School Marine Aquarium

B

Baker School

AC Members
Apr 19, 2008
6
0
0
www.bakerdemschool.org
I am a middle school science teacher at Baker Demonstration School and am posting on behalf of the 6th grade class at Baker. As part of our oceanography this year, we had the idea of setting up a saltwater aquarium to study the interaction of living and non-living factors in the ocean and educate others at our school about ocean environments. We have research marine aquariums and equipment and wrote a grant to our parent organization to fund our project. Our grant was recently approved and we are ready to begin purchasing our items and setting up the tank. We have read the saltwater cycle thread, but are seeking any additional advice you may have. Here is a list of what we are planning on purchasing for our 30 gallon tank.


Item
Top Fin Durham Aquarium Stand (30 gal. model)
Sea Clone 100 protein skimmer
All-Glass Aquarium Deluxe Full Fluorescent Hoods
All-Glass 10 Gallon “Hospital Tank”
Aqueon Aquarium Power Filter
Seachem Prime Water Conditioner
Red Sea Marine Lab Test Kit
(Ammonia, Nitrite, Nitrate, pH, Alkalinity)
Red Sea Marine Lab Test Kit
(Phosphate, Calcuium)
Jager 150 Watt Submersible Heater (13 inch)
CaribSea Seaflor Special Grade Reef Sand (15lb)
Caribsea Arag-Alive Bahamas OOlite (10 lb)
Marina Easy Clean Gravel Cleaner
Hagen Hydrometer (8 inch)
Python Easy Cleaning Algae Mitt
Rainbow Lifeguard Little Time or Temp
Royal Blue Aquarium Background

30 lbs. Live Rock ($5.79 per pound)
Instant Ocean Reef Crystals
Frozen Fish Food



Fish and Invertebrates
Clown Fish (2)
Cardinal Fish (2)
Yellow Clown Goby
Algae Blenny
Detritivore Starter Kit (Hermit Crabs and Shrimp)

Thank you in advance for you help. We promise to keep you posted on our progress.

Jesse Semeyn (On behalf of the 6th grade class at Baker Demonstration School)
 
RO/DI for water is better then the water conditioners......
im finding with saltwater ,the black backgrounds look so much nicer and really bring out the colors of the LR ,,, Personaly i think you may need more then 30lbs of live rock the more you have the better filtration you have .
hey but im a beginer myself :-)
im not sure but i dont think you need to worrie about calcium and Phosphate unless you plan on corals (but i could be wrong.
 
Item
Top Fin Durham Aquarium Stand (30 gal. model)
Sea Clone 100 protein skimmer- useless
All-Glass Aquarium Deluxe Full Fluorescent Hoods-nono for corals
All-Glass 10 Gallon “Hospital Tank”- good idea!
Aqueon Aquarium Power Filter- dont really need this, you need powerheads at least 10x in fowlr and 25x in reef
Seachem Prime Water Conditioner-get RO/DI unit, it will save you time and money
Red Sea Marine Lab Test Kit- i recommend Salifert for more accurate
(Ammonia, Nitrite, Nitrate, pH, Alkalinity)
Red Sea Marine Lab Test Kit
(Phosphate, Calcuium)
Jager 150 Watt Submersible Heater (13 inch)
CaribSea Seaflor Special Grade Reef Sand (15lb)- dont really need ls, if you can find any Aragamax Sand and seed it with lr.
Caribsea Arag-Alive Bahamas OOlite (10 lb)
Marina Easy Clean Gravel Cleaner
Hagen Hydrometer (8 inch) -although this is sometimes useful, i still recommend getting a refractometer
Python Easy Cleaning Algae Mitt
Rainbow Lifeguard Little Time or Temp
Royal Blue Aquarium Background

30 lbs. Live Rock ($5.79 per pound)
Instant Ocean Reef Crystals- get two buckets(you wont believe how fast it will gone)
Frozen Fish Food



Fish and Invertebrates
Clown Fish (2)
Cardinal Fish (2)
Yellow Clown Goby
Algae Blenny- you should wait until you get alot of algae in your tank
Detritivore Starter Kit (Hermit Crabs and Shrimp)- BEWARE hermits and snail dont really co-exist as you will finding yourself with no snails.

Thank you in advance for you help. We promise to keep you posted on our progress.

Jesse Semeyn (On behalf of the 6th grade class at Baker Demonstration School)[/QUOTE]


i wish my days were good as todays
 
Hi there,
I have found that I either needed two heaters (one for tank, one for preparing water change water) or went through alot of hassle moving the main tank heater back and forth. Of course, this depends lots of the temp of the room that the water will be in.

I would consider getting 2lbs of live rock per gallon of water instead of 1 and I would get it from Tampa Bay Saltwater Live Rock. This is especially important in your case because you want as much life as possible as quickly as possible since kids leave the class within a year. With normal live rock it can be months before you see much that is interesting on the rock. With TBS, it is instant. The rock is never dried out and is grown specifically for this purpose so you are also conserving our natural reefs by not taking rock from them. Their prices meet what you are looking for and include live sand and your clean up crew. http://www.tampabaysaltwater.com/ You'll want to order "the package".

You can see what it looks like on my thread: http://www.aquariacentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=147828
Best pics on page 11.

Will you be getting coral? Or will it be fish only with live rock?

This is a great project for the kids!!
 
Also, I got an airstone to help move my water around when I was mixing it up for water changes...they are cheap...a stone and a pump are under 15$.
 
Thank you for your helpful responses.

We are currently planning on a fish only tank. Is it possible to add corals in later years? The nice thing about the way the school is structured is I will teach this group from 6-8 grade, so this project will carry over until next year, when they will pass it on to the incoming 6th grade class when they study oceanography. This will most likely be on constantly evolving tank depending on where the kids want to take it.

The Tampa Bay Saltwater live rock looks great. We love the fact that it is wild reef friendly. We will have to make sure we can squeeze it into our budget.

Does everyone find the SeaClone 100 protein skimmer ineffective? Is a protein skimmer necessary for an aquarium this size?

Thank YOU!
 
I have a seaclone and while it sometimes produces skimmate, I find it to be not worth the money for the small amount of time it does what it is supposed to do. It's on a 30g and so I don't fuss over it, and I haven't found it necessary to get a different brand. It's not essential on an aquarium that size; it may need more frequent water changes, but there are other things that the money could be spent on that are effective and worthwhile.
 
Will you have a magnifying glass and a microscope??? That would make the tank even better! Timers for the lights may be helpful too for the weekends. They are pretty cheap at lowes or home depot.

You could always upgrade to corals later...just means an upgrade in lights. Shoot...then you could get another tank to add the old lights to and who knows what you you could do in there!!
 
I agree on the 1) LR, you should have 1.5 to 2 lbs per gal... 2) Sea Clone, I have been extremely happy with my Coralife Super Skimmer but as was said you really don't need one on that size tank, mine is on a 100g...3) Refractometer, I kept putting it off and finally broke down when I took my water in for a check, which i do periodically just to double check myself, and found that my SG was way off. Luckily I didn't lose my anemones. If budget is an issue, and I am sure it is at a school, you can check forums like this and Craigslist for some good deals. After I paid $70 for my refractometer I spotted one on CL for $20. Lastly, while I also agree that you don't actually need a filter with the right amount of LR and flow it still wouldn't hurt and would probably much more beneficial than the skimmer. I run an Aquaclear 70 on my 20g tank with 30lbs of LR and 25X flow and I have an Eclipse3 system on my 30g with 45 lbs of LR and also 25x flow.
 
For just starting up your tank the filter and skimmer will be helpful IMO, though later on they may become less of a necessity as your Live Rock starts doing it's job. I
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
AquariaCentral.com
Top Bottom