[ChuckG]

The New Marine Aquarium by Mike Paletta
The Conscientious Marine Aquarist by Bob Fenner.

I actually have not read these but they are always recommended to beginners.

I went to the school of hard knocks. Lost a lot of livestock with the "throw it in and see if it lives" approach. I would not recommend this method to anyone. It is definately more costly and produces unwanted and unecessary deaths of animals in the process.