The Kennel Shop

Many people think that bacteria are a bad thing to have in an aquarium, but any healthy aquarium should have an amount of beneficial nitrifying bacteria. Without this bacteria, home aquariums would simple be impossible! When waste is created by fish or extra food in your tank it turns into ammonia in the water. Ammonia is harmful to fish, so an aquarium should never have elevated levels of ammonia. The ammonia is converted into nitrite by bacteria that feeds off of ammonia, and then another type of bacteria turns the nitrite into nitrate. Nitrate is the end product of this cycle, and is much less harmful to fish. The nitrates are removed when a water change is done. It is recommended to change 1/3 of the aquarium’s water once a month to keep the levels of nitrates down. This should be done with a gravel vacuum which remove debris and excess waste from the rocks.

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Almost all lizards (and many snakes) need to have UVB and UVA lighting (also known as full-spectrum lighting) to live a healthy and long life. UVA is contained in most lighting that is available, including basking lights. UVB lighting can be harder to come by, but is the most important. The right levels of UVB are needed for lizards to be able to absorb calcium. Like in humans, day light helps lizards to make Vitamin D3, which allows them to absorb vitamin D. This allows baby and adult lizards to grow and develop healthy bones. Without UVB lighting many reptiles will develop bone abnormalities.

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Over the centuries many methods and devices for controlling large and powerful animals have been tried. The idea of a training tool that gives more effective control is not a new one. One effective principle says “when you control the direction of an animal’s head you can more easily control the direction of the animal’s body”. Training dogs to use head collars work on this same principle.

One of the advantages head collars have over buckle, choke, or pinch collars is their ability to aid the dog handler in achieving a high level of control using far less physical strength. This has revolutionized training as methods requiring less force can be applied by greater numbers of people and used on greater numbers of dogs.

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