diff --git a/CONTRIBUTING.rst b/CONTRIBUTING.rst
index 8edebc2..0720fa0 100644
--- a/CONTRIBUTING.rst
+++ b/CONTRIBUTING.rst
@@ -36,7 +36,7 @@ You want to contribute some code? Great! Here are a few steps to get you started
       $ virtualenv venv
       $ source venv/bin/activate
       (venv) $ pip install -e .[validation]
-      (venv) $ pip install -rrequirements/dev.txt -rrequirements/test.txt "Django>=1.11.7"
+      (venv) $ pip install -rrequirements/dev.txt "Django>=1.11.7"
 
 #. **Make your changes and check them against the test project**
 
diff --git a/requirements/ci.txt b/requirements/ci.txt
index 6f65907..351828d 100644
--- a/requirements/ci.txt
+++ b/requirements/ci.txt
@@ -1,4 +1,5 @@
-# requirements for CI test suite
--r dev.txt
+# requirements for the CI test runner
 tox-travis>=0.10
 codecov>=2.0.9
+
+-r tox.txt
diff --git a/requirements/dev.txt b/requirements/dev.txt
index e9da5e1..a57303e 100644
--- a/requirements/dev.txt
+++ b/requirements/dev.txt
@@ -1,7 +1,4 @@
-# requirements for local development
-tox>=2.9.1
-tox-battery>=0.5
-detox>=0.11
-
+# requirements for local development to be installed via pip install -r requirements/dev.txt
+-r tox.txt
+-r test.txt
 -r lint.txt
--r setup.txt
diff --git a/requirements/docs.txt b/requirements/docs.txt
index 44e0953..769f0a4 100644
--- a/requirements/docs.txt
+++ b/requirements/docs.txt
@@ -1,7 +1,8 @@
-Sphinx==1.6.5
-sphinx_rtd_theme==0.2.4
-Pillow==4.3.0
-readme_renderer==17.2
+# used by the 'docs' tox env for building the documentation
+Sphinx>=1.6.5
+sphinx_rtd_theme>=0.2.4
+Pillow>=4.3.0
+readme_renderer>=17.2
 
-Django==2.0
+Django>=2.0,<2.1
 djangorestframework_camel_case>=0.2.0
diff --git a/requirements/lint.txt b/requirements/lint.txt
index ddcea2a..7e5bd35 100644
--- a/requirements/lint.txt
+++ b/requirements/lint.txt
@@ -1,3 +1,4 @@
+# used by the 'lint' tox env for linting via flake8
 isort>=4.2
 flake8>=3.5.0
 flake8-isort>=2.3
diff --git a/requirements/setup.txt b/requirements/setup.txt
index 6c424ae..72e1362 100644
--- a/requirements/setup.txt
+++ b/requirements/setup.txt
@@ -1,4 +1,4 @@
-# requirements for building the distributable package
+# needed to build the package setup_requires in setup.py
 
 # do not unpin this (see setup.py)
 setuptools_scm==1.15.6
diff --git a/requirements/test.txt b/requirements/test.txt
index c2b4502..5f1b464 100644
--- a/requirements/test.txt
+++ b/requirements/test.txt
@@ -1,4 +1,4 @@
-# pytest runner + plugins
+# requirements for running the tests via pytest
 pytest>=2.9
 pytest-pythonpath>=0.7.1
 pytest-cov>=2.5.1
diff --git a/requirements/tox.txt b/requirements/tox.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..ce2881f
--- /dev/null
+++ b/requirements/tox.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,6 @@
+# requirements for building and running tox
+tox>=2.9.1
+tox-battery>=0.5
+detox>=0.11
+
+-r setup.txt
diff --git a/setup.py b/setup.py
index 8db6fd3..b641696 100644
--- a/setup.py
+++ b/setup.py
@@ -9,7 +9,7 @@ from setuptools import find_packages, setup
 
 def read_req(req_file):
     with open(os.path.join('requirements', req_file)) as req:
-        return [line for line in req.readlines() if line and not line.isspace()]
+        return [line.strip() for line in req.readlines() if line.strip() and not line.strip().startswith('#')]
 
 
 with io.open('README.rst', encoding='utf-8') as readme:
diff --git a/tox.ini b/tox.ini
index 64dc8ce..c05d592 100644
--- a/tox.ini
+++ b/tox.ini
@@ -25,7 +25,6 @@ deps =
     drfmaster: https://github.com/django/django/archive/master.tar.gz
 
     # other dependencies
-    -rrequirements/base.txt
     -rrequirements/validation.txt
     -rrequirements/test.txt