Aquarium Care and EcoBio-Block

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Saltwater Aquarium with Nemo

For many of us, having a saltwater aquarium would be like having a dream come true. However, we have been either scared away from owning what we would really like to have by some of the things we have read about having this type of tank, or heard from others about the woes of keeping saltwater fish. The beginner’s saltwater aquarium need not be a scary proposition!

What will be needed for the beginner’s saltwater aquarium? You need the aquarium itself, any kind of decorations you want in the aquarium and the right kind of filtration for a salt-water tank. This filtration may or may not include protein skimming. You will need the proper type of lighting apparatus and intensity that is not only suitable for marine fish, but also the type that will fit the tank you have selected.

The size of the tank that is chosen for a beginner saltwater aquarium can make quite a difference in the general health and well-being of the fish that live inside. It is important to remember that a larger tank is actually better for someone who is just starting out. One reason for this is that it has been proven that you cannot place as many fish in an aquarium prepared for saltwater fish.

The tank densities of each aquarium will of course vary, depending on the amount of salt and other substances in the water and the type of filter that is used to keep the water clean and clear. The best kind of filter for a beginner’s saltwater aquarium is one that uses biological, chemical, and mechanical filters together as a system.

It is easiest of all to start out with an aquarium that is going to be a marine-fish only tank. With just fish, you do not need to make the decision on whether you are going to keep live rock in your tank, or turn your tank into a small coral reef system. Crabs, corals, and sea anemones all require a different level of care. Marine fish alone can be relatively easy for a hobbyist to raise and keep healthy.

In order to keep marine fish in a saltwater aquarium, you are going to have to mix in some aquarium salt when you first set your tank up. With the use of an instrument called a hydrometer, it is easy to measure the water content in an aquarium to see if it has too much or too little salt.

What it is necessary to remember is that though the care can be very similar for both marine and freshwater fish, the requirements to keep them healthy can be quite different.  One thing remains the same, however, and that is the need for a bacteria culture in the saltwater tank as well as the freshwater.

These friendly bacteria can allow you to add a few more fish than your saltwater aquarium would be normally be able to handle without going into waste overload. The bacteria can also help you to keep the water quality in your tank clean and clear by constantly growing, multiplying and sending out new beneficial bacteria every thirty minutes that keeps the mulm from growing and seemingly multiplying out of control. Where can you get a salt-water tank accessory that will do all this for you and your aquarium?

You can get just what you need from the family of EcoBio-Block aquarium products. Not many products can do all of this, and last for 2 years as well! EcoBio-Block can, because their products are genuinely the best!

Starting a new fish tank can be exciting, but that excitement could quickly fade if we failed to do a crucial first step the right way, and some or all of our fish were to die. In order to keep this from happening, the person who wants a freshwater fish tank in their home or office needs to learn the correct way of getting a new tank set up and ready for a few fishy inhabitants.

We will assume you already have your aquarium, the aquarium gravel, filter, heater, decorations, test kits, and fish food. Did we leave something out? Does this look like it is just about everything you would need to start a new fish tank? Almost, but you are forgetting a few important items. You need an aquarium vacuum, an aquarium glass scrubber, a good-sized fish net, and several five-gallon buckets.

Why do you need to worry about all this stuff when you are starting up a new fish tank? That nice, clean tank is not going to stay that way by itself! It is up to the aquarium owner to do the maintenance on his or her tank, and keep it looking and smelling clean and nice. It can be a lot of work to adhere to a schedule in order to keep a fish tank clean, and this discourages some people from ever owning a nice aquarium.

That’s a shame, because there are products out on the market now that can really help even someone with very little freshwater aquarium fish experience to keep a sparkling tank and healthy fish. One such product is from the EcoBio-Block family of products for your aquarium, and it goes by the name of EcoBio-Stone. The EcoBio-Stone-M is the size that is best for a mid-sized aquarium.

You can also purchase EcoBio-Block in other forms, such as the Pebbles or EcoBio-Stone S for smaller tanks that could go up to twenty gallons in size. An EcoBio-Block Aqua or EcoBio-Stone L is the size you would need for an aquarium that could range from forty gallons all the way up to one hundred gallons.

Just what do these products do? The EcoBio products contain an inventive mixture of volcanic rock and cement with a good portion of beneficial bacteria mixed in with some nutrients for the bacteria. This bacteria is the same type that the Japanese favorite known as “Natto” has in it. All these friendly little bacteria are sealed into the EcoBio-Block; all they need to grow and prosper is a little water.

When added to aquarium water, these bacteria begin to multiply, and it won’t be long before they have taken over much of the routine maintenance work in your aquarium.
These beneficial bacteria proliferate quickly. Their job is to erode and do away with the organic matter that falls to the bottom of the tank, the mulm that you siphon up with your aquarium vacuum. Your tank water stays cleaner and of better quality without having to vacuum the substrate once a week or so.

Your aquarium will be clear, have no odor, and the bacteria will oxidize ammonia and nitrites into safer by-products. The lava rock will slowly add trace minerals and a little calcium to the tank water to balance it. An EcoBio-Block can last for up to two years. Shouldn’t you use one when starting a new fish tank?

Saltwater or Freshwater Aquqrium?

You are interested in the hobby of keeping fish, but you cannot make up your mind between a freshwater and a saltwater aquarium. You have heard that saltwater tank care can be difficult, but if your heart is set on owning a few of those bright blue and yellow fish you saw in a magazine, you will want to consider a saltwater tank. If you have had a freshwater tank for a few years, and want a new challenge, then a saltwater tank may be just what you are looking for.

The two main considerations should be the amount of money you wish to spend on your new hobby, and the amount of time you have to spend maintaining your tank. Saltwater tank care is very different from the care required of a freshwater tank, but it does not have to be difficult.

A freshwater tank costs less to set up and to maintain. On average, you can set up a 10-gallon tank and stock it with a few fish for a minimum of $75.00. The fish that will live happily in a freshwater tank are less expensive than saltwater fish. Once you have a freshwater tank up and running with your fish added to it, the maintenance is not all that time consuming. At a minimum, you can expect to keep the water level topped up, add water conditioner, and perform partial water changes on a weekly basis with a freshwater tank. Plan to vacuum the bottom of the freshwater tank and change the filter material once a month. The cost to maintain a freshwater tank for a month, counting fish food and the occasional replacement fish, is probably $20.00 or less.

A saltwater tank can range from being a little expensive all the way up to the “money is no object” range, depending on what you put inside it. The live rocks that go into saltwater tanks can cost you from around $25.00 all the way up to several thousand dollars. It all depends on their size, and on where the live rock originated. Compare these prices to a few bags of aquarium gravel for a freshwater tank, and you can begin to get a better idea of the cost differences.

However, setting up a saltwater tank takes more than just live rocks. You still may want some form of substrate for the tank bottom, a few live plants, a hydrometer to tell you how much salt is in the tank water, and a good filtration system that was made for salt water. A sturdy tank heater and a thermometer that can take the punishment that salt water can dish out are also required.

You will want a powerhead for water movement, a protein skimmer to remove any sort of organic trash from the tank water, and an air pump and external water pump for the protein skimmer. You will also need a couple of boxes of aquarium salt, depending on the size of your tank, and a few various test kits to keep a check on the water. Yes, some of these same accessories are needed for a freshwater tank, but a marine tank generally requires a more heavy-duty form of the chosen item.

Saltwater tank care can take you several hours per week. The water must be tested for salt content every day. The temperature of the tank must be monitored, as well as the water quality. Your live rocks must also be cared for, or they will die. They need a particular form of lighting, and it must be balanced for them to be healthy.

If you want to simplify maintenance, the use of products from the EcoBio-Block family Products can help you to keep the water in any tank, whether saltwater or freshwater, clean and clear. Users of the EcoBio-Block have noticed less trouble with excess nitrates and ammonia spikes as well.

Saltwater tank care seems like a lot of work compared to a freshwater tank. However, a well-maintained saltwater tank is visually stunning, and well worth the time and attention you give to it. Saltwater tank care can be made easier when the proper bacteria and nutrients are added to the water, and the EcoBio-Block can do all this for you.

In the end, the decision between freshwater and saltwater is up to you.

Initial conditioning of aquarium water, also known as “aquarium cycle,” can be one of the most stressful tasks in fish keeping. Oftentimes, when pet owners decide to add fishes to their extended family, they want to acquire the new pets right away, especially when they’ve visited the fish store and have fallen in love with some of the lovely creatures there. Conditioning a fish tank to make it suitable for the new fish — a process that normally takes weeks — could be a real test of patience.

Many new fish keepers make the mistake of taking shortcuts when cycling new aquariums. It’s a mistake quite easy to make because cycling involves the growth and proliferation of essential bacteria, which are invisible to the naked eye. Without a clear understanding of how cycling conditions the water into a healthy environment for fish, pet owners will tend to become impatient and cut corners along the aquarium cycle process, to the detriment of the fish.

The time frame that water conditioning follows depends on how fast beneficial bacteria are grown and colonized in the aquarium. Growth and colonization, in turn, depends on how much bacteria is introduced into the tank in the first place, and how much “food” is available with which the bacteria can continue to multiply. For the nitrosomonas bacteria, its food is ammonia, and for the nitrobacter, its food is the nitrites produced by the nitrosomonas.

In traditional cycling, a few hardy fishes are added to a newly setup tank to provide the ammonia to feed the nitrosomonas. This process normally takes several weeks to condition the water, not to mention the potential fish fatalities associated with the spikes in ammonia and nitrites during the process. Traditional cycling is stressful not only to the fish but to the owners as well.

In fishless cycling, on the other hand, household ammonia is used to treat a new tank to grow the bacteria. This method may spare the fish sacrifice, but diligence is required in regularly adding ammonia and closely monitoring water quality. The conditioning still takes several weeks, which can prove taxing especially when there’s nothing interesting to watch in the tank.

For fish keepers who don’t appreciate having to wait many weeks to cycle their aquarium, the solution is a highly rapid growth and proliferation of beneficial bacteria in the tank. The quickest ways to grow bacteria includes bringing in already prolific colonies from a healthy established aquarium, adding commercially available bacteria cultures to the tank, and/or putting a bacteria-multiplying product called EcoBio-Block in the habitat.

The EcoBio-Block Family Products are mineral-rich porous volcanic stones that are embedded with beneficial bacteria called “bacillus subtilis natto” from Japan, including the nutrients they need to proliferate. Once the EcoBio-Block is placed in water, the bacteria immediately come to life and multiply every half hour, performing the nitrification process associated with cycling and overall water conditioning. This special strain of bacteria effectively degrades organic matter and makes the tank clear, healthy, and odor-free for years.

With the fast-multiplying EcoBio-Block strain of bacillus subtilis natto, there’s no need to wait anxiously for many weeks before bringing fishes to their new home. Also, because of the continuous growth and proliferation of EcoBio-Block bacteria, maintaining ideal water conditions should henceforth be stress-free.