Classroom Tank - The Hollow Cove - Affton Reef Club - Reboot 20 Gal Long

[ChristopherDido]

21 hours ago, Christopher Marks said:

Haha great update @ChristopherDido! It's always startling to see pale fish at night and early in the mornings!

 

How is everything responding to the new Kessil light?

It seems to be responding very well!  I can actually finally see new polyps coming from my Zoas! :-)  They old light kept them alive but saw Zero Growth, and the Hammer is looking great!  I think next year I should be able to add some really nice LPS with the Kessil hanging over the tank!  I'll try to remember to take a FTS today.

Thanks for checking in!

[ChristopherDido]

So a few lessons from this school year and a big photo dump to document everything in the tank at the end of the year.

 

Couple of Negative lessons from this school year for any other teachers looking to do this:

1.  Get a few more students that are interested in the tank, rather than just a chance to hang out after school. (Need to start another club for them to just do that, like board games or something.)   Had a very fluctuating level of attendance.

2.  Keep better records of what I spend on snacks for our Fundraiser lol

3.  Have a much larger heater to put in the tank for winter break and definitely have an inkbird to keep the tank warm while away from tank for a week.

4.  Almost lost the pump due to it running low on water - ATO is a Must!

5.  Definitely have someone that you can trust to take photos and update our Journal next year, I basically took over after about 3 updates.

 

Huge Plus Lessons from this year:

1.  Having a student desk near the tank paid off huge dividends for students that could get into mischief and distract the class, giving them preferred seating near the tank actually calmed them and lead to less distractions!  Also was a great place to sit and grade papers! 🙂

2.  Students were way more interested in the tank than I thought they would be.

3.  Trust your students (at least teenage ones) to do more with the tank, they can handle it.

 

So tomorrow my reef club will help me break down the tank, putting everything into buckets and taking it back over to the LFS that we have had "sponsoring" the tank and I will settle up with the owner for what I owe.

 

Here's some final shots for your viewing pleasure

FTS End of Year

 

Toadstool Mushrooms with a HUGE Kenya Tree and Massive purple Sponge (wish I could keep the sponge)

 

Two Chromis

 

Hammer Coral with 3 Heads!

 

GSP, which I thought was dead as it kept getting blown off the rocks (found it when I had the die-off from Winter Break)

 

Bunch of Palys and Anthelia or Xenia (not really sure which, but it grows like weeds!!!!)

 

Pulsing Xenia and two of the 3 Sexy Shrimp (came from my home DT before I rid my tank of it by pulling rocks)

 

Some random Zoas

 

Another Small Frag of Zoas, sadly I didn't get much growth from the Zoas with the old light, but the kessil began giving me some growth

 

And a shot of our Hermit Crab that survived the whole year!

 

Thanks for checking in and be sure to tune in next year!  I'll post a link here to a new Build when that one goes live.

 

 

[hoodle]

It's really great that you have this club

[Christopher Marks]

What an awesome year @ChristopherDido, lots of lessons learned, and it really turned out quite lovely! That's too bad it has to come down, but how cool to have an LFS to help out!

 

I like what you discovered with having a desk near by, that's quite a useful tool for a classroom!  

 

So the plan is to start fresh in the next school year? I forgot about that dynamic! I'm looking forward to seeing the next generation reef club build in the fall!

[ChristopherDido]

1 hour ago, Christopher Marks said:

What an awesome year @ChristopherDido, lots of lessons learned, and it really turned out quite lovely! That's too bad it has to come down, but how cool to have an LFS to help out!

 

I like what you discovered with having a desk near by, that's quite a useful tool for a classroom!  

 

So the plan is to start fresh in the next school year? I forgot about that dynamic! I'm looking forward to seeing the next generation reef club build in the fall!

The advantage of setting it up fresh in the next school year is that we can experiment with different things as the years go through... Hoping that some of my returning students next year will do a bit of research over the summer and come with some of their open ideas for the tank next year 🙂

[SunfishFun]

I love it! You are awesome for actually setting up the tank and not just thinking about it for years and never taking the plunge. I, too, teach middle school and had an after school reef club 3 years ago. I spent a lot of time cleaning up their salty mess after they left each meeting. The next year it turned into an Aquatic Studies elective class. This year so many kids signed up for it that the admin is opening up a second section of it next year. Woo hoo! Obviously, I have a good relationship with the custodians - most important people to be on good terms with on campus if you have an aquarium.

Did you ever happen to measure pH multiple times per day? That is one of the most vexing things in my room. Took me a long time to look at the data and figure out what was happening, but we had the exact opposite trends of most hobbyists: our pH dropped all day, then shot up as soon as students left and stopped exhaling everywhere. Ocean acidification before our eyes. Haha

I feel your pain about the winter break no heat situation - not good. We also had our own personal coral bleaching event last summer when the district reneged on its promise of AC and shut it off during a heat wave. We have one big tank and a few small ones, so I cannot tear it down in June.

I LOVE the idea of the fish/invert loaner program. Perfect!

It is nice to hear about a colleague introducing students to a reef tank. If you are a public/charter school I have some funding tips to share and I have a classroom website if you are interested. I agree that middle schoolers can do much more than one might expect. (Our website also tanked when the webmaster went off to high school and the replacement moved away.)

I rarely visit Nano-Reef and feel fortunate to have seen your thread! 

 

[ChristopherDido]

1 hour ago, SunfishFun said:

I love it! You are awesome for actually setting up the tank and not just thinking about it for years and never taking the plunge. I, too, teach middle school and had an after school reef club 3 years ago. I spent a lot of time cleaning up their salty mess after they left each meeting. The next year it turned into an Aquatic Studies elective class. This year so many kids signed up for it that the admin is opening up a second section of it next year. Woo hoo! Obviously, I have a good relationship with the custodians - most important people to be on good terms with on campus if you have an aquarium.

Did you ever happen to measure pH multiple times per day? That is one of the most vexing things in my room. Took me a long time to look at the data and figure out what was happening, but we had the exact opposite trends of most hobbyists: our pH dropped all day, then shot up as soon as students left and stopped exhaling everywhere. Ocean acidification before our eyes. Haha

I feel your pain about the winter break no heat situation - not good. We also had our own personal coral bleaching event last summer when the district reneged on its promise of AC and shut it off during a heat wave. We have one big tank and a few small ones, so I cannot tear it down in June.

I LOVE the idea of the fish/invert loaner program. Perfect!

It is nice to hear about a colleague introducing students to a reef tank. If you are a public/charter school I have some funding tips to share and I have a classroom website if you are interested. I agree that middle schoolers can do much more than one might expect. (Our website also tanked when the webmaster went off to high school and the replacement moved away.)

I rarely visit Nano-Reef and feel fortunate to have seen your thread! 

 

I would love more information! I did not check the pH thing through the day, usually we just checked once a day towards the end of School day. Stop testing it after about 2 months when it wasn't changing. Maybe I'll play with that tomorrow before I break it down. Glad you caught the thread too!

[This guy is extra salty]

That is interesting and great build thread 

Send me a PM and I can give you some beginner coral so you can measure growth rates throughout the year. I’m glad you’re influencing young minds in St. Louis!

[ChristopherDido]

7 hours ago, This guy is extra salty said:

That is interesting and great build thread 

Send me a PM and I can give you some beginner coral so you can measure growth rates throughout the year. I’m glad you’re influencing young minds in St. Louis!

That's awesome! I'll send you a message when we get the tank going in the new school year! Thanks!

[ChristopherDido]

Alright all here we go New Tank is in the Classroom and has been running for 2-3 weeks now...

 

My Plan for this School year is to do the 28 Gallon NanoCube that I had at my house, using the same rocks from there, bought a new stand and it is now setup there.  The new display in my house is the Nuvo 20 that I had in the Classroom, it is set up with Dry Rock.  Nice part about using this tank and the rocks is that there was seriously no cycle, because it was all really live!  I chose to go with Indo-Pacific Mixed Black/White sand and honestly I love the look of it in the NanoCube.

 

 I set up some cards for the board behind the tank so the kids can play find this and that in the tank.  My New students this year keep walking in and are very excitedly interacting with the tank, I feel better about this because the stand I have it on now is much more sturdy than last years and it was only $25 at a thrift store!  Another thing we are gonna try to do keep costs down this year is to buy carbon in bulk and measure it out in a baggie, last year I spent too much buying individual pouches.

 

I held over some corals from the tank "Break Down," so it's already got life in it...

 

Inhabitants of the tank as of today:

Stylaphora

Various Zoas

Palythoa Grandis

Rock Flower Anemone

Various Mushrooms

2 Different types of Macro Algae

1 Strawberry Conch

2 Trochus Snails

2 Cerith Snails

 

I am waiting on adding anything until after our baby is born, which should be any day... While I am out for Paternity leave, the Science Teacher across the hall that I set up a 2 Gallon pico for last year will be watching over the tank and keeping up on maintenance.

 

Plans going forward (this is speculative and will probably change:)

2x Clowns

1 - Goby/Pistol Pair

1 - Urchin

Lettuce Nudibranch

 

I am keeping the stocking low so that we can borrow a few critters throughout the school year from the LFS here that helps support us.

 

Right now this is the setup as it stands:

 

The Tank and the Stand:

 

View from back of Classroom:

 

Panorama View of the Classroom:

 

Thanks for Checking in!  I will try to update my first post to include all the updates being done.

 

[ChristopherDido]

On 5/15/2018 at 11:07 PM, This guy is extra salty said:

That is interesting and great build thread 

Send me a PM and I can give you some beginner coral so you can measure growth rates throughout the year. I’m glad you’re influencing young minds in St. Louis!

Hey @This guy is extra salty we got the tank back up!  Let me know if you are still on board for donating to our club.  Thanks again for the offer last school year 🙂

[travoose]

This is great!  I am a middle school computer teacher.  With technology and water not being allowed in the same room.

[ChristopherDido]

8 minutes ago, travoose said:

This is great!  I am a middle school computer teacher.  With technology and water not being allowed in the same room.

Yeah I have a pretty good setup and a great school with even better students, they have been very respectful of my room over the last few years.  So Happy and excited that I can do this!  

 

Does your school still have desktop computers?

[This guy is extra salty]

1 hour ago, ChristopherDido said:

Hey @This guy is extra salty we got the tank back up!  Let me know if you are still on board for donating to our club.  Thanks again for the offer last school year 🙂

Yes I have a few frags in mind to add a little color for inspiration 

[Christopher Marks]

Great to see this year's nano reef established @ChristopherDido, that's a good setup for the classroom!

 

Is the science teacher's 2 gallon pico still going too?

[ChristopherDido]

7 minutes ago, Christopher Marks said:

Great to see this year's nano reef established @ChristopherDido, that's a good setup for the classroom!

 

Is the science teacher's 2 gallon pico still going too?

Yep his to gallon pico is still up and going! He loves the simplicity, his wife wants him to buy her a BioCube for their house. Got him hooked on the coral bug lol. I'm trying to get him to join us here, but he's not really an internet community type. I'll keep trying. 

[hinnenkm]

The tank is looking great! It's always fun to see other classroom tanks because not a lot of people have them (although at this point, I've got two other coworkers with aquariums 🙂

 

I ended up bring a 10 gallon to the classroom. Love the 20, but there are just a lot more benefits of having the smaller tank (at least for me). We'll see how it goes.

Have a great start!

[travoose]

On 8/21/2018 at 10:01 PM, ChristopherDido said:

Yeah I have a pretty good setup and a great school with even better students, they have been very respectful of my room over the last few years.  So Happy and excited that I can do this!  

 

Does your school still have desktop computers?

Yep, we have desktops in our computer labs, but each student gets their own laptop from the district (which they have to return at the end of the school year).  Basically in grades 6-12 we are 1:1.

[ChristopherDido]

On 8/23/2018 at 8:34 PM, travoose said:

Yep, we have desktops in our computer labs, but each student gets their own laptop from the district (which they have to return at the end of the school year).  Basically in grades 6-12 we are 1:1.

Interesting, our school went 1:1 Chromebooks a few years back and students get to take them home. It's a blessing and a curse. School got rid of the computer lab first year I started, guess with so many teachers teaching computer basics for their classes just wasn't needed anymore. 

 

Alright wanted to post a few more pics of the classroom tank, I now have up the "can you find me" cards.... Now reading that I wish I had done milk carton style cards saying "have you seen my me," oh well... Anyway here we go... Yeah yeah yeah I need to redo the invertebrates... I will lol

 

 

 

 

 

[ChristopherDido]

We got two new clown fish and we got a new hermit crab.  We also have an urchin who is eating are macroalgae too.

Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/affton_reef_club/

Our test levels for today - 

Ph - 8.1

Ammonia - 0 ppm

Nitrites - 0 ppm

Nitrates - 0 ppm

[ChristopherDido]

My students did the post above and the photos 🙂

One thing we noticed after posting yesterday and acclimating our new additions (two Clown Fish and two hermit crabs) to our tank was that one of the clowns looked a little off colored and on closer inspection looks injured.  I am hoping he will pull through.  We got each of our Clownfish for very cheap because they were in a tank were they were being bullied so we rescued them.  Here is the damage near his mouth, what do you think, do you think he will recover?

 

 

[ChristopherDido]

One of our nemo fish died so we got a new one

Go follow our instagram page - affton_reef_club

[ChristopherDido]

we got two new snails and two new corals. Water test for today - 

Ph - 8.1

Ammonia - 0ppm

Nitrates - 0ppm

Nitrats - 0ppm 

[ChristopherDido]

Water Test - we have an API test kit. 

Ph - 8.1

Am - .3ppm (it is higher then usual. We will get it checked by professionals)

Ni - 0ppm

Na - 0ppm

They are doing good, none of the fish have died yet. We are seeing some growth in our corals. some are very big. 

[ChristopherDido]

Alright as promised on my personal tank page, here is an update on our Classroom tank.  Been pretty busy keeping this baby going here.  So far this year we have survived our first extended break and I am needing a bit of advice from this community.  Last year, if you were following, we had a major issue when they turned off the boilers over Christmas break, the tank got down into the 50s and I want to put a much larger heater than I need into the tank and hook it up with an inkbird that I see so many of you have.  My Problem is I don't know which Inkbird I should buy.  Can anyone provide me with Amazon Links for which to buy that would be best in your experience? TIA!!!

 

Ok now for an update with an FTS.  Tank is doing pretty good, we got a big piece of GSP which sat on the sandbed for a few weeks, til I realized it just wasn't really happy about two weeks ago we glued it down onto a flatter rock on top and have since moved and glued down our 5 headed Branching Hammer and it seems much happier with the placement.  Students have also decided on the next additions to the tank, based on my understandings and perusing the forum here these should be fine.  They want to get a Pistol/Goby Combo, gonna see if we can find a good deal this next week on that and they want to have some sexy shrimp in the tank, so hopefully the LFS can get in some of those for me over the next few weeks.  I think we will also be adding a few more corals into the tank hopefully next week, so keep an eye on us.  Thanks for checking in!

 

FTS as of Today!