My 180g Classroom Build

[Mr.Asbury]

Are you going to quarantine your fish?

Yes. I have a 35gal tank set up for it now. I did not quarantine the clowns since they're the first addition, but the rest will all be quarantined prior to going into the tank. The quarantine tank is still set up and ready just in case it's needed, however.

 

[Mr.Asbury]

Picture of the first fish in the tank!

 

[Mr.Asbury]

Clowns started eating day 1, and seemed to have taken a liking to my overflow. Hopefully they'll take to something more interesting as the tank ages

 

[Mr.Asbury]

First post updated to show progress, will add pictures to it and in thread as big events happen.

 

[Janci]

Great.
I follow on Twitter as well and see that the clown fish already explore the whole tank.

 

[Mr.Asbury]

Great.
I follow on Twitter as well and see that the clown fish already explore the whole tank.

They've claimed my overflow on the left side as home, but do venture out across the whole front of the tank throughout the day. They aren't going to know what to do once a few more fish are added and they don't have the whole place to themselves anymore!

 

[Mr.Asbury]

My Xenia has been doing good since day one, but after a week my zoa is (slowly) starting to open. It still has a long way to go, but as I was getting really worried about it, I'm glad to see a little color appear.

 

[Mr.Asbury]

One of the clowns attempted an escape this morning but ended up in the sump. My students and I were looking around for him behind and around the tank thinking he escaped the water, then we noticed him in the dark sump. Luckily I had my filter socks off (ran out of time to put clean ones on before leaving for practice).

Side question: If a fish goes through my drain pipe and gets stuck in a filter sock, how long do I have to find them before we run into trouble?

 

[Tuffyyyyy]

I'd imagine that you need to find them pretty quickly. You may want to put some sort of cover over the overflow to make the slots smaller so that this doesn't happen again.

 

[Mr.Asbury]

I'd imagine that you need to find them pretty quickly. You may want to put some sort of cover over the overflow to make the slots smaller so that this doesn't happen again.

I had considered ordering some covers for the overflow pipe with my next BRS order, but I'm afraid of them clogging and causing a flood. May have to reconsider after this and just add cleaning them to the routine.

 

[Mordie101]

Is there a picture of the overflow? Maybe something small and DIY could work like a zip tie or two!

 

[Mr.Asbury]

Here’s a picture of one side of my overflow, it’s the same in the other corner as well. I think I’m going to get some of the plastic gutter guard stuff they make and place it over my overflow, that should do the trick. I’m going to do the same with the baffle before my return pump as well to help with some of the Chaeto that’s occasionally getting sucked into the return pump.

 

[Mr.Asbury]

Several of my Trochus snails died off shortly after adding them, and they were starting to grow some algae on them. Added 10 hermits last night, and they're doing work on cleaning up the shells. I plan to just leave them in there so they can be re-used later by something else. If they aren't, they'll add a little decoration to the sand.

Before of the snails, hard to see the long algae growing off of it because of the blue lights.

There were 4-5 hermits on some of these shells this morning, but they seem to be starting to spread out now.

 

[mattgsa]

Great looking tank. I have the same problem with fish ending up in the over flow. Hopefully I can make it to HD for some gutter guard this weekend.

 

[Mr.Asbury]

Great looking tank. I have the same problem with fish ending up in the over flow. Hopefully I can make it to HD for some gutter guard this weekend.

I've only had it happen once so far, but definitely want to be proactive with this. My LFS said the gutter guard was an easy (and cheap) option they use in tanks they maintain for people. If I get it before you (hoping to make it to Lowe's tonight) I'll let you know how it goes!

 

[count krunk]

I would nix the gutter guard and make a screen mesh cover for the entire tank. You can get DIY kits on BRS. Tank covers are a must, any and all fish jump or will jump in the right scenario.

 

[Mr.Asbury]

I would nix the gutter guard and make a screen mesh cover for the entire tank. You can get DIY kits on BRS. Tank covers are a must, any and all fish jump or will jump in the right scenario.

I have a canopy over it now, and I was going to put the mesh screen covering the back of the canopy so it is blocked off. This way, I don't have to worry about lighting getting interrupted or having to open the mesh somehow every time I need to feed. Is this a feasible idea, or will it make me run into some problems as well? I'm trying to think of the solution that will lead to the least addition to regular maintenance.

 

[don_chuwish]

Great project! When I saw the thread title I immediately started imagining the shop class building the stand, computer science team working on the Apex and a website, some young apprentice plumbers doing all the PVC work, etc., but I imagine that would just take way too much time & coordination. What kind of curriculum will you build around it? Did that have to be part of the grant proposal?

 

[Mr.Asbury]

Great project! When I saw the thread title I immediately started imagining the shop class building the stand, computer science team working on the Apex and a website, some young apprentice plumbers doing all the PVC work, etc., but I imagine that would just take way too much time & coordination. What kind of curriculum will you build around it? Did that have to be part of the grant proposal?

Haha I did all the plumbing and bought the stand. The shop classes did just finish a new stand for my 75g freshwater tank yesterday, however, and they did a fantastic job. They even matched the stain to the saltwater stand so that they look nice together. I need to drain and move it tomorrow if I have time. We (well, the other bio teachers - I no longer teacher regular Biology), look at some of the plants from the freshwater tank under microscopes during photosynthesis labs to see the chloroplasts moving inside the leaf cells.

I teach computer science classes as well and will touch into the apex programming if we have time at the end of the year. We also touch into some very basic web page development, and I may try to have them make a site for the tank through that (my Environmental Science classes are going to be making "bio sheets" on each of the living things in the tank, including bacteria, pods, coral, cuc, & fish. I imagine them being like large "baseball cards" for the life). I'll have the info from the cards put into a website (probably just do it through an assisted website building platform like wix or something. I'm afraid doing it from scratch would be way over their (and my) heads).

The main curriculum I proposed the grant around was ecology, water quality, & conservation which are some of the main topics in this class. We'll be hitting ecology starting probably mid to late November and continue that next semester, and we'll hit conservation sometime next semester. I'll touch on photosynthesis and cellular respiration here at the end of the month, and the pH graphs from the apex will be a really nice tool for that. It's crazy how much that changes when they all show up in the morning! Some very generous people on here sent me some coral skeletons and PM'd me pictures of those corals alive in their tanks to use during the conservation unit, which should go nicely with the living stuff in my tank. I also had a chemistry teacher on here share a lab on acids dissolving coral skeletons which should be a great addition. I plan to share some of it on here as we go along, but I won't be able to add any students' pictures. We've done a little bit of water quality stuff so far, but didn't use the tank much other than basic nutrient testing due to it not having much life in it yet.

I recently had a company on here contact me about donating pods to the tank, and I am doing some research to plan a lab around them. My goal with it is to give the students notes on phytoplankton and pods, then task them with designing a small habitat to grown & harvest them based on their needs we discuss. I think it'd be a fun way to get the kids involved in the food webs & lower trophic levels that most people overlook. Plus, it could easily be made into a competition which always gets the kids more into learning something. Hopefully it all turns out as planned!

The kids really enjoy it so far, although they are a little impatient with how slowly I'm adding everything currently. The lesson in patients may be the most important thing they learn!

 

[JasonK84]

Absolutely, teach them patience now so when they go off trying to do this on their own they have a better chance of success. What an awesome thing to do in class.

I had a cool biology teacher and had several animals in class but I would have got started in saltwater way sooner if we had something like this.

I'll follow this thread and watch the progress.