Awww thanks a lot =) That's so sweet. I'm really happy to hear this thread has helped you out. It's been a lot of fun for sure! Lot of characters in here!
I'm going to be yelled at, but to be honest lately I have not acclimated much of anything except for temps. I usually check the salinity in the bag (for fish) prior to adding it to my tanks. If it's close, lately I have just been adding them in there after I float the bag for awhile.
However, I don't suggest doing this especially for "newbs." I used to use and still have a drip acclimation kit that was really cheap. It's basically airline tubing with a "U" shape to sit on top of the tank.. and it has a knob you can turn to adjust the flow of the water. I used to set it to drip about a drip a second and would do that for awhile which worked good for me.
The reason why I went away from that was that by the time I did all that the temps were usually farther apart then I liked. I also figured that if the parameters were close it was okay.
Some people swear by never acclimating anything. Others swear that you have too. The only time I have personally seen a fish react badly to being added to new water was when the temps were too far apart (koi fish) and a freshwater dip that I did to a fish and it shocked the fish into a state of total shock.
HTH and thanks again =)