College Presentation on Corals

[reefs4life]

Dear MR members,

This monday I will be doing a presentation on corals and reefkeeping for my freshmen communications 100 class @ Concordia College. My presentation is not complete yet and I was wondering if I could get some help from all of you. My main points will be: How to keep care of such animals (go over equipment, protein skimmer, UV sterilizer, carbon, phosban, lights). Then I'll be talking about what kind of fish are available and where they may be purchased, I'll put a list of some of the vendors I've dealt with on here and will be talking about MR in general ( fish will include reef-safe, non reef-safe, community, aggressive, exotic like octopus). And the last thing will be about coral and reef preservation and how we are killing off our natural reefs in the wild. If anyone has any good articles on anything that I plan to talk about, please let me know. I also want to open with impact and I'd like to bring in a clownfish and anemone. I won't be able to bring in too much as it is on the 3rd floor of my school and there are no elevators. I was thinking of using a 2 1/2 gallon tank with a hot glued top so I wont spill any water, a battery powered air pump, some extra sand that I have in a bucket that I'll be boiling tonight and a blue LED strip. I know this environment may cause the clownfish and anemone a great deal of stress but I live 10 mins from my school and the class is only 1 hour and I'll be taking the livestock out of my tank right before I leave for school. Well if anyone has any suggestions on anything please post here.

Thanks,
Fortunato Catanzaro

 

[reefs4life]

If anyone has a small anemone and clown they want to give away for this cause that would be very appreciated. Even if you have one for sale let me know, thanks Fortunato

 

[House of Laughter]

Fortunato,

this is great, but I would be concerned about the stress of the fish - especially after traveling, temperature changes, people wanted to look at them etc. Will inevitably end is death for the fish, maybe not the anemone.

You are welcome to reproduce any of my articles from the magaznie on building coral propagation to show efforts of sustainability. Would ring nicely with the frag article recently posted about japanese reef rebuilding. I would also google jim cervino and his effors in the carribean to rebuild the reefs damaged from hotel tourism on the islands Those articles highlight the injection of low voltage current into steel cages that have coral fragments on them. it also proves that low voltage accellerates the calcification process -= growth.

Anyhow, hope this is helpful. I'd also discuss with Prattreef as he has been working with many schools and educating.

Jim

 

[aznt1217]

I would check out melevsreef. There's a lot of awesome stuff on that site to start.

I think your clown and livestock will be okay. I bring many fish to school and on the subway (even a tang) and all of them make it (keep in mind it was WINTER and I took the MTA) for about 7 hours in a bag. I brought a pair of Black Percula Clowns to the school Gym with me and they were nice and jolly.

 

[Tangs Rule]

Good luck with the presentation.

 

[aaron23]

wow all of this for a presentation in a freshman communications class WOW lol i dont think i would do all of that for a presentation but i wish you a great deal of luck you are a lot more inspired than i am

I hope your the only A in the class

 

[reefs4life]

Thanks for all the comment

And yes aaron...I plan on becoming a marine biologist some day, that's what my path of study is so this is my passion

 

[greggnyce]

I did a similar presentation in my communications class but I used slides of my system for visual aides. I also found that it was hard to stay within the time limit because when you start talking about this hobby there is so much information. Depending on your time limit you may want to narrow your focus to just livestock and basic care requirments or talk specific about the system and general about the livestock. Just my .02. Goodluck it sounds great so far.

 

[Simon Garratt]

Hi Fortunato.

my sincerest best wishes to you with regards to your presentation. I tend to share the same opinion as Jim with regards to the taking of stock for the event. Not worth it IMO.

If you have a look on my web site in the Methodology section, please feel free to use any info or images that you feel will be worthwhile.

my honest advice though if talking reefs to people who don't/or have never kept saltwater animals is to keep it simple but with interesting facts that just about anybody can relate to. IE, the GBR being the largest visible congregation of organisms visible from space...some statistics on the sheer number of species of fish/inverts found. highlight common misconceptions or unknown facts IE how much of the worlds population is directly influenced by the welfare of reefs, IE economies, local traders and local populations..how much the aquarium hobby is worth worldwide in monetary terms and the impacts of its withdrawal or banning..

There's loads of stuff that people can relate to who have no prior knowledge of reef aquariums or reefs in general.

Regards and good luck.

Simon.