Really Hard water/school fish tank - what can be done?

Nice teaching tool. NOT!

I have the same problem as you. At the beginning of Sept my daughter's 3rd teacher brought in a class fish -- a betta in a goldfish bowl. My husband and I voluteered to give them a 2.5g Eclipse, heater, proper food, syphon and so forth and to come in every week to look after it. Every time I came in, I explained what I was doing to the teacher and why. Tested the water and explained that and so forth.

Everything is fine with that setup, but then the 4th grade teacher set up a 55 gallon tank in her classroom to teach her kids about taking care of animals and biology. My daughter's teacher told me that the 4th grade's teacher's fish were dying constantly and asked me to look at the tank.

I went in, looked at the tank and spoke to the teacher. This is what she told me:

She checks the pH every week, like she was told to
She adds water as it evaporates, like she was told to
She doesn't need to do water changes, just top off the tank. Water changes aren't necessary.
Fish always die in a new tank
And so on.

I think you get the picture.

I tried to gently persaude her to change what she was doing, no dice. She's one of those that just won't listen, even when you explain exactly why it needs to be done.

I don't bother with her anymore. Last I heard she threw some fish in the tank, had an outbreak of ich, all the fish died, she put some new ones in and is changing the water. Dunno how much or how often.

Point to my post is that sometimes people won't listen. Even people who really SHOULD listen, like teachers. If those guys in the biology lab don't want you fiddling with their tanks or take what you are saying and ignore it, don't take it personally. Some people are just like that.

The hardest part about what you want to do aren't the tank parameters you want to fix, it's the politics involved. You need to have the knowledge to fix the problem, but that's pointless if they don't want you touching the tank.

If they let you work on the tank, it probably hasn't had the water changed regularily. You should start there, but don't do a lot at once. Just a little at a time or you will shock the remaining fish.

Starting a regular change schedule will go a long way into fixing that tank's problems. See if you can get a picture of that other fish so we can ID it.

Roan

Thats terrible - surely nobody would get offended if you stepped in to help and explained where they were going wrong. Maybe they feel awful every day looking at that tank of misery but just don't know what to do.

I can't even imagine what sort of environment is it teaching the kids about.

Sounds like a fun project Gomisan ! (minus the politics end of it, hope they accept your offer to help)

There's nothing like taking a situation like that and turning it around for the better...to brighten a hobbyists day/week (not to mention the lives of those poor fish..lol).....go for it ! :thm:

Gomisan said:

Thanks, this is senior Biology, they should know better, but I'll try and be diplomatic about it all. It's a bad start for me that the day after I take an interest, one of their fish dies. I didn't touch the tank, but logic often keeps well away from people's thoughts

If you know of anything that might help reduce the hardness in the water, safely, it may help me gain soem trust, (and I'll learn something), and then maybe I can talk about better filtering and the need for dedicated buckets etc for water changes (who knows what chemicals had been in the bucket they used)

Click to expand...

Gomisan,

Test the tap water GH and find out what the difference is between the tap and the tank. It's probably a fairly large number. Show that to them. Explain WHY the tank number is so high and that it can ONLY be fixed with fresh, clean water. Use that if you need a bargaining tool.

Then, first things first. The water hardness is most likely from a build up of all the crap in the tank water and it will decrease as the water is replenished with fresh. Start with the water changes, slowly. Get the Basic Four back in control: ammonia, nitrites, nitrates, pH

Baby steps are needed with an abused tank.

Roan

Agree w/RA - on both the Rx for the current tank and the disinterest of the teacher with the 55.

The Biology tank is likely in full OTS*, so handle with great care initially to avoid killing the current inhabitants. The staff handling the setup are very likely unaware of the significance of the underlying issues - this also requires a bit of diplomacy.

The shame with uncaring primary teacher is that she is teaching - all the wrong things. There have been many successful projects on placing simple setups in primary schools. If i can dig up the refs I will post back with them.

*http://www.thepufferforum.com/articles/small/ots.html

With OTS tanks, make haste v_e_r_y slowly, and if it ain't broke, don't fix it. If the filter is potentially inadequate, and equally likely undermaintained, the gravel and other surfaces in the tank may well be all the biofilter it has. Certainly vacuum it a bit at a time, but not too much in any one week.

Light is light. Natural light is fine for tanks so long as they do not over-heat or explode into algae farms.