The Ocean over at Floris Elementary School

[davelin315]

May 26, 2005

 

Well, I have not been in the classroom since last Friday as I've been out sick and then out nursing my kids back to health, but the tank looked OK today. The one remaining frag from Dr. Mac is looking like it's going to make it, but one of the M. digi frags fell into the GSP on the bottom and it looks like it killed off some of the flesh at the tip. I'll have to wait and see what happens. When we have some time I'll have the kids test and post the results.

[davelin315]

May 27, 2005

 

Stephen had a chance to test the water parameters again today and things are still looking good and stable. Alk dropped a bit and calcium is a bit higher for some reason, but it otherwise looks good.

 

Temperature - 81.6 degrees

SG - 1.025

pH - 8.2

Nitrate - 0 ppm

Nitrite - 0 ppm

Ammonia- 0 ppm

Calcium - 500 ppm

Alkalinity - 8 degrees

 

The SG has gone up a bit because we topped off the other day with saltwater to increase the salinity a bit to mimic natural sea water.

 

Other than that, the M. digitata frag that looked like it had been stung to death has the polyps coming out again and everything else looks good as well. The three frags of acropora that suffered from Rapid Tissue Necrosis are now helping filter water in the surge overflow area and the fourth is still alive and doing well in the tank.

 

We have picked up some flatworms in the meantime, so if we ever invest in another fish, it might be one that eats flatworms like a 6 line wrasse (is that true?). The tank will be on its own for the long weekend, but I'll drip regular RO/DI water to top off since they will probably shut off the little bit of air that we have.

[davelin315]

June 6, 2005

 

Well, it's the last day of a four day weekend (I know everyone must be feeling very badly for all of us) and I had the chance to swing by Yanek's to pick up some xenia. I will be adding one frag to the school tank tomorrow and will give the other frag to one of my students who has officially set up his tank. He still needs some lights, but that will come soon enough. I told him he could borrow my little 9W fixtures (I have two dual fixtures) which will give him 36W if he takes me up on it for the time being. Not a lot of light, but then again, xenia don't need a lot.

 

I'll have one of the kids snap some photos tomorrow, and again, thanks Yanek for the donations!

[davelin315]

Well, last week I drained the tank into a couple of six gallon jugs, picked the whole thing up, popped it into the back of my car, transferred it to a student's house, and filled it up again. The water was a bit cloudy, and it smelled like a fish market, but everything did fine in the transfer and summer tank sitter says it looks great (so does his mother, who I am getting ready to repeatedly apologize to for hooking them on a saltwater tank and the costs involved when you decide to get fancy). I'll see if he can update the site at all with observations over the summer, otherwise, I'll wait until the fall to post again on the tank and its condition.

[Sugar Magnolia]

Dave, have you had any news about how the tank is doing?

[davelin315]

Dave, have you had any news about how the tank is doing?

35072[/snapback]

 

I spoke to the family that has the tank and last I heard it was doing well. They were talking about adding some things to the tank itself as they are impressed with how pretty it looks. I haven't seen it myself, but hopefully it's doing well. The family lives just down the street from me, so I'd assume they would ask for help if something were to go awry.

[davelin315]

OK, school starts in a few weeks and I can put my classroom back together again starting on the 22nd. That means I will be picking up the tank after I'm done setting up the room, and also, thanks to David Beasley, who has donated his 33 gallon tank he had for sale to Floris. I'm going to pick it up tomorrow and see what needs to be done. That said, I'll be soliciting donations again soon, for the setup of a new 33 reef. Let me know if you're interested. Also, for those that have donated already, please remind me (PM) of your donations and what price you would normally sell them for. I can give you a letter that you can use to seek deductions for a donation to a school. You'll have to check with your accountant (or tax software!) to make sure it's OK, but I will provide you with a tax ID number for the school and a letter on letterhead.

 

Dave

[davelin315]

Well, picked up the tank from its summer home today and it looked to be in pretty good shape. There is some additional growth on some of the corals and some of the things have spread out a bit. There was, however, a huge outbreak of flatworms, so I'll have to get that under control. The tank itself will be moving to new digs and be in another 5th grade classroom. It will still be maintained by students and some of the kids from last year will be drafted to take care of it until the new 5th graders are ready to take over (koopa ninja from this club is one!).

 

Anyway, we're back, although it'll be in a slightly different format. By the way, the tank is moving to another room because of Dave Beasley's donation to me for school and it's larger and more complicated than the 15 that is set up, so the nano is going to the other science teacher (who has no experience so this will be an easier tank to run) and I'll set up the new 33.

 

Keep an eye out for updates, I'll try and post as I go.

 

As far as the move, I mixed up some new RO/DI water and used Instant Ocean for the mix, drained all but 1" or so of the old water, tossed the whole setup in the back of my truck, moved it to the classroom with help from Zach (koopa ninja) and his brother Kyle, both of whom are now hooked, and filled it up with the new water. When I left, it was a bit murky from pouring in water form a bucket, but it looked to be OK. I'll be in again at school tomorrow, so I'll update on how it looks. If I can dig out the camera, I'll post the "after" shots and you can make some comparisons to what the tank looks like now versus how it looked before.

[davelin315]

Well, today was the day that the tank went in to school. I spent yesterday cleaning and scrubbing the tank and used a ton of vinegar to remove old coralline algae and calcerous tube worm tubes. I also modified the existing plumbing a bit, adding on a Durso stand pipe and extending the discharge from the overflow a bit to reduce splashing and noise. I also removed the existing gravity top off float valve so that I could place it in a different location as I'm placing the return pump where it was located. I am also working on the lights with it, although I may opt to stay away from the MH that was donated for a couple of months until the kids are used to it and use some 96W PC Jalli lights given to me by Sounder.

 

Also, I was able to pick up some sand from Bob (Rocko) tonight. Steve (Sounder) also sold me the remaining inverts, LR, and some sand for a great deal, so I'll be adding that stuff after I finish filling up the tank. The whole system should be up and running within a couple of days (once I find an appropriate pump). I'll try and snap a couple of shots tomorrow when I go in if I can remember to bring my camera back to school.

 

Anyway, I'll update again and get some pictures up so that the students have something set up that they can work with when they return (and hopefully it will be fully settled and cycled and ready for some life!).

[rocko918]

Dave, I am glad i can help out some. Good luck with it and keep us posted.

[davelin315]

August 26, 2005

 

I was in school yesterday and the tank is settling back down. With the new water change, the corals are looking good, but unfortunately, so are the flatworms! I'm on the lookout for a 6 line wrasse still, but may try to transplant a banded coral shrimp in there temporarily that I got from Sounder to see if it can do the job on them. It's now in the 33 gallon I finished setting up yesterday.

 

Hopefully some pictures will be up on Monday.

[davelin315]

August 26, 2005

 

OK, the tank is now up and running. It has 1"+ of oolitic sand from Rocko with another 1" or so of crushed coral on top from Sounder's tank (by the way, Sounder, thanks for the donations and price break!). It's got somewhere between 50-100lbs of live rock in the system total, all stacked either in the main system, or in the sump (there's two pieces that don't fit in the tank so I'm not sure where they'll end up, maybe I'll try and exchange some of the pieces with the 15 or rotate some rock between my different tanks, or just leave them in the sump with the nice sponges on them). Being a new set up, I was a bit nervous about adding the livestock right away that I got from Sounder, but I ended up adding a serpent star, about 10 or so scarlet or red-leg hermits, a few margarita snails, a banded coral shrimp (it's HUGE!) and 2 peppermint shrimp. I also attempted to eradicate as many of the larger aiptasia anemones as I could, which ended up being about 20 or so. I couldn't find all of them, so I'll eventually get some Joe's Juice to kill them off.

 

This is a chemical that the anemones will eat. It will eventually kill them off, but is not supposed to harm anything else (since it's the beginning of a new school year, any new students that read this will be able to figure out what things are if explanations are added, after all, for probably 99% of them, this is the first reef tank they have ever seen). The aiptasia anemone are a nuisance anemone and information is available on them by referring back to the beginning of the 15 gallon journal and following links to the other threads on it.

 

After using a turkey injector (it was too big to actually inject most of them) to suck as many aiptasia out as I could, I aquascaped as much as I could, then siphoned off a layer of detritus (excretions from living things in the tank and decomposing food that is basically a layer of dirt on the bottom of the tank) and topped the tank off with some new RO/DI water mixed with Instant Ocean (a solution of pure water and salt mix containing various trace elements and minerals needed by oceanic creatures to survive).

 

As for the tank itself, I set up the sump, which I drilled two days ago to add a bulkhead for an external pump, and I hooked up a Little Giant 2MDQX-SC with 1" inlet hose returning through 3/4" outlet hose. The pump is rated for about 700 gallons per hour I believe, but with the head pressure and the angles in the pump, it's probably running less than 300 gph now. I will try and beef up the flow at a later time, and also quiet the system down with an internal pump. The return is made via two holes I drilled in the overflow chamber. I plumbed dual returns that are about 1" below the surface of the water so that they will run dry when the power shuts off. I also put in a modified Durso Standpipe in the overflow chamber to cut down on some noise.

 

The tank was clearing up when I left on Friday, so by Monday, it should look good. I'll add the other serpent star later (a tiger serpent star) but it lost a leg in transport so I put it in my established tank at home until this tank settled down some more. I am hoping that the system does not have a mini-cycle since it's got so much live rock and live sand from established systems. I'll test once during the week hopefully and then teach the kids how to test when they return after Labor Day.

 

Keep your eye out for more updates and pictures soon!

[davelin315]

Well, I managed to snap some pictures today and find two students who will be my first tank keepers. I will train them on Monday morning for what to do and let them train other students. Since the tank is still relatively empty, it'll be a building process throughout the year, but the first problem to tackle now that I have tweaked the system so it's pretty quiet is the aiptasia. There are quite a few pictures of them and they are also present in every single picture taken so far. You'll see why I'm looking for the ideal way to get rid of them by the pictures and why injecting or feeding Joe's Juice simply won't work.

 

Here's the sump. There's one piece of liverock in there and some rubble that I wasn't able to fit into the tank yet.

 

Here's the full tank shot with the current lighting on top being dual 96W PCs, one daylight and one actinic.

 

Here's the shot of the whole setup sitting on top of a computer desk. We have 3 PCs this year instead of 5 Macs, so I am utilizing one of the seats to house the tank. The holes in the desk for cords work great for the overflow hoses!

 

This is a picture of the overflow which I modified by drilling two holes into for returns. I used 3/4" loc-line and then split each into two 1/2" returns. One points towards the back on each side and one points down towards the front of the tank on each side. The return pump is a Mag 9.5, but I'm still not satisfied with the flow.

 

This is a rock in the top right corner of the tank. Everything you see there is aiptasia.

 

Here's a picture from the front taken with a ruler in the tank by the aiptasia. Each section divided up by the red blocks is 1".

[davelin315]

This is a shot of the banded coral shrimp. It's quite large, one of the biggest I have seen. It's not partial, however, to eating bristle worms like other BCS I have had, as the bristle worms are everywhere and some are getting quite big.

 

Here's another shot of the aiptasia in the tank next to the ruler. You can see they are not limited to the one rock.

 

This rock has an aiptasia on it that has released its foot from the rock and looks like it's ready to let go and find a new spot. There are many aiptasia that are simply floating around in the tank looking for new places to live.

 

Here's another shot of the shrimp.

 

The aiptasia are even growing on the return pipes which were only put in place about two weeks ago.

 

Still another shot showing how big and how many aiptasia there are. Again, this is of the top right corner.

 

Here's a shot of one growing on the glass (it migrated there) as well as some living in shells and in the substrate itself, which is composed of a layer of oolitic sand covered by a layer of crushed coral sand.

 

The same shot above, this time with a ruler to show the size of the aiptasia.

[davelin315]

Well, the tank is now in another room, but I took some shots of it before it left the room. I will have the other teacher take some shots of it when things settle down (it's only the 2nd week of school still) and I'll post them later. These pictures are from 9-1-05 and were taken before the tank was moved.

 

Full tank shot.

 

Full tank shot with the two yellow damsels from Bob (Rocko918).

 

Two shots of the montipora digitata from Adrienne (Sugar Magnolia). There was some die off on one because it fell into the sand over the summer, but they've shown excellent growth so far and are looking great.

 

Capnella from Lee Stearns.

 

Zoanthids from Steven (dchild). They have really spread well and are growing on the pump intake.

[davelin315]

Here's the zoanthid and mushroom rock from Adrienne (Sugar Magnolia) last year. The mushrooms have exploded and I even tore some of them off for one of my students, Zach (koopa ninja), for helping me move the tank twice. I'll try and frag some of these and put them into the 33.

 

Green star polyps from Adrienne. They are doing very well and are isolated to the one rock in the middle of the sand. Can't do any damage if they can't go anywhere!

 

Another shot, closer up.

 

Here's another colony of green star polyps, from Lee Stearns I believe, that are somewhat browner. When I got them back from the summer, they were covered in planaria, so I shook them off and vacuumed as many out as I could and it has recovered some what from not being open at all. Again, it's also isolated from other rocks so it can't spread.

 

Here's a frag of cabbage coral from Lee Stearns and a red mushroom from Steve (dchild).

[davelin315]

One last shot of the candy cane coral/trumpet coral from Steve (dchild) nestled in front of the zoanthids. I don't know if it has grown any new heads, but I'll check and frag if it has to spread it to the 33.

[davelin315]

Two days ago I added some hermit crabs again to the tank. I am hoping that they eat some of the flatworms that are everywhere in the system. I'll update you when I get a chance.

[davelin315]

I ended up adding a copperband butterfly to the tank to see if it would handle the aiptasia problem. We're keeping a close watch on it to see if it is feeding and also to see if it is doing well. I'm hopeful that it will begin to eat and flourish in the tank. Once the aiptasia are gone or are at least on their way out, I'll begin to stock the tank. For now, I'm hoping that the butterfly will eat only aiptasia as there is a lot of it and I am not feeding it anything else yet. I will add some bloodworms if I don't notice any feeding at all, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

 

Also, since there is still a lot of detritus from the move on the bottom of the tank, I added a black sea cucumber to the tank. In my home tank I've seen one of them do an excellent job on the substrate, so I'm hoping it does the same in this tank. Since it's feeding habits are to basically sift through the sand to eat, I'm sure that it will help out with the substrate. I am also planning on adding a chunk of the chaeto that was donated to me by Bob (Rocko918) as it has developed nicely and is probably ready to be trimmed back a bit. I know there were pods in it before, but since putting it into my surge at home (which is part refugium), the population of worms, amphipods, copepods, isopods, and mysids has exploded. If you look into the surge, the glass is covered with copepods and isopods, the chaeto itself is covered with amphipods, the water is filled with mysids, and the substrate is filled with worms. I'm hoping to jump start the residents of the 33 with some of this as I haven't seen any pods in there. I know they are there, but again, I haven't seen them, so I want to get them re-established in good numbers.

 

I'll take a picture of the new residents when I can, and also will try and snap a picture of the surge before cutting into it's population.

[davelin315]

OK, I was able to snap a few pictures after school today while waiting for some other things to finish up, so here they are. Still haven't had time to do any testing, but since the serpent star is alive and thriving, my thoughts are the tank is in pretty good shape. Monday morning I'm hoping to set the kids up with some test kits that I brought in and let them go to work (hopefully).

 

Here's the black cucumber I added. It's on the side of the tank near the top instead of on the bottom, but I'm hoping it migrates back down there. For some reason, there's a bristle worm wedged between it and the glass. It's not eating it and the cucumbers not releasing it's guts, so I'm assuming it's OK. If it looks bad tomorrow, I'll pull the bristle worm out. They're almost as bad as the aiptasia. If anyone wants some, let me know. I might set a trap for them over the next couple of days.

 

Speaking of bristle worms, here's some.

 

And here's some more...

 

And some more...

 

In between the aiptasia, there's a hermit crab.

 

And here's a nassarius snail. You can see his snorkel reaching up. He's buried under the other shell.

[davelin315]

Here's the copperband butterfly. It's in the back of the tank the second I walk back there, but I do see it coming out and picking at the rock. I'm hoping that it's eating what it needs to be eating - aiptasia! Only time will tell.

 

Here's another picture of it darting back because I moved.

 

Here it is coming out again. This time I was very still and it continued to come out.

 

This is it on it's way to the front of the tank. Of course, the second I moved the camera, it was back behind the rocks again, only on the other side.

[Guest alex wlazlak]

dang you have ALOT of those anemone things, and tons of bristle worms. thtas pretty bad. i never saw that many of those things! howd you get them all? are you takeing out some bristleworms by hand? can you just rip off alot of the anemones too? and i was reading that you wanted some pepermint shrimps, did you find any? does drs. foster and smith have any? maybe you can do a search on ebay or somthing like that to find some. good luck with your massive outbreaks of those things... tank looks nice too.

[davelin315]

Hi Alex, I bought/received as a donation the rock from someone else, along with the top inch or so of substrate. The aiptasia were there, along with the bristle worms, already. The system itself was stocked with just that rock. It's been set up for a few weeks and the only goal right now is to rid the tank of aiptasia. The fact that there is so much aiptasia and also so many bristleworms says to me that there was a lot of feeding going on in the tank the rock was in before. I got it all from Sounder, who sold you his PCs awhile back. He had a FOWLR, so it's not surprising that so much was there. Anyway, you can't simply pull them out, as they will reform from whatever flesh is left. There are too many to inject or spot feed Joe's Juice to, so I've opted for different types of biological controls. As I said, I'm hoping to get some berghia's so I can fight the aiptasia on different levels. As far as bristleworms, I may trap some and remove them, but since I'm not feeding the tank at all right now, they should level off population wise by the time I begin to stock.

[davelin315]

OK, the copperband looks good today and I see it picking at the sandbed and the rock as well. Since there are tons of aiptasia in both, my thoughts are that it's eating the aiptasia, but I can't tell as it hides when I come close. I can see it picking at the rock from 20' away as I sit at my desk right now, but I can't tell what it's picking at. I'll update if I can tell for sure.

[Guest alex wlazlak]

that sucks that theres so much aptasia. what all gets rid of them? i heard that you wanted pepermints, do they really do a good job on them? ive got plently of sea squirts, do you know if theyre beinficial to the tank or what? also, is there like a fish or somthing to get rid of them, or shouldnt i worry about them?