An Educational Display Tank in a High School: Reef, Brackish, and Fresh Oh My!

[PistachioSkyBird]

Sorry, I'm not particularly familiar with reading this kind of test strip. I see on the bottle where is says read first, read second, etc. Do you read from right to left or left to right?

How are you calibrating your refractometer?

Depending on what is in your tap water, using tap water to fill your system may not have been an issue. However, if there is metal or other contaminants beyond just calcium and magnesium in your tap water I would recommend using RO or distilled water for managing top offs to keep salinity stable between water changes. You could see if there are water tests of your schools water. How is she managing topping off water for the tank? RODI tends to be the most effective and inexpensive long term for most tanks.

I'm not an expert, but I've generally heard it's safer to bring salinity down more quickly but better to bring it up more slowly. If your refractometer is properly calibrated, you should be able to bring it down close to 35ppm with a single water change, since you only have clownfish in the system.

Sorry I forgot to specify which was which. The two brownish ones on the right are nitrate and nitrite, the bright red one is the hardness, the blue green one next to it is the alkalinity and the one on the far right is the pH.

The refractometer is the one that we got from Bulk Reef Supply and I have been checking it with the calibration fluid that came with it that is supposed to be 35 ppm.

The tap water here is very hard but I think that is is mainly calcium and magnesium. I use it in the fresh water tanks all the time, but I use prime as a dechlorinator and it also can remove heavy metals (the cichlids love the hard water). We are in the process of getting a RODI filter but we do not have it yet. We are going to use distilled water to do this water change.

 

[PistachioSkyBird]

Does anyone have suggestions for a good auto feeder?

It seems like our larger clownfish has been getting more aggressive over the weekends when he is not being regularly feed. The last several fish deaths we have had were over the weekend, and this seems to be the most logical solution since the tank parameters are much improved. The auto feeder that we have puts in way too much food at one time.

 

[Eric R.]

Does anyone have suggestions for a good auto feeder?

It seems like our larger clownfish has been getting more aggressive over the weekends when he is not being regularly feed. The last several fish deaths we have had were over the weekend, and this seems to be the most logical solution since the tank parameters are much improved. The auto feeder that we have puts in way too much food at one time.

What auto feeder do you have and how is it setup?

This is the one I use for weekend feeding on my FW and SW classroom tanks: https://www.aquariumcoop.com/products/fish-food-autofeeder

I use crushed flake to feed and have it set to the smallest opening. I have it feed twice a day with 2-3 rotations.

What food do you prefer to feed?

Also, the larger clownfish in an adult pair is female. Clownfish are sequential hermaphrodites - a group of juveniles all start as males, with the largest, dominant fish in the group becoming a reproductive female.

 

[PistachioSkyBird]

What auto feeder do you have and how is it setup?

This is the one I use for weekend feeding on my FW and SW classroom tanks: https://www.aquariumcoop.com/products/fish-food-autofeeder

I use crushed flake to feed and have it set to the smallest opening. I have it feed twice a day with 2-3 rotations.

What food do you prefer to feed?

Also, the larger clownfish in an adult pair is female. Clownfish are sequential hermaphrodites - a group of juveniles all start as males, with the largest, dominant fish in the group becoming a reproductive female.

This is the auto feeder that puts in too much food. It is currently on the guppy tank in the library. I don't have any idea what the brand is.

It turns out we do have another auto feeder that got clogged with salt when it was used to feed the fish over Christmas break. (Both of the auto feeders belong to the librarian so I didn't realize she had 2) This one does put in a small enough amount for a single clown fish. We are going to try it again. It is an imaginarium one.

As for the food we have been feeding pellets.


I am guessing that our clownfish is female, but we named it Marlin so I keep referring to it as "he"...

What type of fish do you have in your tanks? We mainly have cichlids in our freshwater tank.

 

[Eric R.]

This is the auto feeder that puts in too much food. It is currently on the guppy tank in the library. I don't have any idea what the brand is.

It turns out we do have another auto feeder that got clogged with salt when it was used to feed the fish over Christmas break. (Both of the auto feeders belong to the librarian so I didn't realize she had 2) This one does put in a small enough amount for a single clown fish. We are going to try it again. It is an imaginarium one.

As for the food we have been feeding pellets.


I am guessing that our clownfish is female, but we named it Marlin so I keep referring to it as "he"...

What type of fish do you have in your tanks? We mainly have cichlids in our freshwater tank.

I have a pair of ocellaris clownfish, a six line wrasse, and a yellow watchman goby in the SW tank. In the FW, I have cardinal tetras, a few different species of corydoras, daisy's blue-eyed ricefish, Endlers, and a random unidentified hitchhiking killifish.

 

[1Matthew]

We have talked and I had not seen the test results before, and had been reading the new refractometer wrong. (our old salinity gauge was apparently way off) We are going to be doing a 25% water change today and are going to try and lower the salinity as well as everything else. Are there any suggestions for how much it is safe to lower it at one time? I don't want to kill the clownfish that has gotten used to the extra salty water.

My suggestion is to buy a hyrdrometer that floats like a bobber in the tank. No need to calibrate, just turn off the flow and watch the where the water level is on the bobber

High Precision Hydrometer

Ensure that your equipment is reading correctly and your aquarium is at the right salinity with Tropic Marin's High Precision Hydrometer. Many tank inhabitants are sensitive even to minor changes of the water conditions. Unfortunately as we've all experienced, salinity reading equipment as...

www.bulkreefsupply.com

 

[PistachioSkyBird]

I have a pair of ocellaris clownfish, a six line wrasse, and a yellow watchman goby in the SW tank. In the FW, I have cardinal tetras, a few different species of corydoras, daisy's blue-eyed ricefish, Endlers, and a random unidentified hitchhiking killifish.

How big are your tanks? I am working on a stock list especially for the SW tank and haven't done too much research on how many fish to put in the tank.

Also is your FW tank warm or cool? I was thinking about doing rice fish but I wasn't sure if they would do ok at the same temperature as corys?

 

[PistachioSkyBird]

My suggestion is to buy a hyrdrometer that floats like a bobber in the tank. No need to calibrate, just turn off the flow and watch the where the water level is on the bobber

High Precision Hydrometer

Ensure that your equipment is reading correctly and your aquarium is at the right salinity with Tropic Marin's High Precision Hydrometer. Many tank inhabitants are sensitive even to minor changes of the water conditions. Unfortunately as we've all experienced, salinity reading equipment as...

www.bulkreefsupply.com

I hadn't thought about one of those. We may have to try that!

 

[PistachioSkyBird]

I have a little bit of an update for you all. We are getting more stuff ordered and it is really exciting to actually see it here. I recently purchased a 75 gallon for the reef tank sump. It is currently sitting on one of the lab tables in the classroom and It has been really entertaining to see the student reaction when I tell them that the actual tanks will be about 4 times the size!

As you can see we have also gotten the lights as well as heaters, flow pumps, and an ATO.

Next big thing is to actually order the tanks them selves! Hopefully we will be able to do that in the next week or so.

 

[PistachioSkyBird]

Hello everyone,
We are getting ready to start tearing out the old tanks!!! We are going to start as soon as finals are finished at the high school. That being said the tanks are not here yet... but we have lots to do before we can actually install the tanks. The LFS thinks they should be in sometime in the next two weeks.

We have the RODI filter set up and I am storing some water for the 300 gallon reef tank so that we can get it filled up faster.

I am working on the aqua scape for the reef tank, and have had some help from the students. They are really excited to be part of the building process.

We also have some new friends! These two clownfish will be the first occupants of the reef tank when it gets set up. As far as I can tell they are something similar to black storm clowns.

They were sold to me as a pair and they have been getting along pretty well so I think they are. Apparently right before I bought them some one else had bought the anemone that they were hosting in. Hopefully this means that when they get put in the new tank they will be fairly easy to get to host in another anemone. They are currently in the tank I have set up in my room for fish observation and to have somewhere to put fish in case of aggression issues.

There should be more updates coming soon! I will actually have something new to show you guys!

 

[PistachioSkyBird]

The fish are on the move!
They are getting moved to my classroom while the old tanks are being taken out.

The African Cichlids are quite happy in the tank that will become the sump for the reef tank.


The Oscar is a little less thrilled to be in a 75 gallon tank, but once he and the convicts get used to each other they will be fine.

The only fish left in the tank is the pacu who is getting moved today! Everything is moved out from under the tanks and as soon as they are drained we are ready to start demolition!

The aqua scape for the reef tank is coming along! Here is a picture of it as it is right now. It is currently 7 separate pieces so that we can move it.

I think these two are getting excited

 

[PistachioSkyBird]

I thought I would have more updates for you guys but we are still waiting on the tanks to arrive. In the meantime I am feeding the fish and adding little details to the aqua scape every time I walk by .
Hopefully the tanks will be here next week!
In other news sadly the Oscar decided that the floor looked like a nice place to explore... and of course he jumped when no one was there.

 

[Eric R.]

I thought I would have more updates for you guys but we are still waiting on the tanks to arrive. In the meantime I am feeding the fish and adding little details to the aqua scape every time I walk by .
Hopefully the tanks will be here next week!
In other news sadly the Oscar decided that the floor looked like a nice place to explore... and of course he jumped when no one was there.

Thanks for the update, sorry about the oscar.

 

[PistachioSkyBird]

The tanks are finally here!

This is where they are being stored while we wait for electrical work to be done and for the stands to be finished.
The smallest one in the corner is for the cichlids and the one next to it will be the brackish tank. The large one with the clear sides is the fresh water tank and the one with the black background is the reef tank. I am planning on painting the backs of the other tanks to match. Buying them pre painted was pretty expensive. The reef tank does have an external overflow. Any tips on plumbing a sump from the overflow would be greatly appreciated!

 

[Eric R.]

Wooo!

 

[PistachioSkyBird]

Sorry it has taken so long for an update but I was out of the country and then a whole bunch happened all at once!
Spoiler alert the stands are here and the tanks are on the stands and I am working on getting them functional in between teaching and grading!
Here are some pictures of what we have done so far!

Here are the tanks in front of the custom stands.

Here are the backs getting painted.

Final coat on the large tanks and we got the small one up on the stand. I started to aqua scape it while I waited for the paint to dry.

The small tank. It was such a relief when we were able to get one of the tanks up and it fit perfectly!

A while later I was able to get most of the faculty to help put the large tanks up after some beginning of the year teachers meetings. Seeing them all up on the stands was a little weird for me because it looked so much like the 3D rendering that I had be working with for almost a year!

Next I added some aqua scaping to the the freshwater tank and some sand to the brackish water tank. I had to keep the aqua scape fairly simple because the pacu will have to go back in this tank.

I filled up the small tank.

And added the old fish in. I felt fairy comfortable doing this because the filter was moving with them. Unfortunately, the move stressed them out and caused some of them to die from a bacterial infection.

We then tried to move the rock for the saltwater tank... (it didn't go well)

When we moved it to the tank most of the aqua scape fell apart. I think I may have made the pieces to big or not used enough mortar. What ever caused it, it ended up looking nice when we were finished. This aqua scape will give more room for coral growth too. It was still one of the worst feelings to pick up the rock structures that the students helped me build only to have them fall apart in my hands.

I also filled the large freshwater tank to get it starting to cycle. You may notice that there is some water in the saltwater tank as well. This is the water that I had from running our RODI over the summer. I could have had more but I only had 2 brute trash cans to store the water in.

Adding more water!

Here is where it stands as of now. I know that I shouldn't leave the lights on but I wanted to test them out and make sure they were working. You may also notice that the water level is still pretty low. We have been having issues getting the right size bulk heads to plumb the overflow. I think we finally are on the right track though and only need one more that should be in next week. I am going to start plumbing a bean animal in the overflow while we wait for the last piece and see if I can get things setup for the returns as well. The sump is currently sitting in my classroom waiting to come out to the tanks. The filter for the freshwater tank is currently sitting on top of it. That will have to be a whole other post!
For right now the saltwater tank is sitting there with two gyre pumps to keep the water flowing. I have also been adding so Microbactor 7 and some fish food to get the bacteria going while we are waiting.

 

[Sam123]

This is amazing and WHAT an undertaking! Surprised you didn’t add in a paludarium as well! Lol! Looking forward to seeing the life added.

 

[PistachioSkyBird]

This is amazing and WHAT an undertaking! Surprised you didn’t add in a paludarium as well! Lol! Looking forward to seeing the life added.

We did have a back up plan to make the old tanks into paludariums if we could not get the funding for the new tanks. In general fish are a lot easier to take care of over the summer because they are much better about eating pellet food, or at least frozen food. This means that I don't have to feed both the animals and the food that I feed them. We do already have a leopard gecko and an axolotl at the school. One of the other science teachers keeps them in her room and she takes them home over the summer.

The middle brackish water tank will have mudskippers in it so it will almost be a paludarium

 

[Sam123]

We did have a back up plan to make the old tanks into paludariums if we could not get the funding for the new tanks. In general fish are a lot easier to take care of over the summer because they are much better about eating pellet food, or at least frozen food. This means that I don't have to feed both the animals and the food that I feed them. We do already have a leopard gecko and an axolotl at the school. One of the other science teachers keeps them in her room and she takes them home over the summer.

The middle brackish water tank will have mudskippers in it so it will almost be a paludarium

Oh, wow. Mudskippers are really fun to watch! I saw a tank online somewhere that incorporated them with a pea puffer. Can’t wait to see the tanks’ inhabitants!

 

[PistachioSkyBird]

Oh, wow. Mudskippers are really fun to watch! I saw a tank online somewhere that incorporated them with a pea puffer. Can’t wait to see the tanks’ inhabitants!

That might have been the one I saw too! I'm hoping that eventually we can have 4 or 5 mudskippers and a figure 8 puffer.