Aquarium and Pond Care with EcoBio-Block

It is always exciting to go to a pet shop and choose new fish for your aquarium, especially if you are new to the hobby of keeping fish. Unfortunately, if you do not know how to choose healthy fish, you may face the unwelcome dilemma of death for your chosen fish as well as the other fish in your aquarium. The best way to prevent this is to learn what healthy fish look and act like before you bring them home.

The condition of the pet store itself can give you a good idea as to whether or not the fish they sell are healthy. If it is cluttered, or has a funky odor, the odds are good that the fish will not be bursting with good health. Take a look at the fish tanks in the store. If they are dirty, with cloudy water or algae on the sides, you do not want to purchase any fish! If you see many dead fish, any fish you buy from this merchant will more than likely die as well, for there is obviously some sort of fish disease being passed from one fish to another.

Let’s say you leave this pet store and go to another one in search of your new fish. You walk in, and the surroundings seem to be much cleaner and more orderly than the previous pet store. That’s a good sign, but you also need to take some time to watch the fish as they swim around in their tanks. Watch how they interact with their tank mates. Do any of the fish seem to be sluggish, swimming slowly while other fish zip around them effortlessly? If so, these fish are probably sick, and may soon infect the other fish in the tank.

Spend some time observing the fins on fish that otherwise seem to be healthy. Do you see any tears on the fins? If there are more than one or two tears, they could be an indication of stress or even sickness. Other fish will often bully fish who are becoming weak, which causes the excessive tearing of the fins. The uninitiated may see this bullying in action, feel sorry for the fish, and buy it to rescue it from a bad situation. Don’t make this mistake!

You will also want to make sure to look at the body of the fish you are interested in buying. If you see many missing scales, any sores or odd growths, you are probably looking at a sick fish. If the fish in the tank seem to be sprinkled with tiny white spots, they are suffering from a sick disease known as Ichthyophthirius Multifiliis, or Ich for short. Many people also call this disease Ick. Ich is caused by a protozoan, and is a common fish disease that can be hard to get rid of. Needless to say, if you take home a fish with Ich, your other fish will become infected as well. Take note of the eyes of the fish. They should not be cloudy or bulge out.

Once you get home with your healthy fish, you will want to keep them that way. One of the simplest methods of keeping a fish healthy is making sure their environment is also clean. Partial water changes are usually what are necessary to keep the water in an aquarium clean and the water clear. Instead of having to set aside time out of your busy schedule to complete this necessary task, why not try EcoBio-Block Products?

The EcoBio-Stone sits unobtrusively on the bottom of your aquarium. It is infused with friendly bacteria. These bacteria will keep your water healthy and crystal clear for up to two years. Using one of EcoBio-Block Products is an easy method to make sure that the water in your aquarium is low maintenance.

You’ve spent a lot of money and time picking out the right fish for your aquarium and you think you’ve got it just right. Then you start losing some valuable fish. How does this happen and what can you do to prevent this tragedy?

There can be a lot of reasons why your fish are dying. Generally, it happens when a fish tank is new. It pays to buy an aquarium water test kit to determine how much ammonia, nitrites and nitrates are in the aquarium, and how high or low the pH is. These are the four most important tests for your tank.

In the nitrogen cycle of the fish tank, an important biological cycle, the fish give off nitrogenous wastes when they eliminate and these products break down into ammonia, which is very toxic to most fishes. In aquariums, this nitrogen product can build up into levels that are harmful to your fish. When you measure the ammonia level, it should be negligible.

The nitrogen cycle, is the process of getting rid of ammonia using nitrifying bacteria that convert the ammonia to nitrite and then to nitrate, which is not as hazardous. The cycle goes from ammonia to nitrite to nitrate. These bacteria are present everywhere and establish themselves eventually in your fish tank as soon as the ammonia builds up. It is a slow process, however, and you can lose fish in the meantime.

One way of improving the nitrogen status of your aquarium is to purchase an EcoBio-Block Products that contains the nitrifying bacteria within the block. You rinse the block and soak it in chlorine free water over night before placing it in your tank. Normally, in a few weeks or so, you can have your ammonia levels drop followed by drops in nitrite levels. You can safely put your fish in then and expect that they will survive.

The other thing is to take a couple of hardy and cheap fish and put them in your tank. Don’t overfeed the fish. More food means that more ammonia will build up. For freshwater fish, try some zebra danios or some barbs. For saltwater tanks, use damselfish. Don’t use feeder fish for your tank as they can introduce unwanted diseases in your tank. The initial cheap fish you put into the tank get the nitrogen cycle going and you can then add more delicate and expensive fish to your tank.

Use your test kit to determine the ammonia, nitrite and nitrate level in your tank and use this as a guide for how healthy your tank is. It takes time for the bacteria to develop unless you are using a EcoBio-Stone to speed up the nitrification process.

Poor pH can also be a cause of a loss of fish. The pH is a measure of how acidic or how alkaline a fish tank is. Ideally, the pH should be around 7.0, which is “neutral”. However, fish can generally tolerate pH of 5.5 to 8.0. You can get a test strip to measure the level and if you need to change it, look at ways to change the pH slowly.

If your water contains buffers, you will not be able to change the pH very easily. Remember, too, that fish can tolerate a wide range of pH levels but do not tolerate sudden changes in pH.  Sometimes it’s better to leave the pH alone as long as your fish are thriving.

If you still think you need to adjust the pH, one way to lower it slowly is to add some driftwood to your fish tank or to the tank. A cleaned off seashell or coral skeleton will gradually increase the pH of your aquarium. The downside of both these solutions is that they will stain the color of the water brown or yellow for quite a while, but it will alter the pH in a safe way.

Maintain your tank well and you can have a healthy, happy fish population.