East Side H.S. 55g Tank Thread

[tunicata]

Hey folks,
We're going to be at the SWAP this weekend. So far I have permission slips/confirmations from about 6 students, and hope to have more by Friday's club meeting.

We'll probably get in by 10:30/11 and try and leave by 2pm. I want to make sure they get to sit in on the lectures, check out the workshops and visit all of the booths. They're a good bunch of students from various educational sections of the high school.

We're going to be "videotaping" and will try and get your permission if your face is in the shot. We're going to compile our events and experiences into a 3-5m video for the school.

 

[tunicata]

Home already!
Thanks MR for the great Swap. 6 students came and they all enjoyed it. They were getting pretty antsy so we left a bit after the first lecture (though I wanted to stay and talk to Leslie...anyone have her contact?).

Anyway, I bought and then we also received a lot of stuff in donations.

Thanks to
Salt Water Critters
Quang
Sharkbait69
Frank Arriaga
MR

For their donations!
Everything should be in the tank by tomorrow if it isn't in there already (picked up stuff from sharkbait friday night while school was still open). Will be having a mini meeting Monday after school and will have the kids take pics of the tank and post them here.

It was good to see some MR folks again.

 

[tunicata]

Update:
So, we've had a lot of trials...mostly trials since my last post.
In January just before we came back from winter recess apparently one of the custodians needed to use the outlets for buffing the floors in the lobby.

Unfortunately, he never plugged ANY of the power strips back into the outlets.
Everything was fully automated...lights had a timer, automatic feeder, was using a sump system with extra water to provide enough for evaporation,etc. But the entire system went UNPLUGGED for days. No one called me, and I wasn't in the state anyway. But no one plugged it back in.

Needless to say when I came back corals were in various states of dead/dying.
Within 2wks everything was gone. Even the candy cane coral the students bought me for holiday (from Russ and Jim).

The tank is large and had few fish but only nemo and a few chromis survived.

After that happened I guess I went through a tank depression. Things like this happens every few months (Last time I added a phosban reactor and even though I thoroughly washed it within 2 days the rocks were coated with brown the same color of the phosban (it was not dino) so I had to take the rocks out and I just decided to clean them and recook them). Where something/someone outside of my control (not students) does something to mess up the environment.

Everything that is ever purchased for this tank comes from my bank account. So, not only is it sadness from the needless and careless loss of life, but corals/fish/equipment are expensive.

So, I took a month or two and didn't purchase anything new for the tank.
Just maintained it (discontinued using the sump for fear someone would unplug it again and cause damage) and did educational talks using it.

Then I decided to get into a fish only system (added in a few of the old rocks back into the system after the brown stuff went away. This was a 2 month cooking process). That's been going well for the past month. It's just that I am concerned about the financial depletion since there are no cheap fish, and my schedule is HORRIBLE so, fish with decent prices are hard to even pick up/etc.

So, that's my update. I'm pretty sad as I write this though. Also, just to reiterate, none of the problems I've been having with the tank were caused by the students here. It's always an adult staff member fiddling with something without my permission (unplugging things!!!!!!) or some mechanical failure.

I usually get over hobby depression by finding a new way to get into it. I added some of Bob1000's sea grass and I like that. It's cute.

 

[Killerdrgn]

You should put a huge sign right by the plug and in big bold letters write "DO NOT UNPLUG ON PENALTY OF DEATH!!!"

 

[tunicata]

Lol, we have a sign but it did not deter them. I did think it was hilarious that the biggest threat has been and still is: the adults.

 

[tunicata]

Update:
Hi! So, here are a few shots of the tank.
We have:
A yellow tang picked up at the swap's donation table (only $20!)
A pajama cardinal
clownfish donated by a NJREEFER member
Bob1000 reef grass (which grows like mad (I like this))
Various snails, pods, etc.

It's now a 3 year old tank.

I'm buying shipment of fish in from a vendor soon.
Acan Lighting is donating an RBTA soon.

I just put up my MH lights because my old T5's started smoking a few weeks ago.

I'm going to try and add more rock but that's pretty expensive (we had at least 50lbs more LR but the custodians threw it away one summer while I was cooking it to kill off whatever gross thing was growing on them and well...LR costs alot!) and will have to build up to that again. Some of the rock was donated too which makes it even worse.

With the added livestock I'll also need to hurry up and get a decent HOB skimmer (the original one is a seaclone that just...quit on me, it was actually doing a decent job before) or the non UTube overflow for the sump I have. I have the utube overflow, but with the amount of power outages/unplugs from the custodians I just do not trust it!

 

[Awibrandy]

The tank is coming along nicely! Please don't get so upset when things go wrong. It is just another part of reefing. And for you my dear being that the tank is in a public place it is more likely to happen.;( People can be so darn stupid, careless.

You are such a wonderful person, and most importantly A GREAT TEACHER!!! I wish I had teachers like you. School would have been so much better. Many blessings to you, and your students!!

 

[tunicata]

Thanks Awi!!

Here are some pics from today's shipment

 

[rookie07]

I have a 40 lbs bag of dry sand you are welcome to have if it is picked up.

I live on york ave in the 70's (manhattan) as well as a few softie frags.

 

[rookie07]

Sorry, I am on my cell and did not see how old this thread is.


Great job on the tank and making it 3 years in a public space!

 

[rkaragozler]

If you are willing to take a ride by your self or a couple of students, I can give you anything you need from my tank.

 

[tunicata]

Awi- It is really rewarding when I see throngs of students and even staff crowding around the tank to see what the fish are up to. I get to have small teaching moments EVERY time I'm cleaning the tank, adding fish/etc, feeding, or some other kind of maintenance.


Rookie07, Thank you very much for your offer. I've been considering changing the substrate to sand because it looks better IMO (now that I can compare crushed coral) for these types of tanks.
If I find that I'd be able to get a couple bags more I will definitely consider the change.

As for frags, softies are definitely what I'm looking to add in there!
I'll have to try and schedule a visit with you.
Thanks for your interest and generosity!

rkaragozler-WHOA, I just checked out your tank thread and...wow.
Can I schedule a visit for myself and make a little educational video to take to show the students? That would be AWESOME. Perhaps you could detail your love of the hobby, the work you put in to get those tanks, as well as rationale for the technical details, etc?

Would you be interested in that?

 

[rkaragozler]

anytime, you can also check my sig, for my bio as well, just let me know when you would like to come down

 

[tunicata]

Hey folks,
Thanks to a donation of phyto from GROSSR, we set up a temp hyto culture station.

http://www.manhattanreefs.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=107102&stc=1&d=1329184528

Temp just for them to 1) see if they could manage it 2) develop and test some hypotheses before we set up a larger system.

We are keeping the phyto for a few reasons 1) just to do a cool/interesting project as a learning extension 2) to donate a few bottles to the biology classes so they can do dissolved oxygen tests 3) to donate here on the DBTC forum

Would anyone want any phyto that we culture? It's nanno cl. and we will be able to put it into 35 oz water bottles (cleaned seltzer bottles)
We don't have a secchi disk to determine the density of the phyto population, so we can't give you a count.


We don't really have any use for the phyto after March when the bio kids finish their project. After that we will use it to try and grow Pimento de Padron in the classroom!

 

[tunicata]

Oh, I picked up some of the free dry marco rock finksmart gave away to folks this past weekend.
We will set up some rock 'cooking' stations over the next few weeks (I need to find materials to set up a station!). The rocks will be added to the tank when it's done.

 

[rkaragozler]

I have about 10, 5 gallon buckets if you need