My 180g Classroom Build

Mr.Asbury · Dec 2, 2018

Finally got a minute to get pictures on here from yesterday. QT Tank is set up, and we have 2 cardinals and a one spot in them. The pictures were taken right after adding, so the one spot's colors are still a little off. He calmed down and went back to a normal color after this.

Mr.Asbury · Dec 5, 2018

Students started working on making phytoplankton culturing devices today. We just started into ecology and will be discussing food chains/food webs. We'll be growing phyto, using it to grow pods, and will feed the pods to my tank. Hopefully it all works out nicely! I figured making a food chain would be more memorable for the kids than simply talking about them and moving on.

Students created their devices Monday and will be adding the fertilizer and phyto tomorrow. A huge thank you goes out to Sustainable Aquatics for donating both the phyto and the fertilizer for this project! More pictures will follow as we move forward.

Stickboy15 · Dec 5, 2018

looking good!

Mayerlyn A · Dec 5, 2018

Following along , what a great project. My teacher used to keep all kinds of tanks in the classroom, I was awesome .

Victoria M · Dec 6, 2018

sooo fun!

Mr.Asbury · Dec 11, 2018

Foxface is looking much better after some medications - no longer bloated and has a nice color to him now!

Mr.Asbury · Dec 13, 2018

We've had the cultures set up for about a week now, and we're finally starting to see some growth. I think we under-dosed them at the beginning because the water was still completely clear after adding phyto. I was nervous about running out, however, and didn't want to leave a group feeling left out. We leave for break next week, so hopefully we get some better growth now that there's something visibly in the water. Either way, the kids got to do some research on an organism previously unknown to them, and we can start with brine shrimp & pods in January =)

RedStickReefer · Dec 13, 2018

Wow! This is awesome! Thank you to you and your school for introducing this to your students! I'm following from here on out. I have a degree in Environmental Science and I WISH we would have been allowed or had the funding to be involved with something like this when I was in school early on. I work construction now (family business) after a 15 year career as an environmental consultant. We recently built out a huge science lab for a local school and I was jealous I was never exposed to anything as such as a kid. LOL. looking forward to seeing how this continues to progress!

Mini Coop · Dec 13, 2018

Just saw this! LOVE!!! I am a technology coordinator for 2 high schools, and a reefer! I would love to have one of my teachers set a saltwater up!

Mr.Asbury · Dec 16, 2018

RedStickReefer said:
Wow! This is awesome! Thank you to you and your school for introducing this to your students! I'm following from here on out. I have a degree in Environmental Science and I WISH we would have been allowed or had the funding to be involved with something like this when I was in school early on. I work construction now (family business) after a 15 year career as an environmental consultant. We recently built out a huge science lab for a local school and I was jealous I was never exposed to anything as such as a kid. LOL. looking forward to seeing how this continues to progress!

Glad to hear you're following along. If there is anything you don't see on here that you feel would be beneficial to an environmental science class with the tank, please throw in some ideas! I'd love to hear some things that you do/look at differently because of your background in environmental science!

Mini Coop said:
Just saw this! LOVE!!! I am a technology coordinator for 2 high schools, and a reefer! I would love to have one of my teachers set a saltwater up!

Hopefully someone can do so in the near future! The kids seem to like it so far, and it is really relaxing to some during "down time" like homeroom. I plan to start a club next year that would meet during homeroom as well to try and get some kids outside of my classes involved as well.

Mr.Asbury · Jan 11, 2019

I haven't had a moment to update this thread in a little while. I coach wrestling in the winter, and between practices, matches, and the holidays, I haven't had time to make any new additions to the tank. I did, however, successfully get the Cardinals out of QT and into the main tank. They're out in full display most of the day (although they did find a little overhang they like to occasionally hang out in) and they rush for food during feeding time!

I'm hoping that in the next 2 weeks or so, my wife and I can make a trip to the LFS to get some new fish to go into QT. I just started a new thread looking for a wrasse & blenny that could be added - I'd love any input! https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/wrasse-blenny-to-add-to-my-180.539176/

Mr.Asbury · Mar 26, 2019

Alright, it's been a long time since I've updated this. Wrestling season is finally over, and I'm caught back up on work stuff. I was able to make a trip to my LFS and got 2 orchid dottyback, which are currently in QT and looking great. I'll throw some pictures of them on here later today. They have 2 weeks left there, and if no symptoms appear, I'll be transferring them over.

Overall, my tank has been looking much more healthy and I think it's finally exiting the "ugly" stage. I no longer have any brown algae growing on my back wall, and my coral show some noticeable growth. I started dosing the phyto once every 3 days, and that seems to be having a great impact as well.

The kids built phytoplankton culturing devices, and we just set up a small tank to grow pods in as well. I plan to do something in the next few weeks to get some shrimp growing as well - I had planned on mysid shrimp, but when researching, it appears the brine shrimp would be a better option. Any advise, contradictions, or useful links on that topic would be greatly appreciated!

Mr.Asbury · Mar 27, 2019

The orchid dottyback are now eating like pigs, and appear to be doing great. Hopefully next weekend they can become part of the main tank! Hopefully they're big enough to be left alone by everything else.

Corey Shelk · Mar 27, 2019

That’s awesome! Any pics :)

Mr.Asbury · Mar 28, 2019

Orchid dottybacks are doing good! They're pretty tiny, so I'm hoping they're not too small to add to my DT. They bite at my pipette now when I go to feed, so I don't think that part will be an issue once they're out of the 35g and into the 180g.

Mr.Asbury · Apr 1, 2019

Updated pictures of my (very slow) reef progression:

AWIL57 · Apr 1, 2019

My dad has been a Biology teacher for 37 years (retiring after this year) and he ran a salt tank for about 20 of those years. It was awesome! Everyone remembers it. I decided around Christmas I was going to dive on in and I'm just getting to the point of adding coral. I have 2 clowns, 3 firefish, and a lawnmower blenny in it (lost a tiger goby and royal gramma from a different store). I am enjoying watching your progress in this and wish that when I was teaching Biology a few years back I could have convinced my admin to let me do this! Awesome experience for the students and a wonderful looking tank! I will keep checking in!

Mr.Asbury · Apr 4, 2019

Think my tank is finally starting to mature! Came in today, and I have visible purple spots on multiple places in the rockwork and purple rings appearing on the overflow/back glass. I'm thinking this is the beginning of some coralline algae. As long as this continues, I may try and add an anemone in another month or so.

Mr.Asbury · Apr 9, 2019

Just got word that I'll be doing Biology (10th grade) alongside Environmental Science & Computer Science after a 2yr break from it. I'll be able to do a few more things in-class with the tank now =)

Mr.Asbury · Apr 9, 2019

Got some brine shrimp for live feed that I'm going to try and keep going, but I've read its very difficult. We'll see how that goes.

Also, just got 3 wrasses this morning. Used the safety stop stuff on them after drip acclimation and added them to the QT.

The clown fairy wrasse is making me nervous - he's breathing heavy and sitting at the bottom of the tank. It's hard to see him right now since the lights are off and hes sitting under the container I put sand in. Hopefully, it's just stress and he'll be better tomorrow.

The Melanurus wrasse swam a lap around the tank when I put him in, and is still occasionally exploring. I squirted a little mysis in the tank after adding them, and he ate a few pieces. Hopefully he continues along that path.

Finally, the Rosy Scale Fairy Wrasse seems photogenic and was swimming around the tank. I'm not sure if he ate any of the shrimp, but he was following me around the tank as I was trying to get pictures of the others.

Hopefully they all make it successfully through QT and can make their way into the main tank!