Monday, October 20, 2014
Lifegard Aquatics 2-Inch Standard Threaded Bulkhead
Wednesday, October 15, 2014
Venus Laboratories CVEPN971306 Earth Friendly Cat Litter Additive, 2-Pound
I tried at least 6 or 7 other deodorizers / additives, etc, and this is the only one that worked and it works well!!
There is not that horrible disinfectanty odor associated with it.
The cats didn't have a problem with it.
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Tuesday, October 14, 2014
AquaTop Pond UV Sterilizer Bio Pressurized Filter w/Pump PFS300UV
Our 4500gph pondmaster filter sprung a leak and my wife suggested we try a couple of smaller filters.
This unit with UV light and pump appeared to be a good option. When this arrived I hooked it up to our pond waterfall and started the system, I expected about half the water flow we had from our other pump, however it didnt seem even close to that. I then read the packaging on the pump box and realized that although this is suppose to be an intergrated 2500 gallon system, the pump they provide delivers less than 1200 gallons. The filter has a maximium rating of 2.9 psi so we cant use our larger pump.
Bottom line is the system's capacity description is an outright lie
Also note that Aquatops guarantee is only 180 days and the UV lamp is not guaranteed at allThis product is great because it comes with everything needed to install, (pump, hoses, fittings, etc.) is easy to install, and does a great job once it is installed. It is also easy to clean and maintain. I highly recommend it.
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Thursday, October 2, 2014
Zoo Med Laboratories AZMBP21 Betta Plant Papaya
Sunday, September 28, 2014
PondCare Spring and Autumn Pellet Fish Food, 9 Ounce
Sunday, September 21, 2014
Auto Lock Gate White 26.5" - 40.5" x 29.5" by Cardinal
Sunday, September 14, 2014
Fluval 4 Plus Carbon Pads, 4-Pack
Thursday, September 4, 2014
Ecoxotic EcoPico Desktop Fish Aquarium, 5 galllon
**Update: I have now had my Ecopico for over a year now and my plants still look great. I am not very good with fish so I have lost a few in the beginning but I am improving. However, I want to comment on Ecoxotic. They are a great company to work with. Twice now I have had problems with my led, once was my fault when I plugged my laptop charger into the transformer and fried the leds. I even told them what I did and they still sent me a replacement free of charge.I love the look of the tank and I'm even getting another one soon. I ordered from ecoxotic though. Anyway, the light it comes with is bluish...i upgraded the lights but i still don't like the lighting, so I put my ecoxotic module on top of that . Looks a little ghetto. I love the design, but in all reality, so much for just a glass tank...pricey. I guess what you can do is get another arm light and up the LEDs on it. I also replaced the filter (filter sucks) with a fluval mini internal filter. I still love the tank, I just wish i could order it without the blue light and the filter.... :/.
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I had been looking at aquariums for a while but couldn't decide which to get. A friend of mine gave me the EcoPico for a birthday present. BEST GIFT EVER! I set everything up, a nice cave, some gravel, 4 guppies and a pleco. About two months later, everything died. This may have been negligence on my part, after all I had no idea what I was doing, didn't realize I had to cycle my tank first, and I never looked inside the filter. Anyway, when cleaning up the casualties, I realized the filter was composed of a simple sponge! All mechanical. No chemical filtration was provided. I went out and bought some pantyhose, added some carbon, and some biomax...set everything up again (like 3 months later...I couldn't bare everything dying again so soon after)and the tank has been doing wonderfully since! The second time around, I still didn't know about cycling the tank but everything worked out anyway...I think I got lucky with my combination of plants and brackish water fish. Anyway, I give this tank 4 stars simply because a 5 star tank should provide everything you need for a healthy environment. Other than that though, this tank is amazing! Oh, and the filter may be small but it provides some very powerful pumping action! The lights bring out the colors of my fish (black gravel helps too) and I can never get enough of them! I can wake up and stare at the aquarium for hours without realizing. It's got a sleek design and looks very modern. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED. I have youtube videos as well...just look up the ecopico. Key words include knight goby and neon blue dwarf gourami.Read Best Reviews of Ecoxotic EcoPico Desktop Fish Aquarium, 5 galllon Here
I did not purchase this tank from Amazon, but from another private seller here in Chicago.I wanted the cool looking small tank for one of my Betta males.
I already own 6.6 gallon Fluval Chi and wanted to keep the "theme" here.
The tank houses only 1 Betta male, few live plants and one Marimo Moss ball.
I LOVE the tank. There's nothing better looking than a glass aquarium.
The LED light is a great touch and a big help, if you want to have live plants. It does not produce any heat, so it's safe to leave it on for many hours.
The tank does come with a LID!
The only thing I had to fiddle with was the filter. It's a powerful little fella and it caused a bit of turmoil for my Betta guy. It took me few days of adjusting the media inside and to cover few intake holes to lower the current to minimum. The filter originally operates only with a sponge media inside, so I upgraded to one of those ACUREL pads they come in various types there's one with Carbon, then Ammonia reducer, Algae reducer, Nitrate control, etc. These pads are higher density, so they reduce the flow of the water inside the filter, plus Carbon adds the power to the filtration process.
I also wanted to keep the sleek look of the tank, so I put the black foil on the back side of the tank, so now the filter and my 50W heater are practically invisible behind the plants.
I uploaded some pictures of the tank and the filter.
The maintenance is extremely easy compared to my previous 95 gallon reef tank (or all my other tanks for that matter).
I have a bit of OCD, so I siphon out at least 25% of the water every 5-6 days, vacuum the poop from the gravel, wipe the water level marks, squeeze the Marimo moss ball, preen the plants and check the little cave for a slime build up (there's almost none). This all takes me only about 15 minutes since the tank is only 5 gallons. Then I put the pretreated fresh water in, check the water quality and that's it.
For the people, who don't want to spend even 15 minutes cleaning the tanks, here's my recommendation please do NOT buy ANY fish (+ tank). Fish are the living creatures and they DO NEED the continuous care.
I agree the cool nano tank or globe aquarium with few fishies looks great as a decoration, but so does the nice vase or a sculpture, that will be just fine without any maintenance.
To all reviewers saying the filter is good for nothing and that they had the problem with fish dying please note, that this is a 5 gallon NANO tank, so it's not really meant to house the whole schools of fish.
I don't know, what is wrong with all these people reviewing the tanks saying "The tank killed my fish. I did nothing wrong....it was the tank!"...and then you read they have at least 10-15 fish, frogs, etc inside.
The overstocked tank (even the well established one) will hold for a while, but it will eventually crash and develop some bacterial infection, or some other illness leading to the death of the inhabitants.
If you want to have gazillion fish, decorations and plants, please purchase 20 and up gallon tank instead.
These 3,4,5,6 gallon tanks are great, but there's a limited amount of fish you can put in there. Even the small fishies usually need the wider tanks, because of their swimming habits and mainly because they do the best in schools of 4 and more, so once again it will lead to overstocking the tank...
I also feel bad for all goldfish living in the small tanks, swimming frantically in never ending circles like these little insane creatures...
I used to have 95 gallon reef tank and needed to downsize after 8 years, so I aimed for a COOL & ELEGANT looking tank, that could be a part of my house décor. I did not really want the large "riverbed' of fish.
This tank is perfect for Betta (once you adjust the flow), also for those, who want to make these cool looking nano aquascapes and also for tiny reef nano with few shrimps.
The main point of my review is this Ecopico is a GREAT looking hip tank. I'm the second owner and so far there was no leak, no filter problems.
The only thing is, that I had to replace the LED strip after few months, but that's ok since I'm the second owner and the tank is few years old. LEDs are great and last for a long time, but not forever, especially if you like to have the light on the whole day.
I did not purchase the original replacement Ecopico LED strip though. I bought this flexible waterproof LED strip on ebay for $5 and hubby installed it to the original ecopico arm. It works just fine and it's even stronger, that the original one.
My advise to all beginners there is nothing wrong with most of the tanks. Please do not be discouraged by some reviews blaming the tanks for poisoning and such stuff. Unless the tank really has leaking issues or a history of a defective filtration, it should be just fine.
Also please do not expect the more expensive tanks to do the job by themselves you will still need to do your own adjustments and maintenance + RESEARCH. I can only suggest to do a really deep research to decide on what fish you would like to have in your tank beforehand and THEN to buy a tank. Please do not buy the tank first and overstock it later it will eventually lead to a catastrophy and a heartbreak.
Good luck to everyone :-)....and sorry for sounding harsh. I had no intention to attack others, just wanted to clear the waters for those, who are deciding on a purchase of the tank.
Want Ecoxotic EcoPico Desktop Fish Aquarium, 5 galllon Discount?
Friday, July 11, 2014
Gulfstream Tropical AGU00035A Mag-Float Acrylic Aquarium Cleaner, Small
You can leave these on/in the tank all the time, but I have 2 inquisitive little kids who like to play with magnets, so in between cleanings, I take the magnets off and store them on a shelf. These magnets are VERY strong, which is great because you can vigorously scrub with them and they won't lose contact with each other -and if they do, they float, so there's no need to reach down into the tank to retrieve the fallen piece! -but if you put them together outside of the tank, they will want to snap together ferociously, and woe is you if your finger pads happen to be in the way. So keep them away from kids!
Bottom line: If you need to get a magnetic cleaner for your fish tank, the Mag Float is the way to go because the magnets are strong, well-made, they float, and come in a nice compact size. I expect that I will not need to replace mine for as long as I have my tank, which makes it well worth the price. I made sure that I ordered the acrylic one. I used it once, and it put really fine surface scratches in my Aqueon Mini-Bow acrylic tank.
The magnet function works well. If I had a glass tank, I'd recommend the glass version. But I don't think this is a good algae brush for an acrylic tank.
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Product seems good in theory. When I used it for a small portion of my tank to test it out, it did clean the area, but left lots of scratches on it. Can't use it. Now I have a $10 paper weight.Read Best Reviews of Gulfstream Tropical AGU00035A Mag-Float Acrylic Aquarium Cleaner, Small Here
I use my Mag Float 30 (small) for my 28-gallon acrylic hexagon reef aquarium. Acrylic hexagons are probably some of the hardest types of aquariums to clean especially if you try to use any of the long-handle, plastic scrubbers due to limited, top-clearance access. I still use my plastic-handle scrubber periodically, but the Mag Float helps me reach the areas that I cannot reach. I really like how the Mag float magnet floats to the top when separtated. Like the other reviewer stated, I cannot scrub the curved edges with the Mag Float. Despite what other reviewers have stated I have not encountered any scratches on my acrylic aquarium due to the use of the Mag Float. Works fine with me!Want Gulfstream Tropical AGU00035A Mag-Float Acrylic Aquarium Cleaner, Small Discount?
I was skeptical and almost just bought an algae brush. I was surprised to find that this works great. The magnet is powerful enough that you can slip it around a corner on your tank and the inside half with disconnect and then float over to the next side of the take and reconnect.Saturday, June 14, 2014
Laguna Pressure-Flo 2100 UVC Filter
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Pond was full of a winter's worth of algae; hooked this filter up and in 3 days would not have ever suspected that the clear water used to be so green you could not see the fish inside the pond! Easy to hook up & easy to clean filters!Read Best Reviews of Laguna Pressure-Flo 2100 UVC Filter Here
Monday, June 2, 2014
API KH Carbonate Hardness Test Kit
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I bought this for making 4dkh solution for my co2 drop checker.Probably not the most accurate way to do it, but my plants and fish are doing great, so it must be good enough.
Read Best Reviews of API KH Carbonate Hardness Test Kit Here
Used this to estimate my aquarium CO2 change with a DIY yeast system. I can detect a change from an estimated less than 3ppm to about 15 with the jar of yeast mix is new. Preformed as expected and much like the other API test kits.Arrived very quickly, and as described. The only problem was that the package was squished, but nothing was damaged, so no other problems.Friday, May 30, 2014
Aqueon 06093 Faucet Adaptor
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It met my need. was easy to connect to faucet and then the tubing with the changer.didn't have to jerry rig.I bought this as a part for a different brand of pump, and it fits perfectly. This can be used on Lees Ultimate super pump and and python pump as well!Why sell an adapter designed identically like the adapter that comes with the water changer? What a ripoff. Save your time and money.Thursday, May 1, 2014
T-4301SL: Finnex Low Iron Aquarium Kit - 4 Gallons, HOB Filter, Silver Light: Blue/White Bulb
The light fixture looks good and does not stand out as much as I thought it would. However, the blue-white bulb burned out after just a few months of running 8 hrs/day. Also, any water touching the plastic light supports that sit over the tank edge will somehow wick up over the glass edge to drip down the outside, flooding whatever it sits on. You have to be careful not to fill the water too high.
The hob filter is adequate. Being a small filter, it clogs easily. However, as long as you keep it clean, it does a good job, and is pretty silent. I cushioned mine with silicone bumpers to reduce vibration on the tank.
Saturday, April 12, 2014
Como Coral Style Silicone Fish Tank Decor Aquarium Ornament Dark Pink
Sunday, April 6, 2014
Red Sea Fish Pharm ARE50203 C-Skim 1800 Advanced Protein Skimmer for Aquarium
I did notice that if you restrict the airflow with the built-in valve, the aspiration pump gets extremely noisy. That said, don't try and run this skimmer with much more than a 450 gph pump. Any more and you will start to have water in your skimmer cup (this is not good) even if you have the return completely unrestricted. A 400-450 gph pump is recommended by the manufacturer.
For anyone who is concerned about leaks on with the aspiration pump, I have had none. I'll bet anyone who has failed to install the o-ring with the pump. (It is in a separate baggie with the pump)
I love the features automatic neck cleaner and the ability to remove the skimmer cup without shutting down the main pump. I always hated having to unplug my skimmer pump just to empty the cup.
All in all, it does what it is supposed to, but the aspiration pump is a bit louder than I had hoped for. If you are trying to make your setup as quiet as possible, this is not the skimmer for you. I will be putting my aspiration pump on a timer to get around the noise issue.I have been in reef aquaria keeping for some time (20+ years) and have owned several skimmers. Each has its own needs as far as water input, cleaning and foam production levels inside the skimmer to be effective at skimming dissolved solids from your aquarium. But few are so simple as to plug the unit in connect two hoses and in few hours have a quality foam head.
I found the Red Sea 1800 skimmer worked perfectly from the moment I plugged it in and produced a foam head as good as reef octopus or ASM skimmers and far better than Aqua C or Beckett skimmers (note: Older tech which were great in there day) which require a large GPH pump to drive the unit for foam production.
Some of the items on the unit like the neck wash are a good idea but you will find they will not work well if your foam production is good. The neck will fill with so much waste material that it will cake the sides of the skimmer neck and it will not wash off easily depending on the height you set your foam head at. But the option to divert the water when you wish to remove the cup is very good and very useful.
Here is a breakdown of the pros and cons of this unit
Pros -
1. Exceptional foam production from the internal recirculation pump due to good air to water ratio
2. The need to purchase a large supply pump is not needed for the unit. You could supply the unit with less than the recommended supply and it will just spend more time in the unit getting skimmed more.
3. Unit is not hard to break down for cleaning
4. Very large collection cup. Even with a large amount of waist the cup will go 3-4 days before it fills on medium wet/dry foam. Also the cup is very easy to remove and secure back in place
5. Can be used in sump or external
Cons -
1. Unit is rather big, won't fit in small sumps. Just a thought here you could always build a container supplied by the overflow as an intermediate sump to contain the skimmer. This would always keep the skimmer level the same even when evaporation has lowered your true sump. But it might not look good depending how your setup is. I did this and also placed my GFO and Bio pellet unit inside.
2. Unit has a very small neck so if your water source level is in constant flux due to evaporation you may have issues keeping the foam head at the level you want.
3. Cleaning neck process is a good thought but does not work well in real life.
4. I thought the connection to the intake could have been a little better. I took the screw on connection off and placed a hose clamp on. You don't want this to come off or your whole tank could be on the floor.
5. Even if used in sump it will take another pump to supply water that is not supplied with the unit. This is an extra expense that some units that are comparable in skimming do not need but would be required on all recirculation skimmers whoever you buy from
6. Although I love the unit I would not feel comfortable running it on a 450 gallon aquarium no matter what it is stocked with. It just can't process enough water no matter what they say.
To finish I can't comment on Red Sea customer service but I can't see much need to contact them. A skimmer like this has only a few items that would go bad and all those parts are available from online web dealers. It's built solid and could probably take some abuse. The cons here were small issues that should be noted before purchase. On a regular size tank under say 250 gallons this unit should work well but is a little pricey since it needs another pump to run. If you can find it at a discount I would say absolutely buy but for the full asking price it's a stretch.
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Terrible product with terrible customer service. Purchased this product online for just under $400 with proper feeding pump and after complete set up, it never worked!!!! Called RedSea customer support 4 times and each time they told me the person I needed to talk to was in the "warehouse" and I needed to leave a message for them. Left a message four times and never had the call returned!! Don't waste your$$$$$Thursday, March 13, 2014
JBJ 3gal Picotope Aquarium
Friday, January 3, 2014
Max Chill Aquarium Chiller
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Bought this "chiller" for my son's birthday he has a salt-water 50 gallon tank. He is raving over this product and his fish tank is gorgeous and healthy now.Read Best Reviews of Max Chill Aquarium Chiller Here
I purchased this for my 65 gallon tank that was running too hot due to pumps and lighting.It works well and keeps the tank at the desired temperature. It does run the compressor most of the time. It is most certainly NOT silent (as another review stated), it is about as loud as a small refrigerator would be.
Hook up is very easy. I used the 5/8 inch fittings.this chiler is by far the best 1/4 horsepower chiller in the market it today has no problem keeping res temp at 64 with over a 100 gallons of water in a 88 degree room
Wednesday, December 18, 2013
Hagen Marina Ecoscaper Lobelia Silk Plant Plant, 8-Inch
I was able to pull the stems through the bottom of the base, snip off the excess stem, and heat the plastic to reset the plant in the base. The plant is very thick and bushy so my betta can hide among the leaves or rest on the broad leaves near the top of the bowl. Yay!I really like this plant even though I had reservations after I decided to order it.
The colors do not look as good or vivid as when it is out of the water but after you wash it and leave it in the tank for a few days it really starts to show how beautiful it is and how much color, life and dimension it gives to a tank.
The tints of burgundy at the tips and in parts of the roots really make the plant look alive almost and help with blending it with other colorful plants you might want to add to your tank.
I am very pleased with the quality as well although I would have liked to see the base a little heavier so that it can hold it self a little better under the gravel instead of having to place rocks or a lot of gravel on it so it can stay down.
The different shades of green also do not limit you to what other plants you can put in the tank because it almost has all the shades in it so blending is a breeze again.
I definitely recommend it and would buy it again.
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This plant is okay. Nothing spectacular, by any means, but it takes up some space in our 5-gallon tank and looks fine. The base doesn't seem extremely durable, but so far it has held up through being washed a few times. I do worry that the plants will separate eventually, but the price was low enough that it's fine.It's not really soft, but it isn't rough enough to hurt our Betta fish. It is definitely light-weight, too, but we bury it in the rocks and it stays put. I would recommend this as a basic aquarium plant.
Read Best Reviews of Hagen Marina Ecoscaper Lobelia Silk Plant Plant, 8-Inch Here
Plant is small but has many leaves and very dense. It is very flexible and has many colors and detailed.Want Hagen Marina Ecoscaper Lobelia Silk Plant Plant, 8-Inch Discount?
Looks real and is a good forground plant. It even looks real out side of the tank. The leafs are thicker then most silk.Sunday, December 8, 2013
Pennplax Aquarium Decoration Mirror-Back Double Background for 5/10-Gallon Tanks
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