Innovation Lab Classroom Aquarium System

[cjfishbone]

The Innovation Lab is a special program that currently provides a non-traditional path to learning for 120 students at Green Run High School. Our goal is to help our students find purpose through real world learning experiences, social and emotional learning, and multi-disciplinary learning. We hope to help accomplish this by building a community reef and coral propagation system in our science lab.

The community reef part of the system will be used to study the diversity of marine organisms and ecology of a coral reef ecosystem, including the evolutionary relationships between specific organisms. The coral propagation part of the system will be used to study business and aquaculture by fragging and growing corals for sale and research purposes. Money earned from the sale of corals will be used to maintain the system and fund student research projects.

This project will benefit Innovation Lab students for many years to come. The students we have this year will build the system that will be used by each new group of incoming freshmen. We hope to begin building the system as soon as possible so our students can begin their learning adventure.

Our plan is as follows:

• Build and maintain the community reef and coral propagation system
• Study marine organisms and coral reef ecosystem dynamics
• Study aquaculture and propagation of corals
• Develop a business model for marketing and selling corals
• Establish and operate a small business selling corals

Our equipment and supplies list:

• 2 Innovative Marine NUVO Black 25 gallon lagoon aquariums
• Trigger Systems Triton 34 sump
• Reef Octopus Classic 110-INT protein skimmer
• EcoTech Marine Vectra M1 return pump
• 2 EcoTech Marine VorTech MP10wQD circulation pumps
• 2 EcoTech Marine Radion XR15w G4 Pro LED lights
• 2 EcoTech Marine RMS XR15 mounts
• EcoTech Marine ReefLink controller
• Neptune Systems Apex controller system
• Kamoer KSP-F03 Dosing Pump
• Tunze Osmolator 3155 ATO system
• Tunze Eco Chic 8831 LED Refugium light
• 2 Eheim Jager TruTemp 150W heater
• 60 pounds CaribSea Arag-Alive Fiji Pink aragonite sand
• 40 pounds CaribSea Life Rock
• Instant Ocean salt mix
• Brightwell Aquatics Reef Code A
• Brightwell Aquatics Reef Code B
• Brightwell Aquatics Magnesion
• PVC pipes and fittings

We will continue to provide regular updates on our progress and how the system is being used to enhance the learning and lives of our students.

Progress as of March 1, 2019

 

[Brew12]

The Innovation Lab is a special program that currently provides a non-traditional path to learning for 120 students at Green Run High School. Our goal is to help our students find purpose through real world learning experiences, social and emotional learning, and multi-disciplinary learning. We hope to help accomplish this by building a community reef and coral propagation system in our science lab.

The community reef part of the system will be used to study the diversity of marine organisms and ecology of a coral reef ecosystem, including the evolutionary relationships between specific organisms. The coral propagation part of the system will be used to study business and aquaculture by fragging and growing corals for sale and research purposes. Money earned from the sale of corals will be used to maintain the system and fund student research projects.

This project will benefit Innovation Lab students for many years to come. The students we have this year will build the system that will be used by each new group of incoming freshmen. We hope to begin building the system as soon as possible so our students can begin their learning adventure.

Our plan is as follows:

• Build and maintain the community reef and coral propagation system
• Study marine organisms and coral reef ecosystem dynamics
• Study aquaculture and propagation of corals
• Develop a business model for marketing and selling corals
• Establish and operate a small business selling corals

Our equipment and supplies list:

• 2 Innovative Marine NUVO Black 25 gallon lagoon aquariums
• Trigger Systems Triton 34 sump and ATO reservoir
• Reef Octopus Classic 110-INT protein skimmer
• EcoTech Marine Vectra M1 return pump
• 2 EcoTech Marine VorTech MP10wQD circulation pumps
• 2 EcoTech Marine Radion XR15w G4 Pro LED lights
• 2 EcoTech Marine RMS XR15 mounts
• EcoTech Marine ReefLink controller
• Neptune Systems Apex controller system
• Kamoer KSP-F03 Dosing Pump
• Tunze Osmolator 3155 ATO system
• Eheim Jager TruTemp 200W heater
• 60 pounds CaribSea Arag-Alive Fiji Pink aragonite sand
• 40 pounds CaribSea Life Rock
• Instant Ocean salt mix
• Brightwell Aquatics Reef Code A
• Brightwell Aquatics Reef Code B
• Brightwell Aquatics Magnesion
• PVC pipes and fittings

We will continue to provide regular updates on our progress and how the system is being used to enhance the learning and lives of our students.

This looks like a fantastic project! I wish I had something like this in school. I'm sure the kids will love it!

 

[cjfishbone]

This looks like a fantastic project! I wish I had something like this in school. I'm sure the kids will love it!

The kids are really excited to get it up and running by Christmas break. It's a definite upgrade from my son's NUVO Fusion 20 that he let us borrow for the classroom last year.

 

[NY_Caveman]

What a fantastic project! Looking forward to following the kids’ progress.

 

[cjfishbone]

We're getting really close to setting things up thanks to an LFS owner that has supported us since we started this project. All the equipment and supplies are in except for our shipment from EcoTech and the water tanks for our mixing station. The kids are getting really excited now!

 

[cjfishbone]

We got started on our build today. We unboxed the sump, cut leveling mats to fit it and the aquariums, and set them in place during study block. One of my kids stayed after school and helped silicone the new overflow boxes in place before he had to leave for a swim meet. He did an outstanding job measuring, then test fitting, then measuring again before applying the silicone. They'll have the weekend to cure before we start on the plumbing next week.

 

[cjfishbone]

Things are moving along nicely with the build. We were having difficulty leveling the system where we had it last week so we moved it to where our Fusion 20 last year and now it's perfectly level. We were then able to finish the overflow installation and plumbed the drain lines. Our EcoTech shipment arrived yesterday so we finally have all the equipment to get the system set up. We are hoping to have all the plumbing done before Winter break but we might not have the time. We'll see what the kids can do!

 

[cjfishbone]

We finally got back to work after a long delay for winter break then a major research project. We finished the return plumbing yesterday afternoon. They made a few mistakes but we had enough spare pipe and fittings to fix them. Overall, the kids did a great job on the plumbing considering it was their first time working with PVC.

 

[cjfishbone]

We made some significant progress last week. The last of the plumbing is complete and the kids tested the skimmer and return pump in a 5 gallon bucket of water that I saved from a water change on my own aquarium. The biggest issue we had to overcome was setting up the Apex controller. Our school's network security was a major obstacle but we managed to work around it by using an old WiFi router to create a local network without internet access. It not ideal, but hopefully our district technology department will be able to setup a WPA2 Personal AES network just for our aquarium system. The ReefLink on the other hand, easily connected to our school's hidden open network and works perfectly. Before we left school on Friday, the kids added the sand and used the water from my aquarium to keep it wet until our saltwater is delivered Monday afternoon. After that, our plan is to build our saltwater mixing station while the system is cycling.

I want to give a big THANK YOU to Ryan Brink at Animal Adventure in Chesapeake, VA. If he had not stepped up and helped us, we never would have been able to get this project off the ground.

 

[cjfishbone]

The system is finally wet! Ryan from Animal Adventure delivered 80 gallons of saltwater Monday afternoon to get us started. With the help of one of my kids, we got it filled up and the next day the kids learned how to calibrate the return pump, lights, and pH probe. After that, they programmed the pumps and lights, dropped a small piece of shrimp in each aquarium, and started dosing MicroBacter. Let the cycle begin! We still have some work to do while we wait. Next up is silencing the overflow and setting up our electronics board so everything looks clean and neat.

 

[cjfishbone]

The kids were really excited yesterday to see the water cleared up and now they're ready to track the cycle. They had a virtual learning day today so they're doing research on the fish they want to get for each aquarium.

Here's their assignment:

Use this virtual learning day to research saltwater fish that you might want to add to our aquarium system. Be sure to do thorough research on several different species of fish before you select the ONE species that you would most like to see in our system. Please follow the simple guidelines below.

- The fish should be able to live comfortably in a 25 gallon aquarium (small in size).
- The fish should have a peaceful temperament (not aggressive toward other species).
- The fish should be invertebrate safe (not likely to eat inverts).
- The fish should be reef safe (not likely to eat corals).
- The fish should serve a purpose (eat algae, parasites, pests, etc.).

 

[cjfishbone]

What a week we had! The kids excitement level has grown exponentially since we filled the system last week and added a piece of shrimp to each aquarium. We finally got our test kits on Wednesday and they measured the Ammonia (0.25 ppm), Nitrite (0 ppm), and Nitrate (40 ppm). They were a little disappointed that the Ammonia and Nitrite went so quick and they only found Nitrate. On the bright side, we have plenty of diatoms on the sand and rock now and we're planning on looking at them under the microscope next week. We also got our free-standing electronics board built and painted then mounted everything. We still need to tidy up the wires behind the aquariums and stand next week so they're neat and out of the way.

We did run into a problem trying to maintain the aquarium temperature at 77F-78F when they turn off the heat in the building at night. The temperature would drop to 74F-75F overnight and wouldn't get back up to 77F-78F until late afternoon. We solved the problem by swapping out our 200W heater for two 150W heaters. Since we made the change on Wednesday, the temperature has been consistently 77F-78F, even with the outside temperature dropping to 38F today.

The kids also did a lot of research this week and came up with a list of what they want for the cleanup crew. Here's their cleanup crew wishlist for each aquarium:

- 10 Dwarf blue leg hermit crabs
- 10 Dwarf zebra hermit crabs
- 5 Scarlet reef hermit crabs
- 1 Emerald crab
- 15 Cerith snails
- 5 Nassarius snails
- 5 Trochus snails
- 1 Fighting conch
- 1 Serpent sea star
- 1 Skunk cleaner shrimp

The kids are currently researching fish species to come up with a list of the fish they want to keep in each aquarium. We do have ORA Cinnamon clownfish from last year that I'll be bringing back to school as soon as we're ready for them. It'll be interesting to see what they come up with next week to go with the clownfish.

 

[cjfishbone]

Time for a long overdue update! The kids have been testing the water every other day and the nitrogen cycle has settled in nicely. The ammonia (0 ppm), nitrite (0 ppm), and nitrate (10 ppm) are good. Now the kids are learning to test other parameters and do routine maintenance and water changes. The salinity (1.025 SG), alkalinity (8.2 dKH), calcium (425 ppm), and magnesium (1320 ppm) are staying pretty consistent with nothing in the system except bacteria and some chaeto. That's about to change in the next few weeks though.

Our program doesn't receive any funding so we rely heavily on out-of-pocket purchases, fundraising, and help from the community. We just finished a big fundraiser today and met our goal for raising money to purchase the livestock the students have researched and selected for the aquariums. Our biggest supporter, Ryan from Animal Adventure, has ordered our cleanup crew and is checking availability on the fish and other inverts the kids selected. Here's our complete updated livestock list so far:

Aquarium 1
12 Dwarf blue leg hermit crabs
12 Dwarf zebra hermit crabs
6 Scarlet reef hermit crabs
1 Emerald crab
10 Cerith snails
6 Nassarius snails
6 Trochus snails
1 Fighting conch
1 Scarlet skunk cleaner shrimp
1 Tiger pistol shrimp
1 Rainbow bubble tip anemone
2 ORA Cinnamon clownfish
1 Six line wrasse
1 Tail spot blenny
1 Wide-barred goby
1 Royal gramma basslet

Aquarium 2
12 Dwarf blue leg hermit crabs
12 Dwarf zebra hermit crabs
6 Scarlet reef hermit crabs
1 Emerald crab
10 Cerith snails
6 Nassarius snails
6 Trochus snails
1 Fighting conch
1 Blood red fire shrimp
1 Rainbow bubble tip anemone
2 ORA Cinnamon clownfish
2 ORA Yellowline gobies
2 Two spot blennies
2 Twin spot gobies

Depending on availability, the kids do have a backup list for each aquarium but the lists above are what they really want. They have really put a lot of thought into their selections and focused on choosing species that will serve a purpose, either beneficial to the system or educational, and not just look good.