How To Choose The Best Protein Skimmer For Your Aquarium?

There are many reasons that can make your aquarium get dirty over time such as excess food, fish wastes, or any accumulation of dirt. In order to solve these troubles, you should get the best protein skimmer.

A protein skimmer will help you remove dissolves organic compounds and harmful substrates that contain in your aquarium water.

When looking for a protein skimmer, there are some important things that you should consider.

Skimmer sizes

It is obvious that you should keep in mind the size of the skimmer because the sizes will relate to the room available that you have to install the skimmer.

The best protein skimmers should large enough to do its work well, completely cleaning the tank, but it is also should compact enough to not take lots of space.

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If you get a too large model, it is a strong probability that you might have to change your aquarium placement to have enough space for the larger skimmers.

The type of protein skimmer

There are some different types of protein skimmer like hang on skimmers, in sump skimmers, external skimmers, in-tank skimmers.

Hang on skimmer is designed to hang on the aquarium. Due to this design, it is easier for the user to install it and also take less effort to maintain it. This is works great with an aquarium that does not have a sump.

However, you have to make sure that you have enough space outside the tank before buying this skimmer.

In-tank skimmer is designed to mount inside tank. This is will remove the water spill. However, it will take the living space of your fish inside the tank.

In sump protein is integrated with the sump of the aquarium. If you looking for the skimmer that is compact in size and does not take your aquarium space, this may be the ideal option.

External skimmers: It is will be kept separate outside the tank, cleaning the water and then take the water back to the tank.

Your budget

Normally, food quality products will come at a high price. However, if you are limit in the budget, it is better to purchase on the model with less of extra functions but also provide the good performance of cleaning water.

Tips For Using Dragon Bedding

Bedding is the layer that you line at the floor of your bearded dragon’s tank. Not only bring a sense of comfort for your pet when walk on, but dragon bedding also can help you maintain the humidity levels or even control the odor in the tank.

Your bearded dragon will spend almost all the time in the tank and interact with the bedding, so it should ensure perfectly safe and suits your pet. Also, you have to know the proper ways to use these bedding. This post will help you do it right and make it no longer a difficult task for you anymore.

Why your bearded dragons need bedding?

Bedding or it has known as “substrates” is the materials place in the bottom of the tank. It makes bearded dragon enclosure look more pretty natural and like the environment surrounding in the wild of bearded dragons. Furthermore, bedding also offers some other important purposes.

If you do not provide your pet the best bedding for bearded dragons, they will have to walk, lay, play and doing all their activity on the glass bottom of the tank. This does not only cause discomfort to your pets but also adverse to their feet. Bearded dragon prefers live with the bedding that mimics their natural habitat.

The bedding also has an advantage as a heat sink, which helps you regulate the temperature in the tank. Bedding can dose the same things for humidity. You can spray the water for bedding, and when the water in bedding is evaporated, the humidity levels will increase.

Proper way to using bearded dragon bedding

Bearded dragons prefer to dig and burrow. In captivity, they will do the same with their bedding. It is good for them, allow them to act and having fun. However, it also leads to the risk that your bearded dragon will eat their bedding and you have to do something to avoid this:

Should not use loose substrate for the baby bearded dragons because they more likely to eat it and the possibility of obstruction is much higher than adults.

Place the food on the food bowl or in the area where you do not have bedding to avoid bearded dragon eating the bedding.

Fluval Aquavac Plus vs EHEIM Quick Vac Pro

For fish owners, keeping an aquarium with lively little fishes swim around is the hobby that helps them reduce stress. But keeping aquariums will come with some maintenance work that has to be done. One of them is gravel cleaning.

Cleaning fish tank gravel is the most daunting task because it may tank lots of your time and effort. Luckily, there are available some of best aquarium gravel vacuum that can do this job for you.

And this post will help you to compare two aquarium gravel vacuums: Fluval aquavac plus vs Eheim quick vac pro.

#1 EHEIM Quick Vac Pro Automatic Gravel Cleaner

This model is designed optimally for gravel cleaning, not water changing as well. If you are looking for equipment that can do well for just cleaning the gravel, then EHEIM quick vac pro may be the best choice.

Using battery:

This model run by battery power, which means you can use it even when there is no electric source nearby and you just changing batteries when it ran out. There are also batteries included when buying.

Effective:

EHEIM quick vac pro is designed to catch even the smallest waste and debris particulates. This model really does its job very well and effective in cleaning the gravel.

It uses the super-fine mesh cartridge to clean not only the normal debris but also the smallest debris that lies between the gravel and so hard to be removed.

No disturbance:

Although the power of this model is strong enough to remove all dirt part particles but it does not cause too much disturbance and make your fish stress during the cleaning process

Not a fish tank water changer: This model work by remove all the debris contained in the water and hold this debris and water inside of it. Then return the clean water back to the tank. So it is not a water changer.

#2 Fluval Aquavac Plus

Power:

This model does not have suction capabilities as powerful as EHEIM quick vac pro. Fluval aquavac plus mainly designed for small size tank. With the smaller size tank, it also can do the job well.

Changing water:

This comes with an automated water change system. Including 4 foots hose, led you to change water to a bucket easier.

Using C batteries:

Included two C batteries when buying and cordless operation.

Can You Make Best Fly Spray For Horses At Home?

Flies are not just a nuisance, they are also the reason that lead to some really serious diseases, such as pigeon fever, virus, and equine infectious anemia. For people who do not like to use harsh chemicals on their horse, homemade fly sprays can be an effective alternative to best fly spray for horses on the market.

Not only more natural and safe for horse, homemade fly spay also effective and less costly as well. These following are great receipt and the guides that will help you make your DIY fly spray.

#1 Simple receipt for natural homemade fly spray

With just one ingredient it’s perfect for those are busy or there are not available ingredient around you. The most basic and easiest homemade fly spray recipes has only 3 ingredients:

Water

Apple Cider Vinegar

Spray bottle

A few teaspoons of liquid dish soap

You can use 2 cups of apple cider vinegar to 1 cups of water with A few teaspoons of. The dish soap helps the mixture stay for longer on the surface of the horse coat.

But if the smell of apple cider vinegar is too strong for your sensitive horse, you can dilute this mixture with higher percent of water. The less apple cider vinegar, the more often you should reapply.

#2 Best homemade fly spray recipe

If you want the fly spay recipe that work well to keep the flies away from my horses for several hours at least. This recipe just take a few extra minutes to make but it is really effective.

Spray Bottle

2 cups Raw Apple Cider Vinegar

2 cups water

1/2 Tbs. Liquid Dish Soap

1 tsp Eucalyptus oil

1 tsp Citronella oil

1 tsp Tea Tree oil

1 tsp Peppermint

This is very simple to use, you just need to add all the ingredients to the spray bottle. Shake well before apply. Spray on horses but remember that becareful to spray on their face and avoid the eyes and noise. Instead of using spray bottle, you can moisten a cloth with the spray mixture to apply it to your horse’s face with the best horse grooming brushes.

Best reptile heat mat: Zacro Reptile Heat Pad vs Zoomed Reptitherm Undertank Heater

The comfort and happiness of reptiles are partly based on a source of heat in their habitat. Reptiles are cold-blooded animals; they cannot regulate their own body temperature. This is why the external sources of heat are very important for them.

One of the best ways to provide heat for reptiles is to use the best reptile heat mat. The heat mat not only keeps your pets warm, but it also helps reptiles digest their food. There is a large supply of heat pads are available, not all of them give good performance and value for your money.

So in this post, we’ve put together two bestseller reptile heat mats with their pros and cons that you should consider. They are Zacro Reptile Heat Pad with Thermostat and Zoomed Reptitherm Undertank Heater.

#1 The size of the heat pad

Ensure that you choose the heat mat that fits with your tank. Too large or small may lead to the risk of overheating your reptiles or do not provide them enough amount of heat.

As mention above, reptiles cannot regulate their own body temperature. With the reptile heat mat, you can give them a chance to do that. Choosing the hat mat that takes 2/3 your tank bottom will create the gradient temperature inside the tank. Your reptiles will choose where they want to stay.

The Zoo Med Repti Therm Under Tank Heater is available in four sizes; from 4 x 5 inches to 18 x 8 inches. That means you will have 4 options to choose from.

Zacro Reptile Heat Pad is available at only one size: 12 x 8 inches. It will suitable for 30-40 gallons tank. Make sure that it is fitted with your tank before buying.

#2 Temperature controller thermostat

The thermostat is an extremely important device that works for control temperature of your heater as well as the temperature inside the tank,

Zacro heat pad includes its own temperature controller. This controller do a great job since it allows you to adjust the temperature at some different levels but the drawback is that it does not show the current temperature. In order to know what exactly temperature each level corresponds to, you will have to purchase on an external thermometer.

Zoomed reptitherm heat mad does not come with a built-in thermometer that means you will need to buy a thermostat controller separately. The thermostat controller will help you rest your mind when using it 24 hours per day.

#3 Heating element

Zoomed reptitherm heat pad has a solid-state nichrome heating element and uses the adhesive to attach to the bottom of the tank. It is designed for optimal heat transfer using low energy as little as 16 watts of power.

Zacro Reptile Heat Pad also use nichrome heating wire distributes heat evenly over the heating pad. It won’t make certain hot spots, instead, this head mat creates the temperature gradient inside the enclosure. It is also made of high-quality PVC, which makes it flexible and foldable.