Fish Tank Maintenence Tips & Tricks

I've always wanted to own an aquarium. I know that starting one can be very expensive and after doing some searching I found these free fish tank kits.

I hope this can be helpful to some people who want to own a fish tank but were put off by the start up cost.

Owning an aquarium full of beautiful tropical fish can be very enjoyable. Many people say that watching the fish is a very relaxing past time and the living beauty it provides the home is very satisfying. The fish make outstanding pets as they hardly take any time for care and do not require any demands for your time. There is one thing that is required thought and that is maintaining and caring for the fish tank. Fish tank maintenance is a very important part of tropical fish ownership.

When performing fish tank maintenance it has been thought that it is best to remove the fish from the tank. Nothing could be further from the truth. It is best to leave the fish in the tank when cleaning the tank or changing the water. The fish will become stressed when you are chasing them around the tank and then temporarily putting them in a different environment.

During fish tank maintenance you do not need to remove all the water anyway. You can remove a quarter up to half the water and then replace it with clean water. It is best to put pure water without chemicals like chlorine into the tank.

Many aquarium owners perform too much fish tank maintenance. It is generally not a good idea to clean the tank that often. Many people remove everything from the tank; gravel included, and will clean it thoroughly. The problem with this is that it removes the good bacteria that the fish need to remain healthy. If the fish tank is getting overly cloudy and filthy then you should look into getting better filters and ensure that the water is getting oxygenated well enough.

Little things can help with fish tank maintenance as well. Over feeding your fish can lead to the water getting cloudy and polluted. The fish will be tempted to over eat and could die as well.

Fish tank maintenance is something that you should not do a lot of actually. The more you have to do to clean the tank then the more you need to look at how effective your filters and oxygenation system is working. Ideally you want the fish tank to become a self-sustaining system and not one that you are burdened with fish tank maintenance all the time.

Fish tank maintenance is not something that should burden the aquarium owner. You should very rarely have to clean the fish tank because just as in nature you will have found the right balance and the system will sustain itself naturally.

Found here.

Free fish tank kits here!

Home Winemaking In It's Busy Season

I found this article, which is great. I've really wanted to start making wine. I found these Free Wine Making Kits which is a perfect way to start.


From The Buffalo News:

Cynthia Jarosz, of Lackawanna, started making red wine at home about a year ago, after a doctor suggested her husband, Dennis, drink more of it for health reasons.

“We’d never been wine drinkers,” she says. “Neither of us really cared for wine, but now we like it.” And her hobby, she is quick to admit, is addictive.

“I’ll ferment anything now,” said Jarosz.

On the other hand, Art Hook, of Clarence, loved wine from the start and has been making it at home for 39 years. Hook has a cellar full of smartly labeled wines from Chardonnay to Pinot Noir and enjoys at least a glass or two a day.

“I haven’t bought a bottle of a wine in a liquor store for years,” he says.

Truth is, in Western New York at this time of year, the barrels and carboys and pails are a-bubbling all over, reminding us of a scientific miracle: When the sugar in crushed grapes (and other fruit) is exposed to the yeast in the air, it turns to alcohol, thus creating a beverage as old as time itself.

Of course, there are various ways to bring about that transformation. You can, like Jarosz, buy a wine kit that contains grape juice concentrate, yeast, sometimes clarifying agents, and then you can can buy other kits that provide the reusable equipment like fermenters, and siphons, air locks, corkers and hydrometers to measure specific gravity.

Then you just follow directions to mix the ingredients and get down to work, racking (siphoning off clear juice), fermenting, bottling and corking along the way.

Get A Free Wine Making Kit Here

Kits, which cost anywhere from $59 to $160, make things easy. Plus, they provide almost instant gratification. Jarosz, for instance, took a double gold medal at the Home Winemaking Competition at America’s Fair in August for her Valpolicella. (She took silver medals for her Luna Rosa medley and Raspberry wine, as well.)

There are other routes, however. Like Art Hook, you might work from the fresh grape juice that is now being shipped in plastic pails from California vineyards. He says it’s a much easier and speedier method than the one he used when he made wine with his grandfather, who used grapes.

Today, many local winemakers, such as John Iacono of Lancaster, start with the fruit. Much of it is shipped here in 10- pound boxes from California.

He’s been doing it for 42 years, using the methods he learned when he was a boy in Italy. He buys the Muscat, Zinfandel and Alicante grapes, and “grinds” or crushes them before siphoning the mix into barrels to let the natural yeast rip. The skins and stems go to a local priest who makes grappa, and by April, a zesty high-alcohol wine is the result.

Nobody knows how many home winemakers there are in the area, but most wine suppliers say that the number is growing.

Bob Mercurio, the CEO of James Desiderio & Sons on Bailey Avenue, suppliers of both grapes and juice, says that the next few weekends will be busy.

And though there are still a couple hundred people who are still grinding, squeezing and barrel fermenting, he says, “the real growth is in the juice. “We see juice selling 10 percent more each year,” Mercurio says, adding that it makes wine making so easy that the hobby now is becoming popular among people of all ages.

“There are a lot of young professionals who make wine now,” he said.

According to Becky Dyster, who has owned Niagara Tradition Home Beer and Wine Supplies on Sheridan Drive in Tonawanda for 17 years, there are at least two reasons why home winemaking is so popular in this area: “We have a strong group of of Italian/American immigrants who were always interested in the subject, plus a bunch of fruit and grapes that grow here,” she says.

Dyster, who is herself a winemaker, says there is also a money-saving aspect.

“You can make a pretty decent wine from vinifera grapes from $1 to $4 a bottle once you’ve made the initial investment in equipment,” she points out.

But Mike Ditanto of Ten Thousand Vines, on Camp Road in Hamburg, thinks there’s much more than money or economics involved. Nostalgia, he says, plays a big role.

Nostalgia and love.

“It is a heritage thing. People remember going down into grandpa’s cellar and looking at the wine press,” says Ditanto. “I’m actually surprised how many younger people want to make wine with their fathers. It has become an intergenerational thing.”

Found Here.

Free Wine Making Kits here!

$1000 Pier 1 Gift Card?!?!

$1000 PIER 1 GIFT CARD!!!

I LOVE this place. My husband and I go there all the time. They have some of the best furniture around. Our whole dining room is from Pier 1 even down to the champagne glasses. I was sooooo happy to find this deal I had to share it with you.

IKEA To Start Selling Solar Panels

This was long overdue in my opinion. Everyone should be looking for possible ways to help the environment, even the big companies. I found a free $1000 gift card for IKEA here! Thats a good deal for when IKEA starts selling these solar panels.


Article - IKEA plans to invest in $77 million in clean tech startups in the next five years with an eye to selling solar panels and other green tech products in stores or having suppliers use them, the Cleantech Group reported.

The plans emerged from the four-member IKEA Greentech group, which formed eight months ago, the report said.

IKEA established Greentech as its corporate venture arm to invest long term in clean tech solutions. Its mission is to identify and invest in marketable solutions that can be sold or used in IKEA stores or used by retailer’s suppliers, according to the Cleantech Scandinavia organization.

Johan Stenebo, managing director for IKEA Greentech, is slated to speak on his firm’s strategy for external clean tech growth and the importance of organizations, such as the one he heads, as tools for green tech development later this year at Cleantech Scandinavia’s annual conference.

The investment plan is the latest example of the IKEA ethos that entwines the company’s mutual drives for environmental responsibility and business success.

In the United States, Swedwood North America — a subsidiary of the Swedwood industrial group within IKEA — is building a manufacturing facility in Danville, Va.

The 810,000-square-foot factory will be the Swedish firm’s first furniture production plant in the U.S. The site was chosen for its proximity to North American IKEA stores and distribution centers, a selection that enables IKEA and Swedwood to reduce transportation costs and environmental impacts. IKEA has 283 stores in 36 countries and territories; 35 are in the U.S. and another 11 are in Canada.

In October, the company will stop offering plastic shopping bags to U.S. customers. IKEA eased into its campaign to phase out the bags last year. It set a goal of halving use from 70 million bags to 35 million in 12 months, and as incentive to reduce consumption charged a nickel for a plastic bag and offered reusable bags for 59 cents apiece. The company donated the more than $300,000 in proceeds from the plastic bag sales to America Forests to plant trees.

The campaign and the donation program mirror IKEA programs in the United Kingdom, where plastic sacks were bagged in June, and in Australia, where the bags became history in December.

Here is another link to the gift card. I plan on filling out this offer later. My husband Clive often shops at IKEA because his parents live right next to one in New Jersey. I think you can use it for the online store too.

Upsidedown Tomato Garden!

Hi guys! I'm Mary, a 47 year old (shhh!) mother of 2. My 2 boys eat me out of house and home LOL. So I've been researching the web to try and find deals on stuff I could use. After a lot of searching on websites for coupons and mail-in rebates I finally found some really cool stuff for free. I love gardening and crafts so I created this blog to share some good gardening tools and things for the home that I found for free. My 17 year old son taught me about blogging so I thought I would give it a try.

The first thing I found was this Upsidedown Tomato Garden. I've read about this in magazines and always wanted to give it a try. I love gardening but our yard is currently under construction so I don't have the room to plant my garden. This thing saves space and is quite the conversation piece. I thought I would document my experience with this "free" offer and tell you guys about it. I used the following criteria to document it and if anyone has any questions or knows of more sites for free stuff, let me know!


1. Where can I find this?

2. Who is giving this away?

3. What do I have to do to receive this?

4. My personal experience with the offer.


1. I found it by searching for "tomato garden" on Google. You can just click here and find it to save you some time.

2. I did some research and found World Avenue. I guess this is a company that specializes in free offer. After looking around for a while I found a bunch of other free gifts that I will tell you about later in my blog.

3. Mailing information. Some time to spend filling out your information. It took me about 45 minutes to get everything done. Internet access. No money if you use the refer a friend option (I didn't do that this time, but I'm going to try it in the future. It sounded interesting.)

4. Well, after answering yes or no to 5 survey questions I was brought to this page that asks you to select from a number of trial offers and such. You also have the option to refer a friend and not do the trial offers (I didn't do that this time, but I will try it next time). I selected the sponsored offers that I wanted to try (they even had gardening gift cards! I could have used these anyway) and in about 30 minutes I did all of the requirements. It only cost me a small amount out of pocket which ended up being a lot less than if I just went to the store to buy the Tomato Garden. They even have free shipping.

I'll update you guys when I get my tomato garden. They even had other options for tomato plants and other things. It was really cool.