Jcolon, I wasn't referring to you with the limited experience comment! sorry if you took it that way. Simply saying someone new might stumble upon this thread and think some people dont test their water ever and have fine thriving tanks and then try to save a few bucks not bothering with test kits, not a good idea, could it work? sure, but it is not the prudent thing to do. see prattreefs comment in arati's sig.