I started out. Most of my equipment is second-hand actually. It sure helps out. Just make sure it fits into your plan and don't compromise it too much because you see an item for "cheap cheap".

hang out here long enough and you can build yourself a killer system bit by bit for a reasonable price.

I'd recommend starting with The Conscientious Marine Aquarist by Robert Fenner. It covers all your bases, and like I said above, once you have most of the methods and lingo in your head, you'll be far better equipped to utilize the internet to find what you need to know.

If you want hardcore reference books (you'll use these later on far more than any general topic books), I'd probably suggest Reef Invertebrates by Calfo and Fenner (as recommended above) and Aquarium Corals by Eric Borneman.

I've yet to see a really great fish book - I'm sure the Reef Fishes series by Scott Michael will be great once it's done, but TFH/Microcosm have really screw the pooch in publishing that one.

The Conscientious Marine Aquarist is great as Rikko said. A good thin starter book is The New Marine Aquarium by Michael Paletta.