When was the last time you changed your light bulbs? You probably know that light bulbs don’t last forever, but did you know that their effectiveness diminishes significantly in as little as a year? Power compact tubes for example can lose as much as 20% of their usefulness in a few months. So what happens? [...]
You may have seen a number of LED light fixtures popping up in our store recently. We’re excited about this new technology and the many new avenues it opens for lighting every type of tank: freshwater and marine, fish only and reef. Are LEDs really bright enough to use on an aquarium? Absolutely; the technology [...]
Ecoxotic Cannons In a time when new LED products are being released seemingly every week, it is refreshing to see a company like Ecoxotic doing something different with the lights. More importantly it is nice to see an application for larger tanks that does not simply consist of multiple small-wattage LEDs. When I opened the [...]
Our previous post dealt with the end result of nitrate and phosphate – how to get rid of them. Now, we’d like to talk in slightly more technical terms about what is actually happening when these molecules increase in an aquarium, and what goes on when we remove them. What are they and where do [...]
Nitrate and Phosphate are always present in the aquarium. Where there is fish, fish food, and subsequently – fish waste, there will be nitrate and phosphate. From time to time even the best of us get too much of these in our aquariums, especially in the summer when we pay less attention to our tanks. [...]
pH, it goes up, and it goes down. Sometimes it can change over the course of a day, other times over months. Our fish,of course, would prefer that it doesn’t change at all. So why does it change, and what can we do about it? pH Basics (and Acids) Loosely defined, pH is a measure [...]
We will spend the next few weeks looking at ways to improve the most important component of all our aquariums…WATER. Each week we will touch on an aspect of water quality, and particularly how some of these pertain to summertime aquarium maintenance. We will also be putting on sale the products we will be talking [...]
We’ve been getting a lot of questions lately about what has been going on at the store, so I’d like to take a moment to address them here and dispel some rumors. Did you close? Since you’re visiting this site now, I’d hope you see the answer is a resounding no! Someone may have told [...]
Welcome to the new online home of Chicago Fish and Coral Company. Within these pages you can explore our company, learn what we are all about as well as the products and services we offer. In this blog Keith and Eric will be discussing marine aquariums topics including lighting, filtration, livestock, as well as other [...]