The Coral Reef Project At Stratton Elementary School

[NBcoralreef]

Hello Nipun,

Wow, great to see you posting on R2R. I wonder if you're the youngest independent reef keeper on the site. Please don't be shy about asking questions, know that many of the members here are proud of you and are ready to help. Why don't you post the story about you loosing all of the copepods and bristle worms when your tank overheated and then ask for advice.

See you tomorrow morning,

Mr. Rutherford[/QUOTE

Oh yeah,well it was the first time I had a tank which was cycling and we had just installed all the equipment for the tank.So we didn't look at the thermometer very carefully the first day. Their were Copepods and bristle worms emerging from the live rock and we were excited to see the creatures coming from the rock. Then on day 2 we didn't see the creatures moving. This was when the aquarium water was so hot that it had reached a 102 F! Boy! I made bug soup !Then I adjusted the temperature. Now I know that it should be around 72-83 F. Thanks to my teacher Mr.Rutherford !

 

[Brandon Rutherford]

I'm in the beginning stages of planning a field trip to Shedd Aquarium at the end of the month. I thought I'd post some pictures of the last field trip my project went on to the Aquatic Experience Expo in Chicago. A donor to our project, Jellyfish Art paid for our transportation fee and made the trip possible. Thanks Jeff, Joe and Paola!

There were a number of cool amazonian biotopes setup. If I somehow figure out how not to sleep I'd get into planted tanks. Elyes and Alfonzo, spent almost an hour looking at these tanks.

Some of the 4th graders seemed to bring their swagg with them and casually posed for pictures.

Beef? from Beef's Reef was very patient with all of my kids and answered about a million questions. He had pails of nice looking inverts and accepted a number of my business cards from students trying to spread word of our project with good cheer after already having one.

Finally got to meet a lot of the staff at Quality Marine in person after emailing and calling them for years. Eli (with the epic beard) has been one of my biggest mentors. The poor kids had about 5 people taking pictures however and didn't know where to look.

A number of kids sat through a 30 minute presentation by Chad from Reed Mariculture. I don't know if Chad is just an amazing presenter or my kids are super into invertebrate zoology or both, but I was impressed with their stamina. And they were able to remember what they learned the next day.

 

[Brandon Rutherford]

One of the highlights of the trip was the touch tank. When I have more time and resources I'd like to do more outreach to schools in my district doing a short demo and bring along some inverts for kids to handle. Such kinesthetic learning is important for kids.

I also am curious what kind of filtration was used, the water had to be pretty grody after a hundred kids had their hands in their.

Not sure of the ethicacy of selling a quarter sized angle fish in an 8 oz cup, but they sure were cute.

 

[Brandon Rutherford]

I'm not into the neon or blacklight themed tanks but the kids sure were. No accounting for taste I guess...

I thought the designer clownfish were some of the most interesting parts of the show. I'm saving space for a pair of lighting tomato when the price comes down. I looked at this tank with my student Cornelius for almost 15 minutes, very cool concept.

And alligators! Maybe gator tanks is the next big step in the aquarium hobby. All of my kids jumped in and handled them bravely when I saw old kids and adults shying away.

 

[Flashy Fins]

Such an amazing thing you are doing, both from an educational standpoint and giving these kids something positive to cling to. I've seen your project mentioned many places and never tire of hearing about it. Thank you for sharing with all of us!

Students, you should feel proud! Your tank is a successful living ecosystem, thanks to your dedication. While it's not a contest, I can't help but notice your tank looks better than many tanks I see online, most of which are owned and maintained by adults. Terrific job! You are so lucky to have Mr. Rutherford for your teacher.

 

[Brandon Rutherford]

Did another home visit this last weekend to check on a student's tank. Here's a picture of Cornelius and his 1 gallon gold fish bowl. He went through a couple of betas when he first got interested in fish keeping but now has been able to keep his gold fish happy and healthy for 6 weeks now with a basic under gravel filter, air pump and frequent water changes. When he has the basic routine down, I'll try to scrounge up a larger tank for him. I only see him in school uniform at Stratton but apparently he frequently wears his aquatic experience field trip shirt.

 

[Brandon Rutherford]

I'm kicking myself for breaking this 55 gallon tank I was drilling. It was tempered glass but I've had luck drilling tempered in the past. I was overconfident and rushed it, shattering glass all over my carpet. Aislin and Lily who were helping me thought it was pretty funny and left me to clean it all up. Had to vacuums for 15 minutes before I was confident I got all of the pieces up. I want to setup a large stand alone refugium for my 120 gallon tank and was hoping to use this one. Maybe I'll get lucky on craigslist again.

 

[brandon429]

Nipun
Your writing style/arrangement is beyond your years that's impressive.

Cornelius I started with the small tanks too nice job! I came from a tiny tiny little school in southern New Mexico called animas high school. 160 total people 7th-12th

In our library we had one book roughly relating to aquarium science, a book on goldfish types. I must have checked it out fifteen times I really like gfish even today

ryukin=fav
Your jellyfish shirt for you and team=nice going that's my style.

 

[Brandon Rutherford]

This is my project's 120 tank by my school's office. The Tropic Marin salt we use keeps water chemistry levels rock solid and I never have to add supplements. Our coralline algae growth is almost almost out of control and I'm worried about cleaning it off the acrylic. Because of its location, it's the tank that I monitor the least and students are usually responsible for cleaning it. They use felt pads to get the regular algae off but can't reach all the way to the bottom of the tank and can't scrub hard enough to remove the coralline deposits. As you can see it's starting to limit visibility. Anyone have a good trick for getting it off acrylic?

 

[chickofthesea]

Hello Nipun,

Wow, great to see you posting on R2R. I wonder if you're the youngest independent reef keeper on the site. Please don't be shy about asking questions, know that many of the members here are proud of you and are ready to help. Why don't you post the story about you loosing all of the copepods and bristle worms when your tank overheated and then ask for advice.

See you tomorrow morning,

I'm kicking myself for breaking this 55 gallon tank I was drilling. It was tempered glass but I've had luck drilling tempered in the past. I was overconfident and rushed it, shattering glass all over my carpet. Aislin and Lily who were helping me thought it was pretty funny and left me to clean it all up. Had to vacuums for 15 minutes before I was confident I got all of the pieces up. I want to setup a large stand alone refugium for my 120 gallon tank and was hoping to use this one. Maybe I'll get lucky on craigslist again.

Oh my gosh. Nooooo. What a disaster. But it is kind of funny too. Lol girls.
Mr. Rutherford

Hi Nipun
Hi Nipun

 

[chickofthesea]

This is my project's 120 tank by my school's office. The Tropic Marin salt we use keeps water chemistry levels rock solid and I never have to add supplements. Our coralline algae growth is almost almost out of control and I'm worried about cleaning it off the acrylic. Because of its location, it's the tank that I monitor the least and students are usually responsible for cleaning it. They use felt pads to get the regular algae off but can't reach all the way to the bottom of the tank and can't scrub hard enough to remove the coralline deposits. As you can see it's starting to limit visibility. Anyone have a good trick for getting it off acrylic?

Do you know the best place to get that tropic marine salt? I found it online But I wondered of I could but it at the store?

 

[Brandon Rutherford]

Hello Brandon, thanks as always for your posts. My kids and I very much like having you as a R2R buddy; we should skype sometime.

The remarks you made about learning when you were younger resonated with me. I agree with you that relevance and interest is a very important component of learning. Adults don't waste their time studying everything, they learn what they need for a certain application and then move on. Adults are inclined to learn and apply information that is directly relevant to their lives and forget almost everything else.

It's depressing to me that much of the content that students learn at school seems trivial. Why would a 9 year old be motivated to measure angles with a protractor or memorize fraction to decimal conversions. Many grow up in communities that are working class at best. When the adults around them don't use their education, students wonder why they should struggle to learn something that is seemly of no use and little interest.

I am not arguing that elementary curriculum is a waste of time. 3rd grade reading levels are an accurate predeterminate of success in high school and college. Rather I think that curriculum, including language arts, needs to be grounded in real world applications that are both interesting and culturally relevant.

I'm really glad that you found your passion at an early age. I don't think aquariums are for everyone but it's satisfying when a student like Cornelius finds something they're interested in and pursues it. Your encouragement will mean a lot and together maybe we can make the students of Stratton into the scientists of tomorrow.

 

[chickofthesea]

Did another home visit this last weekend to check on a student's tank. Here's a picture of Cornelius and his 1 gallon gold fish bowl. He went through a couple of betas when he first got interested in fish keeping but now has been able to keep his gold fish happy and healthy for 6 weeks now with a basic under gravel filter, air pump and frequent water changes. When he has the basic routine down, I'll try to scrounge up a larger tank for him. I only see him in school uniform at Stratton but apparently he frequently wears his aquatic experience field trip shirt.

Lookin good Cornelius. Great job. I see you're hooked.get it "hooked"

 

[Brandon Rutherford]

Do you know the best place to get that tropic marine salt? I found it online But I wondered of I could but it at the store?

I'm really happy that I have the resources to use this salt. I used to use a more common and cheaper brand and ultimately had to spend additional time and money to supplement calcium and trace elements to get the kind of coral growth I wanted. Now I can maintain calcium and alkalinity balance in my tanks with a lot of LSP corals without using 2 part or kalk dosing.

I always order salt online and if you buy in larger quantities, the lower price online (vs a dealer's store) makes up for shipping costs. This said, here's a link to the Tropic Marin dealer map. I also encourage you to email Lou Eckus, the US rep. He's a super nice dude and would be able answer any question you have.

 

[Flashy Fins]

Certainly, schools should incorporate lessons that kids can apply in their lives, rather than boring them with facts they'll never need. Hands-on, real-life scenario lessons are always best. I would spend a little time on fractions and decimals, though. I'm shocked by the number of adults I encounter who think "quarter after nine"means 9:25.

 

[Brandon Rutherford]

Many of our smaller tanks receive a 2-5% water change monday through friday. Figuring out the logistics of how to move water has been one of the hardest tasks to plan because elementary school kids are small and lack the strength to pick up even small buckets. Our routine is pretty streamlined now. Kids work in a two person crew, one with a full watering pitcher of fresh salt water and another with an empty one and food (LRS Reef Frenzy of course). Students target feed with tweezers and then siphon water into the empty bucket to the exact level of the full bucket so that when they replace the siphoned water with clean water, they can do so without disrupting our Tunze auto top off sensors. Even with the pitchers, spilled water is a given and I always have funky wet towels in my sink at the end of the day.

 

[Brandon Rutherford]

Nipun made the mistake of filling a bucket too high and it took two other kids, some ladling and another bucket to empty the 5 gallon bucket to the point where he could lift it. And they still spilled water.

 

[NBcoralreef]

I'm kicking myself for breaking this 55 gallon tank I was drilling. It was tempered glass but I've had luck drilling tempered in the past. I was overconfident and rushed it, shattering glass all over my carpet. Aislin and Lily who were helping me thought it was pretty funny and left me to clean it all up. Had to vacuums for 15 minutes before I was confident I got all of the pieces up. I want to setup a large stand alone refugium for my 120 gallon tank and was hoping to use this one. Maybe I'll get lucky on craigslist again.

.

Oops! That's a sad accident . My opinion is that you should've put a solid the same size inside and then drilled a hole in the tank so it would hit the solid and stop it from drilling the whole glass. See you tomorrow morning!

I'm kicking myself for breaking this 55 gallon tank I was drilling. It was tempered glass but I've had luck drilling tempered in the past. I was overconfident and rushed it, shattering glass all over my carpet. Aislin and Lily who were helping me thought it was pretty funny and left me to clean it all up. Had to vacuums for 15 minutes before I was confident I got all of the pieces up. I want to setup a large stand alone refugium for my 120 gallon tank and was hoping to use this one. Maybe I'll get lucky on craigslist again.

 

[domination2580]

I thought you couldn't drill tempered?

 

[Brandon Rutherford]