anyone use this product in their tank?

This product is no good, stop using it, you NEED to do weekly water changes no matter how good your bacteria is. There is NO chemical you can buy other than water conditioner and bio spira that I consider safe for aquarium use, and no chemical is an excuse for improper maintenence. Read this and all will be explained.

Someone mentioned that product recently in another thread. Here is pretty much the same response I gave them:

I've read their claims on the Tetra site and "Easy Balance" is yet another snake oil product.

There are only two VIABLE (I said viable, joephys ) ways to remove nitrate from your aquarium: plants and water changes.

NO chemical additive removes nitrate. Period.

The KH (Carbonate Hardness) of the water in your tank is what keeps your pH stable. KH is consumed by natural processes in the tank. If you do not change out the water in your tank on a regular basis the KH will be used up. When the KH is used up, the pH begins to fall. If the KH gets to 0, all of your bacteria will die. This is also known as a "pH crash". If your bacteria die, your tank will start to recycle.

Secondly, it's not only nitrates that must be removed from your tank. There are DOC, Dissolved Organic Compounds, that we cannot measure for, that are also produced by natural processes. Then the TDS, Total Dissolved Solids. The longer the water sits, the "thicker" it gets and harder it is for the fish to live in it. The only way to remove any of those is via water changes.

Now, that you have a very very basic understanding of the above, let me tell you what Easy Balance will do and why it is not a good idea:

Using Easy Balance will increase your KH and pH. Since your pH will not drop and your KH will not be consumed, your tank will remain "stable" in that regard. If you do no water changes, like Easy Balance says you do not have to do, the water will become heavy with DOCs. Think of your fish as swimming in nitrifying jello.

This state is known as OTS, or Old Tank Syndrom. It is what happens when a FW tank does not get regular water changes. Once you have OTS, any new fish you try to add to the tank will die almost immediately. Eventually, your older fish will die. The bottom dwellers will go first, followed by your more sensitive fish and then the rest.

Here are some wonderful articles on the importants of water changes and OTS:

http://www.thepufferforum.com/articles/water/waterchange.html
http://www.thepufferforum.com/articles/water/waterchangemath.html
http://www.thepufferforum.com/articles/small/ots.html
http://www.thepufferforum.com/articles/water/otswater.html

My advice is to run from Easy Balance. Screaming, if need be. They should change the name to "Easy OTS". It's pure snake oil.

Roan

Firstly, there are many more things in aquarium water than just nitrates that need to be removed from your tank regularly-- nitrate tests are just one general way of evaluating the pollution levels in the aquarium.

Secondly, doing 50-60% water changes every 6 months (as they're recommending) could actually cause severe shock and stress in your fish due to water chemistry swings. IMO frequent/weekly partial water changes are the best, least stressful way to go. Pouring chemicals into the aquarium often ends up doing more harm than good.

@vgeorge:

I've used it and I've seen the same that you did. I did daily checks on Nitrate and it stays very low. I believe it does exactly what the label says.

That being said, I think the product has its uses (you won't be able to make your scheduled water change for whatever reason), but I would never recommend not changing your water for 6 months though. That seems excessive.

I think the reason why people always react rather strongly whenever someone brings up Easy Balance is because they're afraid people will take the label by its word and only change the water every 6 months.

Alestro Bakai said:

I think the reason why people always react rather strongly whenever someone brings up Easy Balance is because they're afraid people will take the label by its word and only change the water every 6 months.

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You are missing the point, I think. While you may think it lowers your nitrates, you *still* have DOCs in the tank and water changes *need* to be made or you will end up in OTS land.

So what are you saying here? Are you saying that if you use Easy Balance you only have to change your water . . . once a month? Every two months?

How on earth would you know when your tank is polluted with DOCs? When your fish start dying?

If you use stuff like this "Easy Balance", you will have no way of knowing just how high the DOCs in your tank are. We can't measure them. All we can do is either:

a) do weekly water changes, which IMO is what you *should* be doing
b) use the nitrates to tell you that you need to change the water

Btw, Alestro, if you or anyone else can't skip 1 water change without the nitrates shooting through the roof, then you either don't do enough water changes or you have a serious bioload problem.

vgeorge --

You've posted before about your fish dying under mysterious circumstances and that you have "crappy tap water". How often ARE you doing water changes and how much? Do you have nitrates out of the tap?

Roan

I agree with Roanart completely, but there is one other way to remove nitrate. The fourth segment of the nitrogen cycle involves bacteria that break down nitrate into oxygen. You have to make special modifications to your tank and/or add a de-nitrator(my made up word) outside the tank. Even doing that doesn't eliminate the need for water changes though.

Think of it this way, your fish are used to living in rivers, lakes and streams where there is a constant supply of water. In another words, they evolved in an environment where there are constant water changes. Your tank can't duplicate that unless you've got some sort of flow-through system. Water changes are absolutely essential. I do weekly 10-25% water changes (depends on what mood I'm in). It takes me about 15-20 mins a week for all three of my tanks (55, 29 and 10). It's not that hard to do and it doesn't take that long. I confess I get lazy and skip a week every now and then, but a regular regimen of water changes is essential to your tank's health.

ahh
chinnp is corect..the part we don't duplicate is the part where DOC is consumed and actually does complete the cycle.

this part of the equation utilizes the anaerobic microbes that use nitrates and basically make the water safe again. you would need a very large sand filter to do this with live plants that take up the excess nutrients.

we have a tough time duplicating nature..but in essence the earth is a closed ecosystem ..it basically is set up to recycle ..

so we compensate by do partial water changes

chinnp said:

The fourth segment of the nitrogen cycle involves bacteria that break down nitrate into oxygen.

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Denitrification is somehow difficult to obtain in a FW tank. This process is made up by anaerobic (oxigen hating) bactertia that live in low water flow zones of the tank, and convert Nitrates into free gaseous nitrogen that goes to the atmosphere.

Even of you manage to de-nitrify your tank, you can not get rid of ODS nor TDS, so regular water changes are the way to go.

A rule of thumb: Using the least amount of chemichals in your water will save you money, time, effort and your fish will have to deal with less stuff in their enviroment.

chinnp said:

I agree with Roanart completely, but there is one other way to remove nitrate. The fourth segment of the nitrogen cycle involves bacteria that break down nitrate into oxygen. You have to make special modifications to your tank and/or add a de-nitrator(my made up word) outside the tank. Even doing that doesn't eliminate the need for water changes though.

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Nod. That's why my first post had a note to joephys about "no viable way". It's really not a viable option for the majority of people.

Think of it this way, your fish are used to living in rivers, lakes and streams where there is a constant supply of water. In another words, they evolved in an environment where there are constant water changes. Your tank can't duplicate that unless you've got some sort of flow-through system. Water changes are absolutely essential. I do weekly 10-25% water changes (depends on what mood I'm in). It takes me about 15-20 mins a week for all three of my tanks (55, 29 and 10). It's not that hard to do and it doesn't take that long. I confess I get lazy and skip a week every now and then, but a regular regimen of water changes is essential to your tank's health.

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Well said.

My tanks are heavily planted and I have to dose nitrate to keep the plants happy. My levels are best around 40ppm.

My schedule is 50% every 5 days on my rainbowfish tanks. I'm not perfect either and I have even gone 14 days without a change. My fish let me know it, too. The nitrates can be ZERO and my Boesemani will have threads on their mouths because the water is "old". Within an hour of a waterchange threads are gone and they spawn their heads off.

Clean water is the ticket to a healthy tank.

Roan