I wanted to recommend a thread to everyone from the TRT think tank. It is a very long read (took me about 12 hours) but it is TOTALLY WORTH IT!
Here is a link to the DSB thread. take your time going through it and you will learn some very important things that will help you regerdless of the substrate you use. This may be a little much for the total newbies, but if you have had your tank going for a little while you will be able to increase your knowledge base by a great amount. I give it 3
this thread gets an Oscar.