Easy Balance - eliminate frequent water changes

[diggozo]

I received this advertisement from Tetra as an e.mail.

Has anyone any experience with this product . . . sounds good . . . is it ? ? ? ? ?


ADVERTISEMENT

If you’d like to avoid the water changes every two weeks, you can start adding Tetra EasyBalance® to your aquarium once a week.

With EasyBalance®, you change the water just once every six months (although you will continue to replace the water that has evaporated from the aquarium…and if you want to change the water more frequently, you can do so, even when using EasyBalance®).EasyBalance® with Nitraban™

Reduce the need for frequent water changes in your aquarium with EasyBalance®, now improved with Nitraban™, an additive that reduces nitrate levels in aquariums.

EasyBalance® offers a number of benefits, including: reduction of phosphate; stabilization of pH and KH; and replenishment of essential trace elements and minerals. Nitraban™ adds nitrate reducing granules to the water. The white biodegradable granules settle into the gravel where they are broken down by bacteria. The bacteria consume nitrate, which reduces food for unsightly algae in the aquarium.

 

[ChicoRaton]

There are a few other threads discussing this product. Do a search for easybalance or easy balance. The general concensus is it's "snake oil"

In my experience, there's nothing better for your fish than frewuent, large water changes. I do 40% weekly, which keeps pollutants pretty low. Not only is it better for the fish, it gives be a larger "saftey cushion" to fall on if I get really busy and have to delay a water change a few days or even a week.

 

[diggozo]

I should have checked the threads before posting but from the way the ad came into my 'letter box' I thought it was a brand new product.

The posts say it all . . . . . . . and hey, thank the Lord for Aquaria Central :bowing:

 

[Indigo]

Umm adding another chemical gets rid of existing pollutants how? And even if it could make nitrate magically disappear, what about all the other things in a tank?

I agree, thats snake oil.

 

[happychem]

Yeah, pesky thermodynamics getting in the way!

 

[RTR]

You see, they don't explain that these are really alien nano-machines, and they are using familiar to them but unknown to us matter transmitters to transport waste materials back to their home universe. The trick was in translation of the contracts with their multi-universal corporations. :laugh:

 

[VitaminJ]

It sounds like the theory behind the product is to increase the colony of nitrate destroying bacteria, thus lowering your overall nitrate level...maybe? I dunno. Maybe it is the matter-transport thing. That would probably work just as well.

I'm as lazy as anyone, and would love for all the work to be taken out of petcare, but in 100 years, dogs will still need walking, and water will still need changing. Some things probably never change.

I guess I'll keep my fingers crossed that RTR really does come up with some of those nano-machines...

-sj

 

[Indigo]

Maybe it gets beamed away somewhere, straight out of Star Trek... I've hear large advances have been made in that field...

The only 'beaming' that i know about in a tank involves a tube, a hose and a bucket... Nonetheless if I had the chemistry know-how I'd like to test it out, see what it really does

 

[OnyxFishies]

Happychem probably knows more about this but...

There ARE bacteria that eat nitrate and poop N2 gas.. (nitrogen) but as far as I know they are strict anaerobes.. (IE, they don't live where there there is oxygen.)

(yeah, crude.. but it gets the point across)

Anyway... I agree.. I would be very suspicious of anything that tells me I don't need to do water changes.

 

[RTR]

Nitrate reduction in tanks is real and possible and sorta/kinda practical. So you set for that, it works, and what have you accomplished? You have removed your easiest general indicator of overall pollution levels, just as happens in heavily planted tanks. So then you do your water changes the same way and in the same or larger volumes, because you no longer have an easy test, just as you do in planted tanks.

But the Tetra product claims to do so much more - lets see, it remove minerals you do not want, while adding those that you do want/need (remember my wisecrack about the translation difficulty? Who defined desirable/undesirable and needed levels?). It buffers (but, see mineral discussion). It slices, it dices - OOPs, no that was a different snake oil.