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Product submissions

Practical Fishkeeping is one of the few aquarium publications to offer regular technical reviews of fishkeeping gear based on expert product testing.

First Sight

Practical Fishkeeping covers new fishkeeping products every month in "First Sight". Since these reviews are time-dependent, they're based on short-term testing by an expert tester.

Due to the large number of products which are submitted for review in the magazine, and the limited space available to cover products, we are unable to accept relaunched products, new sizes or slight reformulations of existing products. First Sight is for genuinely new products only.

Buyer's guides

We undertake in-depth analysis throughout the year, often incorporating reader and retailer feedback, to produce our highly-rated buyer's guides.

Due to the complexities of testing many of the products we receive, we do not publish a rigid schedule of forthcoming reviews. Details of forthcoming reviews are published in the pet trade publication Pet Product Marketing and you can receive an email notification via its trade newsletter.

What you need to do

Please email us or call first before submitting your products for review. If we are able to include your product we have some basic guidelines for you to follow to ensure your products are reviewed quickly, easily and fairly.

Send us the product...
Unlike some other magazines, we do not base reviews upon press releases alone. We'll always need to see, and preferably use and assess the quality of the product for ourselves in order to review it.

Sending a book?
If you would like us to review a book, you must send the book itself. We will never feature books in the magazine that we haven't actually read first! We generally only accept books directly from the publisher, so if you distribute a book, please ask the publisher to send us a copy.

Provide in-depth technical details
Practical Fishkeeping reviews are in-depth examinations of the product and the claims made for it. It helps us (and you) significantly if you tell us about the product, and particularly how it works, in as much detail as possible.

If you are making any claims about the product (such as any abilities to remove nitrite; minimise stress; reduce the need for water changes; remove chloramine and ammonia etc) we would like you to back these up with some form of scientific evidence. We will look closely at the product and question all the claims made for it ? so we recommend that you provide the fullest details of any novel or unusual developments or unique claims made for the product.

Please do not send prototypes
While some companies do provide us with pre-release products so they appear in the magazine as soon as the product is launched on the UK market, we prefer not to accept prototypes. On the other hand, we have been involved in the development and research of new products before their release.

Provide sizes of all products in the range
If the product you are submitting is part of a range, please provide full technical details and retail prices on all products in the range. We need to cater for all readers, so we'll need to know the exact specifications of each product in the line, not just the one you've sent to us.

Provide retail prices
Practical Fishkeeping is a consumer magazine and our readers are very price-conscious. Recommended retail prices must be provided with all products submitted for review, including other models available in the range. If you do not produce a retail price, we will need to know the typical suggested sales price so that we can make a judgement on the value-for-money the item provides.

Provide consumer contact details
Readers may wish to contact you for details of their local stockist and dealers may be interested in stocking your product, so always provide some contact details that we can print in the review. Please refrain from providing only an email address or website link as not all of our readers are online and hence some people may be unable to obtain your product.