Zoomark 2011: Aquamedic e PlanctonTech presso ReefInternational

Il nostro giro all’interno dello Zoomark, o meglio del padiglione 19, è cominciato presso lo stand di ReefInternational dove erano presenti anche due importanti marchi dell’acquariofilia moderna, Aquamedic che credo non abbia bisogno di presentazioni e PlanctonTech, una giovane azienda che si propone sul mercato con mangimi vivi di altissima qualità e con accessori incredibilmente curati.

Qua sopra sono io che guardo le nuove proposte Aquamedic nell’ambito dei MiniReef.

Leggi tutto il post – Read more

Popularity: 12% [?]

Zoomark 2011, we were there… reportage

2 weeks ago ended the most important Italian exhibition on the Pet, the Zoomark , which is held every two years at the fair in Bologna.

Official figures speak of an increase in visitors and exhibitors, the comments are even enthusiastic, “These days, we had confirmation that the pet industry is aware of its value and look with optimism to the future. Zoomark International is an event even more point of international reference, leading platform for launching innovative and creative trends” said Adolfo Somigliana, managing director of Piesse, organizer,” The 2011 edition of Zoomark International confirms that the fair is a major, if not the main, tool for promotion and this exhibition interprets the thing in a dynamic and open way towards the national and international news “- says Marco Momoli, exhibition director of BolognaFiere .

Closed its doors with great pleasure then, Zoomark International look at the next edition, the fifteenth, to be held in BolognaFiere 9 to 12 May 2013.

We were there and our vision, limited to a small part of the PET industry, the aquariophile, we can not be satisfied … and even the numbers that were declared by organizators don’t seems too good for us. Here is why in our analysis.

According to official stats, there were 16,000 Italian and 5,000 foreign presence, with a growth of 15% of the last

Speaking of the aquarium world, as anticipated here Zoomark 2011 International a Bologna dal 12 al 15 maggio 2011, the omens were all negative. The exhibitors were less than two years ago, and far less than four years ago. This was not a good omen, but still we hoped that maybe some exhibitors had been added at the last moment, but unfortunately not. The exhibitors was few and the stand was smallest than the past editions. The entire section on aquariophile, except for some rare exceptions, was included in one pavilion, the number 19, along to other categories. Only four years ago, the halls occupied were one and a half. A major setback for the world of aquariums.

This year we went to the fair on Saturday, and we detect a rather low number of visitors, including fans, a sign that, despite assertions by Somigliana and Momoli at the beginning, the fair is not attract people, and especially Zoomark does not attract. Why?

Evidently there are two factors that are be hard to exhibitors and visitors, always talking about the aquarium industry, and that is too costly stand, cost confirmed by virtually all companies that we visited and also by those we have contacted asking them the reasons of absence, and once again the lack of audience, the general public, because the fair continues to be open only to professionals, in contrast also with the great Interzoo Nuremberg that is open to the public on certain days.

Even the much-publicized conferences have not seen any major conference in aquarists, no prominent name and nothing that is proposed to increase the quality of the industry.

If this trend will be confirmed, I fear that part of Zoomark related to aquarium could even be canceled due to lack of exhibitors and interest. We hope of course that is not the case at all, and that the direction of the fair consider another approach which can involve many companies to participate.

In the coming days we will show you all the news we saw at the show, including photos and explanations, as in any case have been presented several very interesting products.

Reportage Zoomark 2011

Zoomark 2011: Aquamedic e PlanctonTech

Zoomark 2011: Sicce and LGMAquari

Zoomark 2011: Teco

Popularity: 1% [?]

Zoomark 2011: noi ci eravamo… vediamo come è andata

2 settimane fa si chiudeva la più importante fiera italiana riguardante il Pet, lo Zoomark, che si tiene ogni due anni presso la fiera di Bologna.

I numeri ufficiali parlano di un incremento di visitatori e di espositori, i commenti sono addirittura entusiastici, “In questi giorni, abbiamo avuto la conferma che il settore pet è cosciente del proprio valore e guarda con ottimismo al futuro. Zoomark International è un evento sempre più internazionale, punto di riferimento imprescindibile, piattaforma leader per lanciare innovazioni e tendenze creative”  commenta Adolfo Somigliana, amministratore delegato di Piesse, organizzatore, “L’edizione 2011 di Zoomark International conferma che le fiere restano uno dei principali, se non il principale, strumento di promozione e questo Salone interpreta il momento espositivo in modo dinamico e aperto alle novità nazionali e internazionali” – dichiara Marco Momoli, exhibition director di BolognaFiere.

Chiusi i battenti  con grande soddisfazione quindi, Zoomark International dà l’appuntamento alla prossima edizione, la quindicesima, che avrà luogo a BolognaFiere dal 9 al 12 maggio 2013.

Noi ci eravamo, e la nostra visione, seppure limitata ad una piccola parte del settore PET, e cioè all’acquariofilia non possiamo certo dichiararci soddisfatti… e neppure i numeri che sono stati dichiarati dall’organizzazione non ci quadrano. Vediamo il perché nella nostra analisi.

Leggi tutto il post – Read more

Popularity: 13% [?]

Elos reveals the New Black Terra Natural Soil

Elos unveiled the new Black Terra, that will arrive soon in the shop, in Italy it will be available till this week, and it will be ready in two different package, 5 and 9,5 litres, much better I think than the oldest 5 and 15 litres.

Will be waiting for new information about, that will share with you as we’ll have!

Popularity: 3% [?]

Elos presenta la sua nuova Terra Nera

Elos ha appena presentato la nuova Terra Nera, che arriverà presto nei negozi nel formato medio, e saranno disponibili ben 2 confezioni, una da 9,5 litri ed una da 5 litri al posto delle attuali confezioni da 5 e 15 litri.

Siamo in attesa quindi di nuove informazioni e della sua commercializzazione, che partirà già dalla prossima settimana!

Popularity: 12% [?]

Liquid Fertilization PART 2/3

This will be my first article about liquid fertilization. What I will write is according to all the tests that I have been done along these years of practice and not about what I did read over internet.
Fertilizing isn’t a scientific act that you should follow in a rigorous way; any aquarium is an aquarium and the conditions can be strictly different from one aquarium to another, even that we have used the same plants on them; light, CO2, general and carbonate hardness and soil could affect the liquid fertilization as well the way how your plants grows and consumes the nutrients.
Having a good and rich soil will reduce the doses of liquid fertilizer on water column because plants will be feed also from the roots and the availability of constant nutrients permits a good and healthy grow.

And if I didn’t use a rich soil, can I add some nutrients into the soil and renew it?
Yes, it is possible. In case of old substrate or it is possible to renew the soil adding some capsules of nutrients of ELOS TerraUno.

This will permits us to keep our planted aquarium with a small amount a liquid fertilization, quantity enough for the leaves have constant food during their photosynthesis. Plants metabolism could be normal to higher when exposed to high light and good quantity of carbon dioxide; but this subject will be explained on the 3rd part of this article.

Potassium:
The most important and complex nutrient for a planted aquarium is K (potassium). The non existence of a test for freshwater, turns this nutrient into a problem when used in a wrong way. Some problems that I have noticed using potassium, were in the past myths and related as a different source of problem.

Let’s see the case of the appearance of green dust algae.
Some people think that the problem is related to the lights; the use of bulbs dedicated to plants (pink bulbs) promotes the growing of these algae on glasses and hardscape… Are they right?! And about the lack of nutrients, could this cause this symptom? Bad or insufficient maintenance?
No, definitely not! The overdosing of Potassium is a big problem for all aquascapers and due my stubbornness, I just found the problem and how to control it.
If you dose K on the water and after 1 or 2 days you notice that your hardscape and/or glasses start getting green dust, it means that you add more potassium than plants need. In this case I suggest a water change in order to establish the balance of nutrients on water’s column and clean the glasses. The glasses will be your test for that! After, reduce the dose until the problem is solved, but try to keep it always on the water otherwise the other nutrients aren’t absorbed!
Green dust is an easy and fast way to notice that we are doing a bad liquid fertilization; if you don’t solve it and let it run like this, in a short time other algae will appear because excess of potassium will inhibit the assimilation of the other nutrients.
Phosphorous and Nitrates (NO3 and PO4):
There is a relation between both nutrients, if one doesn’t exist the other will not be assimilated by the plants; and if you don’t have K (potassium) none of both aren’t absorbed!

How it works the NPK (it is known by Nitrate – phosphorous – Potassium)?
• Nitrates and phosphorous are assimilated if potassium is present.
• Nitrates are absorbed if phosphorous is present and vice versa.
• In case of lack or excess of Potassium, nitrates and phosphorous aren’t assimilated.

Which values of N and P shall I keep on a planted aquarium?
Most of people likes to use the proportion of 10:1ppm (NO3:PO4), but since I’m not using different compounds (powders) to fertilize my aquariums, I’m really happy with the proportion used by ELOS on FASE2 or Planta2, that is the 5:1ppm. What I like most on these fertilizers is the way how the NO3 is released on the water. The PO4 is measure in few minutes after we dose but the NO3 not. The chemical reaction of these fertilizers with the water is different of other brands, the NO3 has a very slow release and available very slowly on the water and only after some hours you can measure it. This is absolutely amazing when we have invertebrates and fishes very sensible to NO3 and in the case of nitrogen cycle, you can simply start dosing since the plants are adapted. Usually the values of phosphorous are null during nitrogen cycle and the values of Nitrates are very high, the slow release of NO3 from the fertilizer will not affect and raise the current values of NO3, but the opposite because you’re adding phosphorous in the water and the plants start growing very fast and absorbing the NO3 available on the water faster, reducing the nitrogen cycle for a half time (when used good enzymatic bacteria)… sometimes even faster. This is why I fertilize my aquariums very soon and most of people don’t understand why!

Iron and trace elements:
Iron is very important for plants because helps to fix the nitrogen and chlorophyll production. In high demanding planted aquarium, iron should been dosed regularly because the plants during their photosynthesis will absorb the nutrients very fast and metabolism works faster than normal; if there is a lack of this nutrient plants will start getting chlorosis, the new leafs born yellow and the old leafs get even worse; they will be very weak and after a short time will die.
Trace elements are always associated on Iron fertilizer because they help the plants absorbing the Iron and the other nutrients.

ELOS Fase1 is composed by chelated irons (Fe-EDDHA, Fe-DTPA, Fe-EDDCHA) and micro elements (boron, zinc, molybdenum, manganese etc.) and can be used as unique liquid fertilizer in low demanding planted aquariums.

As potassium, there isn’t available on the market Iron tests for chelated Iron, so it means that any brand that supplies iron water’s test for measuring the iron that they produces, they are selling “shitty” products and Iron is not chelated. Fertilizing with no chelated iron is the same of polluting the water, that iron will not be absorbed by the plants and if you fertilize on the same time with phosphorous, the probability of get filamentous algae is of 90%.

Along these years I have tested a lot of liquid fertilizers and most of them are a waste of time and money. Some people are really happy with them because after dosing 30ml, 50ml, 100ml daily, they say that it is an amazing fertilizer because their plants are fantastic and without any kind of algae; but they don’t sit and think that they are spending money in one fertilizer with 95% of water… They are spending money in water!!!

Popularity: 6% [?]

Come inserire il refrigeratore sotto l’acquario a fianco della sump

Una delle cose che mi ha sempre dato fastidio è relativa all’ubicazione del refrigeratore. Certo non tutti hanno la possibilità di inserire il refrigeratore sul terrazzo o comunque fuori di casa… così è necessario industriarsi al meglio…

Fino ad oggi il refrigeratore l’ho sempre messo a fianco all’acquario…

Qua sopra l’Aquamedic Titan 250

E qua il Teco TC15

Leggi tutto il post – Read more

Popularity: 44% [?]

Maintenance of a Planted Aquarium – Quick and easy!

Some people think that keeping a planted aquarium needs to spend a lot of time in the maintenance, but they are wrong. If we spend 5~15min every day doing small things, like add liquid fertilizer, feeding the fishes, cleaning the glasses or maybe a water change; the general maintenance is easy and fast! We just need to schedule very well all the needs and have some rules.

Even if we don’t do something daily, a balanced aquarium can be easily cleaned, just see the following video:

To have an idea, I spent 45min doing this maintenance and I was worried about the camera, seeing if it was recording or not… so usually to do something like this, I spend 15~20min at most.
Some algae appeared but nothing to complain… It is quite normal in a new layout, but if you detect on time, is very easy to control and remove it. On the video above you can see the difference between before and after! No tricks and no photoshop…

Popularity: 2% [?]

60L Planted Aquarium ‘ Video

I know that 99% of the persons that follows this website loves reef aquariums, but it is time to change   I will let you a small video of my 60L Aquarium with 40 days after setup. Enjoy it!

Popularity: 4% [?]

L’incidenza del Riscaldatore nel costo di gestione di un acquario marino

Purtroppo sappiamo tutti che il riscaldatore incide tantissimo nei costi di gestione del nostro acquario, ma la vera domanda è, quanto incide realmente?

Quanto devolviamo in media ogni mese per riscaldare il nostro acquario?

Io ho investigato un po’ sulle cose ed ho scoperto dei numeri interessanti.

Partiamo dalle condizioni al contorno per avere una idea di come rapportare le vostre condizioni al contorno con le mie, in modo che i numeri siano significativi anche per voi.

Leggi tutto il post – Read more

Popularity: 33% [?]

Pagina successiva »