The Ocean over at Floris Elementary School

[davelin315]

Well, I joined in March and finally was given access to this area and found that no one has taken advantage of this. So, with that in mind, I'll start to post some things here and also encourage my students to join the club and participate. I've got one student who is going to set up his own salt aquarium and I'm going to be helping him with it soon. In any case, I don't want to go back and re-post everything that I've done so far with the kids, but here's a link to the information on our system so far on reefs.org in their nano build-off.

 

Floris Reef Tank

 

If you're not a member on that site you can't view the pictures, and there are a ton of them so far.

 

In any case, hopefully people here will pick up on the project and give some input. Some of the concerns I have are moving it over the summer which is why I limited it to a 15 gallon tank. Anyway, happy browsing. I'll either keep things updated here or there, or possibly both (right now I'm updating on reefs.org and reef central as well).

 

Oh, yeah, and if you happen to want to donate anything... I'm always willing to take something in!

[davelin315]

This is a picture of the tank itself as it was on May 2.

[davelin315]

OK, I can't figure out how to add more pictures, but when I do, I'll post them...

 

As far as parameters, I haven't had a chance to have the kids test lately, but I did test Calcium and KH today.

 

SG - 1.023

Temp - 80.2 degrees

Calcium - 450 ppm

KH - 8 degrees/~143 ppm

 

Also, Stephen (student) dosed B-Ionic and Katie (student) added some shrimp to a crab trap. We're trying to find the culprit who ate our fish (we lost a firefish, a yellow clown goby, and a royal gramma within a week and all water parameters were excellent). The only non-shell dweller right now is a golden banded coral shrimp, too small to kill off the fish that are missing. I'll update more when I get a chance and encourage kids to join so they can post themselves.

[davelin315]

May 5, 2005

 

Well, we received a donation of some GSP today and Caribbean Jake has offered some frags as well. I'll call him later tonight and see if I can swing by to grab some from him.

 

As far as the tank is going, it is doing very well. One of my students ran a battery of tests this afternoon with the following results:

 

SG - 1.023

Temp - 81.6 degrees

Calcium - 450 ppm

KH - 8 degrees

pH - 8.2

Nitrate - 0 ppm

Nitrite - 0 ppm

Ammonia - 0 ppm

 

He (Stephen) also added some B-Ionic part 1 to improve the alk (thanks for the tip!) and get it up a bit higher.

 

I also moved the crab trap higher up on the rock. I'm hoping that this will keep some of the hermits out of it and help me catch the real culprit. Sugar Magnolia suggested that perhaps if there is a crab in there it is able to escape the trap, so if in the morning there's no bait and there's only an empty jar, it'll be time to switch to a taller jar.

 

I'm still working on how to post pictures here to this thread without using up the 60 kb allotment. I'll post when I figure it out.

[Caribbean Jake]

I am home, come over and pick up some frags.

Jacob

[davelin315]

Some of my students were able to do some more tests today and also take a couple of shots of the tank. I'm going to try and post the pictures here again...

 

3:11PM by Stephen

Temperature - 80.7 degrees

SG - 1.023

Calcium - 5 [i think he added 5 drops, bringing the total to 9, making it 450 ppm]

KH - 8 degrees

pH - 8.2

Nitrite - 0 ppm

Nitrate - 0 ppm

Added 4.0 ml of B-Ionic Part 1, 2.5 ml of B-Ionic Part 2.

 

4:15PM by Sid

Here are some pictures taken by Sid.

 

This is the B-Ionic Part 1 being added to try and boost alkalinity.

 

Here's the GSP donated by Sugar Magnolia.

[Sugar Magnolia]

Hmmm, I can't seem to attach a pic directly in here either.

[Sugar Magnolia]

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v513/stanton4/GSP.bmp

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v513/stanton4/B-Ionic.bmp

[davelin315]

May 11, 2005

As part of our studies on weathering, we have looked into the effects of acid rain on landforms, especially those that are made of a derivative of calcium. In doing that, we used our pH test kit to test several types of water (unfortunately since it's only a high range test kit it can't show the actual results, but it did show that certain liquids were off the charts in one way or the other).

 

In any case, we tested tap water, vinegar, salt water, and a kalk solution. Our results were:

Tap Water - 7.4

Vinegar - below 7.4 (orange result with Aquarium Pharmaceuticals Test Kit)

Salt Water (AM) - 8.0

Kalk Solution - Above 8.8 (very deep and bright purple using same test kit)

 

We then dropped a piece of chalk into 30 ml of tap water and 30 ml of vinegar and watched for the weathering effects (physical and chemical). After finishing up the test, we tested the pH of the vinegar and chalk solution:

pH - 7.4

 

This was a nice example of how things worked in the reef tank and led into me telling the kids the harmfulness of acid rain and how it could affect not only landforms, but marine environments as well. Also, it led into a brief discussion on how pH in a tank changes at night and during the day based on the presence and needs for carbon dioxide and oxygen and photosynthesis.

 

At the end of the day, Stephen (a student) then tested the water with all of the tests we have and the tank is still remaining very stable.

 

4:37PM

Temperature - 82.4 degrees

SG - 1.024

KH - 9 degrees

Calcium - 450 ppm

Ammonia - 0 ppm

Nitrite - 0 ppm

Nitrate - 0 ppm

pH - 8.2

 

B-Ionic part 1 (4.0 ml) and part 2 (2.5 ml).

 

He took some pictures as well and I'm currently exploring how to post them. I'll put them up later if I can.

[davelin315]

Here are some pictures taken by Stephen today. He took some great shots and is really becoming adept at picture taking.

 

Here's a shot of the single turbo snail in the tank. It's been doing a tiny bit of bulldozing, but hopefully this trend will stop.

 

Here's the GSP from Sugar Magnolia.

 

Here's some of the zooanthids from my 2 year old's tank.

 

Here's a blue leg on the sand bed. You can see all the worm burrows in the sand.

 

Here's the tuft of caulerpa growing out of an algae mat.

 

Here's a great shot of some zoos that are on a piece in the back. They look like they've got pink centers. I'll have to move them out of the back (never really knew they were there).

 

Dreaded aiptasia... need to get a needle and kill that one off.

 

A nassarius lurking under the sand. You can see it's snorkel rising out of the sand.

[davelin315]

May 12, 2005

1:00 PM by Lily and Elise

 

We see: worms, part of starfish, small snails that live in the sand. They are fighting for food.

 

The crab is attacking the small snails. The big snail is still not getting any food.

 

The small snails are going up to the top of the tank and back down again.

 

Little (REALLY) small creature thing on the tank wall.

 

Shrimp is beginning to come out then goes back in.

 

The small snails have black and white antenna things (we think) coming off their head.

 

Temperature: 81.2-82.6

 

2:42PM by Lily, Elise, and Stephen

Calcium - 300 ppm

KH - 9 degrees

pH - 8.2

nitrate - 0 ppm

nitrite - 0 ppm

ammonia - 0 ppm

 

4:26PM by Stephen

[i had Stephen retest the calcium as it didn't make sense for the calcium to drop from 450 yesterday to 300 today.]

Calcium - 400 ppm on the retest

 

Added B-Ionic 2 part 2.5 ml part 1, 2.5 ml part 2

 

4:35PM by Mr. Lin

Started a kalk drip for top off.

[davelin315]

May 13, 2005

Stephen, Katie and I took some pictures after school today using the camera and the microscope. Here they are.

 

PICTURES BY STEPHEN

 

Stephen took this blue leg by the glass.

 

These Green Star Polyps are closed up after we messed around in the tank pulling things out to view under the microscope.

 

Here's the overflow return where some algaes have begun to grow. We pulled some of this and viewed it under the microscope (see below).

 

A full tank shot.

 

A shot of our two M. digitata frags after being bumped while pulling things out.

 

Here's the pink sponge that has been growing on the rock.

 

Here's a hermit crab up at the top of the tank after doing some mountain climbing.

[davelin315]

PICTURES BY KATIE

 

Some of the algae from the overflow return.

 

Another shot of it. Not sure what all the small flecks of green are, maybe other algae, spores, or maybe something was squeezed out of the algae when it was pulled?

 

Another shot of it.

 

Here's the arm of an Aiptasia anemone magnified 200x. It was wriggling around the whole time we took pictures.

 

Another shot of the Aiptasia arm. These two were of the base where it was pulled off. There were a lot of things flowing out of the bottom of the arm.

 

Here's another shot magnified only at 60x.

[davelin315]

SHOTS BY ME

 

Here's a shot of some caulerpa taken from the tuft in the tank magnified 60x.

 

Here's the same caulerpa magnified 200x. The little slivers of some sort of plant material (?) are in this shot as well.

 

Another shot at 200x.

 

Here's some halimeda magnified 60x.

 

This is halimeda magnified 200x.

 

Here's some valonia magnified 200x. Was able to remove this one whole but the microscope's not strong enough to shine through it.

[davelin315]

May 16, 2005

 

We have SOL testing all of this week, so pictures might not come out right away, but we did get some nice donations this weekend from Lee Stearns, Steven Cottrell, and Dr. Mac. One of the Dr. Mac donations suffered from RTN (Rapid Tissue Necrosis) last night and most likely will not make it through another night, but the other ones look to be doing OK. Not sure how they will do under PC lighting as they are all acropora species, but hopefully they will do OK, otherwise I might have to move them out to someone's tank that has more intense lighting.

 

The other frags are all doing well and the kids this morning came in and crowded around the tank. When things slow down a bit I'll get some of them to take some pictures and post them on this site.

 

We also have some donations coming later this week when I get a chance to pick them up, so keep your eye on this thread! There's a lot of good things to come!

 

Dave

[davelin315]

May 16, 2005

 

As I was leaving today I noticed that there were some planktonic shrimp in the system. Didn't get a chance to take a photo as it's my daughter's birthday today. Not sure where they came from as I have a single golden banded coral shrimp in the system, but regardless, they are there. I would be tempted to say that they are mysids, but they were scooting through the water vertically, they'd float and sink and then shoot upwards in the water column as they moved. Perhaps they are the spawn of whatever killed off the fish in the tank? I'll try and get a picture of one under the microscope tomorrow. I'd make a guess that they were hermit crab frye, but again, they don't look like them. The closest thing is a mysid, but again, they don't act like the mysides I've seen before.

[davelin315]

Oops.

[davelin315]

May 19, 2005

We finished our SOL testing today with great relief! Now that we have finished them up, we can go back to our curriculum, which leaves a bit more leeway to teach about the reef. We have pendulums to teach as well, which helps us to teach about Experimental Design, but we spent a lot of time on it at the beginning of the year and the kids have an excellent grasp of what it entails.

 

I do have an update on the donations. All of them are doing well except for the acropora frags from Dr. Mac. Three of the four went through Rapid Tissue Necrosis (RTN) and the fourth seems to be doing OK, although there is a bit of tissue loss at the base. One of them did it Sunday night, one began on Tuesday, and the other went through it last night.

 

Here are some pictures taken the other day by Stephen.

 

Here's the Trumpet coral from Steven Cottrell (dchild).

 

This is a small chunk of Green Star Polyps from Lee Stearns.

 

This is a capnella frag from Lee as well. It has a couple of branches and is mounted on a nice chunk of rock.

 

Here's one of the acroporas that went through RTN. This was the first of the three that have died.

 

Here's some zooanthids that were donated by Lee Stearns again. The RTN acro is on the right side.

 

This is a picture of some cabbage/leather coral from Lee again.

 

Here's a red mushroom from Steven Cottrell.

 

This is the lone acropora frag that has survived thus far after being donated by Dr. Mac.

[davelin315]

May 20, 2005

 

Not much to report today, although the shrimp are still floating around in the water column. If anyone has any guesses as to what they could be, please let me know. As I said, I don't have much in the way of description or pictures, just enough to say that they're really small and float vertically in the water column, unlike mysids which in my experience swim horizontally and stay near the bottom.

 

Oh, yes, and when his membership clears, please welcome my student - his ID will be koopa ninja.

[Guest tgallo]

great pictures, i love the closeup shots of the algae.

[davelin315]

Okay, the planktonic shrimp are definitely not the result of an immaculate conception by the lone golden banded coral shrimp that is in the tank. My tank at home had a hatch of regular banded coral shrimp and they look markedly different from the ones in the tank. There is a distinct "hump" to the planktonic shrimp in my home tank that is missing from the school tank. I'll try and take a picture of one to compare to the ones in the school tank when I get a chance. Since there are only jawfish in the tank with the banded coral shrimp they are not really hurting the population of the tank. I'll post pictures from the microscope if I can catch one.

[davelin315]

These next shots are not from our classroom tank and are instead from my newly set up 58. Although the things in it are currently only in the one tank, there has been rock switched back and forth between the different tanks so that every one of them gets some of everything. I was able to catch a shrimp frye, some sort of jellyfish/hydroid, and a piece of cyanobacteria. Here are some of the pictures:

 

Here's the hydroid magnified 200x. It sticks itself to the glass and when it is disturbed it swims away using the pumping action of a jellyfish. Any idea what it is?

 

Another shot at 200x.

 

Here's a 60x magnification of the beast.

 

Here's the hydroid again.

 

Here it is again.

[davelin315]

Some more shots.

 

Ever wondered what it (cyanobacteria) looks like?

 

Here's another shot of the cyanobacteria.

 

Planktonic shrimp that are swimming in my tank at home (banded coral shrimp).

 

Another one.

 

Last baby shot.

[davelin315]

Keep watch here. The cyano was growing in front of my eyes as it lay on the slide. I took some video of it, so if you know how to webhost a movie or have space on your own site, please let me know.

 

Thanks,

 

Dave

[davelin315]

Thanks to Keith Melvill from over on Reef Central. He hosted the cyano video clip which can be found here: Creepy Moving Cyano - Magnified 200x. No wonder it can take a tank over so quickly.