SPEAK - OUT
The secret to a successful aquarium is: The Truth about the Aquarium Industry
REEF READY! Or I like to call them “Drilled ”TANKS, For freshwater or saltwater it’s doesn’t matter. It is the filtration. The HO (High Output) T5s and LEDs were popular (can’t keep condy’s alive) but on their way out. LIGHT SPECTRUM! Very few are still using them, mostly as supplemental lighting. As a Pet Store owner we have replaced 4 lighting systems (in the last month) either back to PCs or up graded to HALIDES & VHOs (what most PROFESSIONALS use.). Light “Spectrum” is more important. Consumers are getting frustrated and let down. Hard to contact ANYBODY to help. After 6 months and $5,000.00 later noboby would reply. Misinformation about “Watts per gallon”.? (L.E.D.‘s do not count as watts) A man made up calculation. How many watts is the sun to how many gallons of water. Mother Nature is our best blue print in a closed system (aquariums). High out put? More energy! Size does matter. Inch per gallon.? Who made that one up. The fish also need to turn around. So if your are 6” you only need 72” of space to live in? “Nano tanks”? Now you need an expensive chiller. Maybe as a quarantine tank!
We have proven for over 5 years to our clients you need to start with GOOD water (R / O DI ). In our tanks we only add B-Ionic for essential elements and calcium, Phytoplankton (phytoplex), and Coral Accel (Kent Marine) for liquid foods, (Hikari) Mysis and (San Francisco) Cyclops Frozen cubes for food. (see fish foods) To cure our fish with virtually NO CHEMICALS. Exception: In extreme cases an antibiotic may be needed. Good, clean water. Sounds too simple? We have bread bangaii cardinals, (now into our second generation.) Not just ours but the ones we have sold as well. We even have baby flower pot corals ( gonipora) growing in a baby (Kiddy) pool. These creatures don’t care what kind of system you keep them in as long as they have enough space, good “clean” water and “Good lightning” We use (Blue Line) 14k 250 watt halides with VHO actinics. (Which can last 1 - 2 yrs.) and with the E-ballast which uses less electricity. THAT’S ALL. There maybe some people that have good success using other types of lighting or filtration, but it does NOT work for everybody. An expensive experiment.
UV sterilizers (see UV Death Rays) are another waste of money. They DO NOT KILL ALL PARISITES! Maybe algae, but what other damage is it doing. Ultra violet light can cause lots of other issues. LOOK IT UP. Just don’t take it for granted. YOU DON’T NEED ALL THAT JUNK! It’s enough to keep the average hobbyist to give it up or not to get into the hobby at all. We found after 30 years of doing this (from every aspect of the industry) the books are wrong. A bold statement. Grandpa wrote the book, son rewrote it and now grandson is copying the old ways of doing it. Let’s build it to break down. Let’s sell it to them before it dies on us. This is the attitude of the salesmen at the stores. As hobbyists we just want the “TRUTH!”.
The “Loop hole” bring us some of your water and we will test it for you. Oh, Your ammonia is too high! Or your ph is too low. What kind of lights are you using? Oh you need this and you need that. It’s designed to be a big melting pot. If they keep dying you have to keep buying. They make it feel as if it’s YOUR fault. We NEVER test that stuff. Even an engineer will tell you, the simpler, the better.
These creatures care about the water, temp, salinity, and lighting (for corals) and what they eat. The ocean is not just based on Strontium, Magnesium, Calcium, and Iodide. No garlic, lime juice, baking soda, or vodka (maybe when your tank crashes). We are NOT in the Ocean target feeding our anemones, (okay maybe carpets). Mother nature does a whole lot better job of keeping this stuff alive, then why can’t we. We are NOT chemists, although we play the part, nor are we biologists, or vets, yet we still try to play that part. We are not GOD and some people try to play his part too. We DO care about the health and well being of our creatures, so why support the pharmaceutical (chemical) companies and use our creatures as test subjects to experiment with.
As a nation we have the biggest over weight problem to pass on to our creatures. We need to parent our creatures and not feed them to death. They say “ feed as much as your fish can eat in 3 - 5 minutes” or dump this in “every day” I guess if I owned the company I might want you to buy more too. No I would not, but some people buy into this. I don’t buy into this anymore. Every business goes by supply and demand. STOP feeding into this. If we stop buying all this junk then maybe they will stop producing (supplying) it.
Yes we can over dose our creatures too.
It may have taken awhile for us to “WAKE UP” but we finally got there. Stop ordering in names on a page with a dollar amount. Take more time taking care of what we do have. By using these simple practices we have raised our success rate to 98% of what lives for us AND our clients. We will DO something about it.
If you would like to "SPEAK OUT" against any product, LPS( Local Pet Store), or Orginization we urge you to do so. Together we CAN make a difference. We will DO something about it!
