Teacher Requests Assistance With New Tank

[lmerryman]

After posting on Freecycle and Craig's list, I am thrilled to find WAMAS and join as a teacher member. A parent gave me a 55 gallon tall saltwater tank 2 weekends ago that took me 7 hours to move into my classroom(water, live rock, & critters). It has a feather duster, horseshoe crab, 2 ordinary clown fish, 6 small hermit crabs, a gobi, a star fish, and live rock (with brown sprouty things on it). I replaced the sand and filter content (& really cleaned it) and have checked the salinity. Tonight at the pet store, I learned that the Nitrogen and other content need checking, so I bought a kit for that and certainly want to make certain everything is safe before adding to the tank.

 

In the week that I have had the tank, the kids have watched it like it was a television. I have students who are not even in my classes stopping by during lunch to see the new habitat (and I'm an English teacher, not science). This makes me happy, as they are having a great time learning about a whole different world and talking about animal behaviors etc.

 

What I would love are some plants, coral, or fish that are 1. Safe 2. Compatible (& pretty) 3. Affordable. I would be willing to drive to NOVA during the weekend, and I live near Fredericksburg if anyone comes this way. I saw some puffer fish, blue "throw away" fish, and some tangs (Dori fish?) that I believe the kids would enjoy, and lots of cool bulbous glowy things. (The tank has a coral light and a "Cadillac" of a hood that the former owner said cost $700.00 which I would believe).

 

Thanks in advance for your help.

[dbartco]

Welcome. We have a social in Manassas not too far from you on the 29th. If you make it up, you will surely get prlenty of goodies and donations for your tank. I will have a number of things for you I'm sure. Just ask.

 

Post a few pics, it always gives us ideas what you can use in your tanks. Read and ask as much as possible, there is a lot of suggeestions here. Start a thread in the ed forum with all the details (minute as possible still works for us fishdorks) and plans for the tank.

 

Again, welcome.

[Der ABT]

Welcome, strongly suggest you post some pics of the tank, its inhabitants (especially the "brown sprouty things" as there are some pests that can take over a tank that could fit that description called aiptasia believe me i know them too well)

 

Also would suggest some pics of your filtration equipment etc...as people can make alot of suggestions that will make your life alot easier with your maintenance (water changes, cleaning do's and donts, etc)

[Glenn]

And I'll add that a picture or two of the lighting unit will help with information on whether or not you can keep corals, and what types of corals the lights will help grow.

[Coral Hind]

Welcome to WAMAS!! I think we have some members that live down that way, hopefully they will chime in to help you.

[bankyf]

Which school? I may be able to come by if you need help and/or donate a few little things and I am sure I know of some other local members who would donate a few things as well. FYI, don't have too much faith in any info received from our(Fredericksburg) local pet stores, they leave a lot to be desired. You will be much better off with information from the club.

[epleeds]

I am in Nokesville and can donate some coral to the cause.

[lmerryman]

Today, I took 4 tolerable photos of the tank and creatures in it (horseshoe crab, Brittney Spears, I'm sorry to say, died and was being consumed by the star fish & I wasn't sure whether to leave her or take her out as the starfish seemed to really be enjoying itself). I've attached them.

 

Feather duster and fuzzy growths on live rock, a clown fish, the light fixture, and the aquarium are shown. Hope this helps (camera phone is not the best equipment for the job!)

 

 

Nitrogen, Ammonia, & salinity fine right now, but could change, particularly with deceased crab. Wondering if star fish will turn loose.

 

Thanks for the suggestions and ideas. I've marked the 29th on my calendar!

 

Regards,

 

Laura

[LanglandJoshua]

Looks like LOTS of aptasia! It is a nuisance anemone, grows fast. Hard to kill, and stings other coral very badly. Before you get any coral you need to get this FOWLR(Fish Only With Live Rock) tank ready. For that you will need higher water flow(none that I saw listed), possibly more light, something to at least create a day/night schedule, some filtration, and kill off that aptasia(the longer you wait, the harder it is). Later you will become familiar with lots of little things to make life easier.

 

For water flow. I would say at least one 750gph powerhead, preferably more (someone more familiar with powerheads for a tank this size please chime in). One quick way to make some random flow is to take two strong power heads, place them on opposing sides of the tank, and aiming them at each other. The two will create competing currents. Which if done right will alternate where they deflect each other. One other(more expensive) way is to get a pump that can alternate flow, this is done with some form of controller. Those are two of the more popular ways, however there are others. I don't have experience with most of the others, and won't suggest what I don't use. If for nothing else than my lack of experience with it.

 

For lighting, I would use a PAR meter to check your lighting level. You may need new bulbs. The club has designated members who keep the PAR meters, just ask and I am sure they can help. Hmmm...I will need to borrow one of those soon for my tank. Thanks for the reminder!

 

A simple water sprinkler timer, or other electronic timer should do. Unless your light has one built in. Other options include specialized mini computers with special outlets to time, monitor, track, and control your system. Some will even let you control the system from an online account, or from your smart phone. Probes can be added to allow constant monitoring and tracking of your tanks parameters. You can even make graphs for long term tracking.

 

For filtration, you need a protein skimmer and live rock. I only use mine for aeration and keeping the PH up(that's another conversation entirely). Most successful "reefers" I know use about 1-1.5lbs of rock per gallon. Many use less. My system is a total of 215 gallons, with an estimated 350-400lbs of rock. So I am on the high end of that ratio, which lets me get away with not skimming. Though that has a set of side effects like potentially making some corals really unhappy. But to me balances out by allowing a higher chance of littler baby critters surviving after stuff spawns. However that is another debate on its own, there are entire topics on it. So I suggest until your tank and you are ready, use your skimmer with plenty of rock.

 

I listed the less expensive options first. With the tank being for a classroom I am sure you would be better off spending less. The absolute cheapest option(that includes keeping the tank) would be to just kill off what aptasia you can. They don't just sting coral, fish can be hit to. Then put some cool fish in there. I have to admit, there are plenty I wish I had in my tank. But thanks to their absolutely insatiable love of eating coral and expensive clams, someone else gets to have them.

 

I hope this info is helpful!

 

With you being an english teacher please be gentle on any typos! My phone makes me type nearly every word twice because it "thinks" it knows what I am typing.... There wil definitly be som.

Edited October 20, 2011 by LanglandJoshua

[davelin315]

Hi Laura, first of all, welcome to the club, it's nice to have more teachers around here. I'd advise becoming an actual member to the club (for teachers it only costs $10) so that you have access to other areas on the website. We have a sales area that you can find freebies and deals in and I started a post years back for people to donate things to schools which I'm sure you'll find useful.

 

On to the tank... my first thought was that you had a lot of aiptasia as was noted above. Aiptasia are the little brownish red anemones on the rock, or, as you called them, the brown sprouty things. As mentioned, they are considered to be pests and can cause a lot of issues. As they are anemones, they contain cells called "nematocysts" which are the same stinging cells that animals like jellyfish have. They don't carry nearly as potent a sting as a jelly, but for a fish, coral, or invertebrate, it can be pretty harsh. Killing these off is a priority and scraping them off is not a good option. They can reproduce sexually and also asexually through budding and tearing themselves apart (literally - they can also reproduce from you tearing them apart!). There are ways to get rid of them but I've found the easiest (and also hardest) way is to inject them with hot calcium water, aka kalkwasser. This is basically calcium carbonate or bicarbonate that is dissolved in hot water as much as possible and then injected into the aiptasia's body using a hypodermic syringe. This takes practice and you can't do too many at once or you'll throw off your water chemistry, but it will usually kill them off. There are also a couple of products out there that are basically this that you can squirt onto the anemones and that is supposed to kill them as they ingest it. You can also use biological means by using some fish and shrimp, but these are not always guaranteed to do the job and you should start with removing as many as you can first. Doesn't look like you have all that much rock, anyway, so you should be OK.

 

Beyond the aiptasia, you'll probably want to remove the shells that are all over the bottom of your tank. These will trap debris and waste and create what's referred to as a nutrient sink. This means that all of the crud will build up in and around these shells and cause your tank to get very dirty very quickly. This will in turn cause a bloom of unwanted algae and also spur on the growth or return of the aiptasia. You can have a nice sand bed in the tank that is kept clean by vacuuming or by having the appropriate animals in your tank, but the shells tend to cause problems and are more suited for being out of the tank.

 

You will also want to add more rock to your tank. This doesn't mean you should simply get any old rock and add it to the tank, though, as the rock we use in our tanks is specialized. It's typically formed from ancient dead corals. There are many different sources for this rock and you can get it as dry rock (which has been mined on land) or as live rock (which has been cultured in the ocean first). The best type of rock is that which is very porous so the water can easily seep into it. This type of rock houses infinite numbers of bacteria, both aerobic and anaerobic. These bacteria are the basis for the nitrogen cycle and consume the waste products produced by your livestock. This is the ammonia stage of the nitrogen cycle. Next, the consumed ammonia is released as nitrite, which is toxic to your animals (as is the ammonia). This is consumed by another type of bacteria which releases it as nitrate. Nitrates are essentially fertilizers and are harmful in higher concentrations. These are also consumed by anaerobic bacteria deep and they produce certain gases as a waste product which essentially will go right out of your tank. It's hard, though, for rock to keep up with this on its own so we do water changes to help keep the nitrates low and also use certain algae and sometimes animals or artificial or biolgoical means to reduce nitrates. By adding more rock you're adding more surface area for the bacteria to colonize both inside and outside of the rock. You'll also want to arrange it in a way that water can flow in and through the structure you make so that you don't get "dead areas" where all of detritus settles.

 

As far as flow, there was a good point made above that you want more of it. Looks like there's what's called a canister filter on the tank. This is not always the best method of filtration for a marine tank as it can trap a lot of debris and cause your nutrient level to explode in the tank if not cleaned out regularly. I would recommend going simple for this system as a complicated system in a school is never a great idea due to the limitations of being in school only 5 days per week. The simpler you get, the less likely issues are to become catastrophic when you're not there. I would say to get a good hang on back filter (it hangs off the back of the tank and pulls water into a chamber then dumps it back in via gravity) and if you need more flow, get a power head in the tank. You can easily access the filter material in a hang on back tank and either replace it or wash it out regularly much easier than opening up a canister filter. The purpose of water movement is to keep debris from settling so that it can be removed easily from the water column by filtration and also to provide gas exchange in your tank. Surface agitation is a must as it will allow oxygen to dissolve more easily into the water and also allow carbon dioxide and nitrogen gases to escape your tank.

 

As far as your current livestock, the horseshoe crab is ill suited to tank life and probably died from living in the tank itself - it runs out of food very quickly as it scours the sandbed. If the starfish ate it, it's probably a very predatory starfish and can pose a threat to your other inhabitants. I'm thinking it's probably a chocolate chip starfish that is very capable of eating not only the horseshoe crab (it could have even caught it while alive and killed it) but also your feather duster and fish. In the appropriate set up and environment, though, it should be fine, though.

 

Well, this is a lot of information to start off with, if you can make the social there are some great people that you can talk to in our club including the owner and employees.

[lmerryman]

Thanks, everyone for the help and suggestions!

 

 

The horseshoe crab is officially removed and I went to Petco and bought some peppermint shrimp who have gone to work on the Aiptasia. I started with 6 small ones, and we'll see if they make a dent in them. I also bought some books at Petco today to try to help me get an basic handle on things. Thanks, too for the info on the shells, they seemed to make sense, but I'll pull them out and give them to the marine bio class to play with; I'll get them out tomorrow when I go in to feed the tank. Because I know so little about the delicate chemistry of the environment I thought I'd begin with an organic/animal solution and work my way up to the chemicals (I even read about using a propane torch which gives me pause about the soot) if I need to.

 

I have new light bulbs on order and am looking for a protein skimmer, too. I do have a canister filter like Dave mentioned. It has an intake on the left side of the tank goes into a three chambered filtration system in the cabinet below, and then expels the water on the right side of the tank. The water surface agitator mechanism is in the middle of the tank and has a piece that looks like a microphone that sticks out behind the tank and then a trapezoid-type nozzle that blows the surface. I'll add a back filter to my wish list, too, though. There is a freshwater tank in my classroom for two goldfish, Amy Pond and Dr. Who, and it has a filter that is that style.

 

The timer sounds like a super idea, but on my lights, I have to flip a switch, so I turn daylight on as soon as I arrive at 7:15 and try to leave it on until about 4:00 p.m. when I leave. Then there is a night mode.

 

Does anyone know if the heater will be enough during the holidays if they should turn the heat down in the building? That is a concern of mine. I'm going to ask my principal if I can keep the thermostat set to 60 in my classroom. Power outages could be another challenge in the future.

 

Also, is there a weekly maintenance or monthly checklist that should be followed?

 

I'm itching to get some blue and gold Damsels to put into the tank, as they are the school colors and are reasonably affordable. I did buy some red algae for the fish to munch on today, and had to restrain myself from purchasing one of each cool thing I saw.

 

Thanks for the help!

 

-Laura

 

 

[dbartco]

hold off buying your gold damsels, they are evil!

 

Take you time buyin gyour fish for the tank. Damsels are easy, cheap, but they are aggressive and some are downright mean. Take the time and ask questions and make sure you have the right fish for your tank. Because, once it is in, you have to dismantle the whole thing to get out that one fish.

 

Looking for suggestions now...

 

canary blenny

yellow wrasse

midas blenny

[Coral Hind]

A bi-color (C. bicolor) or a pygmy (C. argi) angelfish would have the same blue/gold color. Either of those would have a much better temperament then the damsels.

[dbartco]

and nice avatar lmerryman!!!