Home is where Your Heart is, and My Heart is in Nature

An eternal battle has reached its peak, now its time to restore the balance in nature

Mankind and nature should always be in balance. Once upon a time, when there was no technology to help men with their everyday problems, they were depending on the mercy of mother nature. Back then, it seemed that nature will prevail and then men would not be able to fight it the whole time. If our ancestors could avoid death by some wild animal, they would probably die due to lack of medicine. Even the slightest cold could have been deadly back then. But suddenly, something started to change. Mankind started to develop, and many devices and machines were invented in order to keep this balance under control. However, men has this innate struggle for power, and the control that was given to him was not enough. Therefore, new machines were invented and nature was slowly falling into the greedy hands of men. Today, men believe that they control nature in all aspects, but that is not really the case. Even the slightest earthquake can be dangerous, and there is still nothing we can do to prevent it. But there is one thing we can do, that would make us feel more human and that will be a kind of support towards keeping this balance that I have mentioned. Namely, there are a lot of "green” organizations nowadays that fight for keeping this balance and restoring order between mankind and nature. Now, you might wonder how you could help? Well, in this article I am not going to write about going out to meet nature but rather about welcoming nature in your home.

biOrb Life Aquarium

Let the waters flow in your home

To be more specific, I am going to write about aquariums, because, as the subtitle suggests, life has begun in the water, and the first step to thank nature for creating life is to bring water to your home. Of course, water is not the only thing you will be bringing, but fish as well. Although I am not an expert in this area, I will try to give you a few suggestions on how to choose and maintain an aquarium. First of all, you will have to choose whether you want to have an ordinary fish tank or you prefer oceans and seas and you want to have a marine aquarium. You may not notice the difference between these two at first but there are some, and they are pretty big. For example, marine aquariums require more time and energy when it comes to maintenance. But let's focus on ordinary fish tanks at first. The second thing you will have to do is to choose what kind of tank you would like to have in your home. There are some really huge ones that could cover one whole wall, and there are also those small ones for one fish only that will not be very prominent. The variety of tanks to choose from is really huge, and the best thing you could do when it comes to choosing is to ask someone who has done this before to help you out. There are people who have spent their whole life dealing with fish and fish tanks, and this kind of choice is more than natural to them. This may seem like an irrelevant thing to discuss about, but it is actually very important if you want to do this as a hobby.

Secondly, you will have to spend a certain amount of time learning about maintenance. This may seem easy at first. All you have to do is to change the water frequently and grab a sponge now and then in order to clean your aquarium. But is it really that easy? I think there is more to it than that. First of all, you have to wonder where you would put all the fish once you want to change the water in your aquarium. Well, I do not really have one answer for that, and I will let you Google it and find what you think is the best option. However, there are some tools that can help you a bit when it comes to cleaning. You can check the internet or with your local aquarium supply store.  Aquarium filters are electricity based and could help you a lot with cleaning. What they do is keep the cleanliness of water as much as possible before changing, by adding different substances. This way you would not have to change water that often and thus, you would save much time and energy.

There are also a number of different pieces of equipment that will help you with all the work that an aquarium requires. For example, water in aquariums has to be on a certain temperature, since all the fish live in slightly different surroundings than we humans do. Therefore, aquarium heaters are devices that will help you with changing and keeping the temperature of the water. But appearance is also an important part of owning an aquarium. If you are a type of person who likes to decorate their home, there are loads of things you can buy and put in and near the aquarium that will emphasize the importance and beauty of it. You can also buy different types of lights that will lighten up the aquarium and make it more beautiful and more noticeable.
To sum up, some people are, nowadays, trying hard to return to their ancestors and to synchronize with nature in order to restore that balance. There are many ways to achieve that, and one of them is to accept nature as a part of your home. You can use your imagination and have loads of different plants and animals in your home, but my advice is to get yourself an aquarium, because water is the representative of life itself, and besides, it's fun.

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How exotic are fish? - A Rhetorical Question

Hello all, I'd like to talk to you about fish and aquariums and how much you should have them. Oh nice, I sound like a salesman - there’s a probably prosperous profession for me in the future. How annoying will I become to a great number of people? But that’s not the point. I wanted to talk about these pretty little animals because I adore them; I’m not really trying to sell anything. Sure you’re not - a sarcastic voice is heard from a few readers. Oh well...

Nonetheless, I still want to talk about them. First of all, aren't they exotic? Well, those from the sea at least. I keep watching them on National Geographic or some other channel and my amazement never eases. I can’t really find a good word that could describe this, but I’m positive you get how amazed I am. And you’re thinking to yourself – why would I care? Well, you don’t need to my friend, but just think for a second. The oceans cover most of our planet, the greatest number of species is beneath these oceans, from the smallest plankton to the greatest creatures known to man – the big blue whale – the biggest animal ever to exist, and the whales eat the plankton – an interesting circle of life, isn't it? And that’s not all – some fish live so deep that a human head will definitely explode from the pressure! Plus, the oceans are, by far, the least explored parts of the world. Who knows what else lies under that blue color  If you still don’t care, then I honestly don’t know if there’s anything that can astonish you in this world. That’s a bit sad...

After this fun fact session, let’s move on. Do you have a cat? If you do, please don’t keep any fish, or get rid of the cat... too extreme? Well, then just don’t keep the fish. You certainly know that these two are not a good combination. I made that mistake once and will not do it again, that’s for sure. If you still want to keep both of these, please consider getting a big aquarium, or at least put the small one somewhere higher. But then again, that can simply look ridiculous and still prove to be of no good. Once again, my own experience, I lost my parrot when I was a kid even though its cage was standing on the outside of the window which even my father could barely reach, but a small cat still could. The cage fell, and... you know the rest. From that day a great hatred for cats was born in me which disappeared many, many years later – with much trouble. So, the point is, keeping these two together is too much of a risk, and if it can be avoided, then avoided it should be. You have probably watched enough of Sylvester and Tweety to get the picture.

Since I mentioned aquariums, we need to talk about that too. I’m boring already? Don’t be silly. So, aquariums... Consider getting bigger ones, not only for the reasons mentioned above but because it’s just much better that way. With a bigger aquarium, you can get as many fish as you want! Okay, not literally, but you will certainly be able to have plenty. And that’s important because it’s best to start with a smaller number and move upwards.

With a bigger aquarium you will lose less room to the essentials like pumps and filters and all that stuff that keeps the water healthy and clean and great for the fish’s rich and joyous life! No, they actually just float around and do nothing, but there’s such calmness in that and grace too, when you see all of them together in harmonious movement, you cannot but feel wonderful. You can’t play with them though. Only looking, no touching unfortunately.

Please be careful with fish and be considerate. Get them everything they need – they don’t need much but they are very fragile creatures and should be taken care of. Get good fish food and feed them regularly and thus the only death among them that will eventually occur, is the natural one. If you manage that, then you can say that you've been taking good care of them. The more fish you have by the way, logically, more of them will die and you need to be prepared for that. They are small creatures and they don’t live long obviously. If that’s a problem, well, you can’t avoid it, most animals don’t live really long. Everyone loses their pet in the end - that’s simply inevitable… sad, but inevitable. Rare are the occasions when a pet outlives its owner.

On the other hand, you can get a fish pond for the outdoor, thus you’ll be able to get the bigger ones that probably live longer than the aquarium types. Regrettably, that means more work when it comes to maintenance and cleaning. But we need to clean almost everything we own, so that isn’t really going to be a problem.

Anyway, maybe I should get back to the fish once more. I told you how exotic they are, maybe I should also tell you how colorful they are? I mean, you know that, but have you thought how, because of the variety of colors  they can embellish the design of your room? If you already have many colourful pictures, statues and similar, think how the unusually colored fish will fit in with that and enrich the interior? Yes, you haven’t thought about that, pets can be used in that way to. Well, the fish at least. I hope this doesn’t sound wrong some levels...

I hope this was enough to make you want them, or if you already have them, to take better care of them. Or, if you already have them, and you do indeed take good care them, then you have wasted your time on this text. Now let me tell you something about... Nothing, that was it actually.

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Order, above all – Home Design Order!

Order is the thing that keeps the world going. Everything has its order, everything operates in some order and everything can exist because it functions through order. When you disrupt the order, everything can fall into chaos. And even though we liked Heath Ledger in The Dark Knight, and him saying that we should introduce a little anarchy into the established order; that simply is not the way it should be. He says it himself, finishing the previous by saying that everything becomes chaos; chaos is no good to anyone.

We humans are creatures of habit, and we need that order. That’s why it is not strange at all that we do everything in our lives in accordance with something, some order that we, or someone else established. That’s why none of us likes it when something is not in order.

The best examples are our houses. You wake up one morning and you realize your whole house is a mess. Not in the sense that it’s dirty and it smells like a hundred cats call that place a home, but in the sense that it’s simply messy. Nothing is in order and it looks like a tornado struck it. That’s when you realize that the thing you really have to do is organize all of that, find a place for everything, or to go with the same figure of speech, you put everything the way it was, before the tornado struck.

Organizing everything you have in your home can sometimes be a pain in the rear. No, scratch that, it always is a pain in the neck. Yes, I changed the idiom in this second sentence. But that is beside the point. What I was saying was how annoying organizing things in the house is. Don’t get me wrong, I’m really not the person who should tell you that that’s annoying. I actually love organization, because I’m a bit of a control freak. So you see my point there? No? I thought not. I wanted to say that even though I like organization, I still hate organizing when it comes to my home, and all the things in it.

Bringing everything back in order will make us feel better. The house will look better and it might even feel better itself. An inanimate object feeling something, I’m going all science fiction over here. Anyway, bringing some material things in life back to some order makes you feel good because we are creatures of order. We are creatures of habit, like I said previously, but we are creatures of order too. Who knows what kind of creatures we are as well, besides these two.

As much as we live in order, animals do too. The only big difference is that rarely something disrupts that order, because nature is a perfect mechanism. It is us who destroy that order that nature imposes on all living things. Maybe we don’t like that something else wants to impose anything on us, because we value our freedom above all, maybe we just don’t like nature being the leader... who knows, it’s not really important. The important thing is that nature doesn't do it, we do. I sense some hypocrisy there – we like order, but we don’t like the one that nature has.

It really is amazing how everything has its place in nature. That whole circle of life thing, the food chain, etc. Everyone has its place, no one goes hungry, and everything is great! If it were that way with us humans, the word utopia wouldn't signify a perfect yet an impossible world, but would denote only the former. Nothing would be impossible. Then the word impossible wouldn't even exist and we wouldn't be able to say what I just said. Hmm, interesting...

Anyway, the most astounding part of the world of nature is the life under water. Of all of nature’s creations, the ones that live in all the waters of the planet are the ones with the largest amount of order, if we can say it like that. The sheer size of that world, the number of species, everything about it surpasses almost all the rest combined. Nature is at its best down there. In the depths of the world’s oceans is the magnificence of everything that is not human. Those are the few places where no man has ever set foot. It is the kingdom of the fish, with its own order. The most amazing thing about it is how every single part of it has its place; the word order has a new definition down there, as it is pure perfection.

Maybe those are the reasons why are we so amazed with that world. Maybe it’s the order that caught our attention, who knows. I think it is the order, because like I said before, it is order that keeps us in existence and that is what makes us grow and prosper. And it stands to reason that we, who are not as perfect as nature is down there, will be full of respect for that world.

We love animals of the seas and rivers, and that is why we have them everywhere: in zoo’s, in water parks, in ponds and aquariums of our homes. We want them in our homes, as we are amazed with their perfection. Yes, we do need to feed them, keep their aquariums clean with all the pumps and filters that we buy to achieve that, but it still pays out in the end. When you embellish your aquarium with some pretty lights, put in some castles and all sorts of accessories, it makes you happy. And it really doesn't make them any less special if we have to take of them, they may be fragile and weaker than us, and they may not posses the brains like we do, but their perfection lies in something else, and I hope that I have made it very clear throughout this text and that now all of you can see that perfection.

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Nature in Your Home Makes You More Human than You Have Ever Been Before

Many people who are about to design their homes in different ways are breaking the rules of traditional design and opt for something new. Of course, it is always better to think of your own way to design and decorate your home, but there are several more general „patterns” that will help you during the process. You can, for example choose this well-known pattern of a traditional house. In that kind of house you will have a lot of wooden furniture, a fireplace, old rugs and vintage wallpapers. Of course, a rocking chair is an inevitable addition to that sight. You can also choose a pattern of a more „modernistic” house. Many young couples pick this one. It includes predominantly white walls and and a lot of stylish, unusual furniture. In this article I would like to write about one approach to home design and that is a „naturalistic” approach. As you may guess, it includes a lot of elements that resemble nature. But they need not only resemble it, they can be nature itself in your home. You, probably, have already thought of one or two of those elements. But there are several, and even those you have thought of have many different classes and versions. So, let's start with nature.

Do not sleep with the fish – let the fish sleep with you

The first thing I want to talk about are aquariums. Many people love fish and their aquariums are not really there for decoration, but they are indeed a very important part of it. When a guest enters your living room, the first thing he will notice is your aquarium and the fish moving in it. The only way to make it more noticeable is to take good care of it. However, cleaning it, changing its water and feeding the fish is not enough to make your aquarium look beautiful. There are certain ways to decorate it and make it more unique, and I am going to write about a few of them. First of all, the shape of the tank itself should be taken under consideration. If your room is full of cubical elements with sharp edges, then your tank should be like that. It would be the best if you can fit it somewhere so that it covers the empty space between your bed and your wardrobe, for example. But, if your room is filled with pillows and different not-so-square-shaped objects, there are tanks that will fit that kind of environment as well. You have probably seen those oval ones in cartoons, where usually only one fish is being kept. But these kinds of tanks can be a lot bigger.

Furthermore, they need not be oval necessarily. There are ones which are square shaped with blunt edges that will also fit perfectly to that kind of environment. The next thing that will make your aquarium more beautiful is lighting. You can choose a variety of colors and add them to the bottom of your aquarium thus making it a beautiful colorful paradise. It is also very interesting to have neon lights in there while all other lights in your house are turned off. If you want to support this „natural” approach, there are also light-bulbs that are environment-friendly and which will not cause any harm to nature. Of course, some tools are there to help you with cleaning your aquarium. Aquarium filters, for example, can help you a lot. It will reduce the amount of time you spend brushing and changing the water, and it will save you a lot of energy.

Spongebob Squarepants and Squidward are living at the bottom of the sea... in your aquarium

You have maybe heard of a certain type of aquarium called „marine” aquariums. As the name itself suggests, marine aquariums keep animals from the ocean and from the seas. Since the environment on the bottom of the ocean is different, this kind of aquariums require more energy and, of course, more money. There are a lot more things to look after than there are in regular fish tanks.

For example, water in marine aquariums should be salty. There are, of course, containers with salt, which can be bought at any aquarium equipment store. The salt is added to water, thus keeping the salt level always at the right amount. The second important thing is that water at the bottom of the ocean is very freezing. But technology has advanced enough to help us solve that problem as well. Devices called „Aquarium Chillers“ are also available at most shops which do that kind of trade. Those devices will keep the water in your aquarium cool enough so that plants and animals will be able to survive. Finally, organic waste may be hazardous in these kinds of aquariums, therefore, there are devices called “Protein Skimmers”, which remove that kind of waste in order to save the disaster that could happen in there. Once again, I do admit that these aquariums are really hard to maintain, but the beauty of them is unexcelled. They can fit in almost any environment, even in those that have nothing to do with nature, because things that live at the bottom of the ocean are colourful and above everything else, magnificent and beautiful.

There are also several things that can be very useful when it comes to decorating your home with nature. For example, certain fountains and sculptures can effectively give an impression of a „natural” house, but they are a topic for some other discussion. Once again, it is important to use your imagination before everything, because after all, you still want your house to be place for humans and not for some tropical lizards. Everything can be overstated, even in this kind of activity which seems to be easy and fun at first. I do not deny the fun part of it. Come to think of it, buying and owning an aquarium must be the most interesting thing I have ever done, because it fulfills my life and it makes me feel like I am human more than I ever was.

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Which Pet should You Get?

Getting a pet and owning one are sometimes two equally difficult things. You have to find one that’s suitable for you and which can also feel that you are suitable for it. You have to keep it safe, clean, well fed, happy, etc. All of that together can be very complicated and not without its problems. But there is always a way to get through all these things, as there is always some way to get through anything in life. Well, except death, that one is inevitable, but I don’t want to be gloomy and morbid.

I’m actually here to talk about pets, and all that they bring and take from you for that matter. When I talk about them like that it sounds like they are your babies, and that’s not far from the truth, because babies may be cute and wonderful and we live our lives for them (if they are ours obviously) but they are still little and are developing and thus, not really smart. That may sound harsh, but that’s the way it is, because no one is born with knowledge, you earn that through life. But that matters not, as they give us unconditional love, and that’s all we need really.

For starters, getting a pet can really be problematic. Thankfully, most people don’t have a problem with having a place to get one, or enough money for it, the real problem is choice. There’s too much of it! Choosing is really a problem. Not always, when you have set your mind on a specific pet before even deciding to get one, then you are fine. But when you haven’t, that will be a problem. It’s best to always start with the regulars, like dogs and cats, maybe parrots, and if they don’t suit you, then you move on to something else. But I guess that in general, people buy these the most, and fish of course. People with snakes, pigs and something like that are actually rare. And, if you want to get a lama, or something even weirder, it’s ok! I guess everyone is entitled to their own wishes, no matter how strange they may be. But who am I to judge...

Now you have bought a pet and it’s done. Well it’s not. You cannot go with the “it’s so fluffy I’m going to die” thing. Yes, you can actually, but it’s not all just fun. There’s a lot of work to be done, and a lot of work to be continuously done as long you have that pet! I mean, it never stops. You have to be prepared for that. If you are not ready to devote a few hours a day to it, then just revert to step one: picking the pet, and just don’t even pick it! Leave the poor animal alone and go find something else to amuse you, because this is not only for fun. Do I have to state that further? I think I was clear enough.

If you got a dog, you have to train it, if you got a cat, well you can’t train it as that will be tough to do. If that’s not something you can do, get a trainer – you can’t leave your animal by itself. It is a pet. It depends on a human in all aspects. If you let it run wild, it will be wild, and you’ll have a wolf or a wild cat on your hands. That won’t be pretty, so please avoid that by preventing it before it even happens.

If you got fish, they won’t give you problems. I prefer them the most as their needs are simple and easily taken care of. They are not “fluffy” but they are other things of course. They are for looking and contemplating. By this I mean that, just like long showers can get you to think about a lot of things, fish too can do that too. Or, it can even go the other way round, they can get you to stop thinking and just relax and enjoy that time. A special kind of animals, these fish are. It is truly amazing. Of all the pets, they are the only ones that can indirectly do this for you. Maybe they are not the only ones, but they are the only ones known to me.

By telling you that, I think that I can also tell you that fish will be the best choice for you if you don’t want to spend much of your precious time on your pet. All these little bundles of joy need is an aquarium, filled with clean water. You have pumps, filters and similar things which will help you keep that water clean. So that won’t be a problem at all. Get them some good food a few times a day and that’s all that you need to give them. I even love to watch them feed, they are not messy like other bigger animals can be, fish are neat actually. This is yet another wonderful thing about them.

Further on, you can also embellish the aquarium. By this I mean getting different sea plants, some cliché castles and towers, and some sand at the bottom, and you are set. The aesthetic part is finished and you have yourself a wonderful decorative addition to your home. You see, fish can also be good for that. So many practical applications for them, it is truly amazing.

I don’t want to go on any further as I have told you what I wanted to tell you. I tried going for different animals, but I really can’t, I will always go back to fish, it’s unavoidable. I tried to suggest different kinds, but as you can see, I can’t even stick with that, I got back to fish anyway. But it’s alright I guess, if you don’t want them, don’t listen to me, go and get yourself whatever it is that you are looking for!

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A Love Story about Mankind and Nature that You Know Very Well

There is some kind of order on this planet that makes it turn around. Some people say it is love but some claim that money makes it go around. As far as I am concerned, we will never know. However, one thing that kept everything under control and kept the world in balance was the relationship between nature and men. Since the dawn of days, man was a servant to nature, and nature rewarded him for that service with its fruits. However, men started being obsessed with power. It was not enough for them to control only one another, but they also wanted to control nature as well. And so it began – we started making this planet sicker and sicker with each new day. Many oil companies were built, the atmosphere was polluted and nature started dying slowly. Oceans, seas and rivers suffered the most. Many species that we were not even aware of disappeared from the face of the earth just like dust in the wind. It is something that happened in a blink of an eye, and we were not aware of it at all. However, lately the awareness has raised, and many people started to think a bit differently. There are more and more campaigns that indicate how endangered the planet is, and that we are going to destroy ourselves if we do not do something immediately. You now ask yourself how can you help? Well, there are many things you can do. I am going to write about nature in your home in this article because bringing nature to your home is the first step towards a better future for our planet.

Can you put a river in your home? I think you can

The first thing that comes to my mind when it comes to „bringing“ nature to your home are indoor aquariums. People who have aquariums are said to be more relaxed and to enjoy life more than others. Just looking at the fish moving makes your brain and muscles relax and makes you feel better. There are also more benefits that fish ponds can bring you. For example, I enjoy cleaning and keeping my aquarium „in shape“. It fulfills me and makes me forget about other things in my life which make me stressed and depressed. There is a big number of different fish tanks to choose from in order to match them with the theme of your home. For example, there are those old cubical ones, that can fit almost everywhere, but if you are a person of style and taste, there are other shapes which will emphasize the importance of owning an aquarium and having nature in your home. On the other hand, aquariums can be a bit tricky to maintain, since you are dealing with something where life should be preserved. Fish are very sensitive creatures and even the slightest error in maintenance can lead to their death. Therefore, it is extremely important that you educate yourself before getting an aquarium. There is plenty of useful information on the internet, but the best thing you can do is to ask for advice from somebody who has had an aquarium for a very long time. It is even better to let them show you how things work and how you should „approach“ the whole situation. I can provide you with information about some basic equipment that aquariums require here. First of all, let me start with unnecessary ones – lights. The look of your aquarium is also important, because those which are clean but not decorated can be repelling to an eye as much as the dirty ones. Therefore, one of the best way to let your aquarium catch an eye of a visitor is to make it more visible, and that is achieved by lighting. You can place lights at the bottom of the aquarium and make light go upwards, which makes the atmosphere in the room relaxed. Or you can put lights on the sides and emphasize the fish themselves in the first place. There are different kinds of lights. The thing that will make your aquarium even more interesting are neon lights and not just neon but colorful ones. That will make a pretty small circus or concert inside your aquarium with your fish as clowns and rock stars. I even went further on and made the lights move. Do not do that without anyone who is good with electricity because there is a big possibility that it will come in touch with water. If that happens you can say goodbye to your fish, or you would not have to because you will be dead as well.

Eventually you are going to get tired of cleaning your aquarium. Although it is worth the work, sometimes cleaning can be very exhausting and time-consuming. But you can solve that problem by buying Aquarium Filters. These devices can save you a lot of time because they do all the filtering of water and make sure your fish do not die in filth. You can look for one on the internet, or you can check you local aquarium store for it. I am not sure about how much of these thing are there for sale. The last thing I want to tell you is something about Aquarium Heaters. As the name suggests, they will change the water temperature to a certain degree. This is extremely necessary if you take into account that fish that live in deeper water can survive only in cool water, whilst the ones that live near the surface prefer warmer water.

To sum up, I have just shown you one of the aspects of decorating your home. Of course, you need not be some kind of ecologist or environment lover in order to have an aquarium in your house, but it is always better to know that by owning one you are contributing to the movement that fights for saving nature and the planet earth from the destructive force of this new age.

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