School Tank Progress

[Witfull]

thanks rodger,,sometimes the obvious is hard to see,,,i know ive missed it a few times..lol

old LFS joke:

customer: my fish are all laying on their sides on the bottom of the tank gasping and flopping around,,,whats wrong?

employee: all the water has evaporated,,,,add more water.

[Rougiem]

Welcome Witfull, but thank you!

J: Humm...I do not think I will be in at all. I have the lights on a timer and need a break from school. Everything should be ok, besides it is hard to get into my school over the weekend.

Clean up crew is still going strong and doing a number. Perhaps this is not so exciting, but everything put into previously died in masses!
Cheers!

[Craig Manoukian]

Great stuff Rodger! I hope your reef hermits are Scarlets! Just FYI, my 80 gallon has about 25 Nassaurius Snails, and they are the large ones Larry has in the coral display tank. Keep up the good work!

[Rougiem]

Craig:

Thanks for the information! Actually I was planning to put in more nassarius snails, but he did not have anymore. They were suppose to come in yesterday. My students were fascinated with them. They were the "hit" of the day!

Question: I assume I would be able to put at least 50 or more due to our tank size?

Cheers!

[Craig Manoukian]

Originally Posted by Rougiem

Question: I assume I would be able to put at least 50 or more due to our tank size?

That's correct! 60 - 70 would be the number you'll need, but add them as you add bioload. If there is not sufficient detritous they could starve. They will eat any left over food, krill or mysis shrimp for example.

[Rougiem]

Well all our livestock is still alive! I was concerned about putting another group of animals in here even though our nitrites, pH and ammonia levels were fine. We have a specific gravity of 1.025

We have a total of 19 snails (mix of astrea and turbos), reef hermits (14) and narssarius snails. Could any take a look and give suggestions on how many more to add? I do not think there is a lack of food!

Pictures are of the left and right side of the tank. Comments or suggestions are always welcome. This is reef scantuary's tank too!

Cheers!

[Rougiem]

Temperature is a bit high for me. It was 29 celcius today. I opened up the lower cabinets to allow some heat to out. Does anyone think we may have to add a chiller to the set up?

The attached picture has our lighting set up. Light on the left is a 50/50 10, 000k actinic and the right is a daylight bulb. We are considering moving the light on the left to the right side and will be adding MH lights to the left 2 x 250W set ups. I think this set up will allow for some interesting diversity in our tank.

Suggestions and comments are again welcome!

Cheers!

[jhnrb]

you can add 6 to 10 at a time and then let settle in to see if all live and enough food is available , test water also to see if there is any change if not and all is well you can add a few more. just take it slow and try not to add to many snails. i agree with craig's comment above. just another opinion of my own. great looking project. good luck

[jhnrb]

if temperature is up without mh, then you may want to definitely consider a chiller with mh. need air movement and evaporation at water surface or sump to assist in the cooling process.

[Rougiem]

Thanks for the helo Jnhrb!

Looking at our canopy set-up, another teacher and I were debating the removal of our canopy doors. I think it may help with the high temperatures we are expereincing not to mention the AC is not working in this room right now!

Any opinions or suggestions? Take a look at posts 36 and 37.

Old fish never die...they just fade away!

[Witfull]

adding a small desktop oscillating fan into the sump conpartment will help disapate heat and cause evaporational cooling. its possible to see a appx 4* temp drop in this fasion.

[Woodstock]

29 celcius is equivalent to 84.2 F... definately too high. I would recommend a chiller before you add the MH because those will increase the temp even more. Canopy fans... fans, fans, fans anywhere ... any air circulation will help to evaporate/cool the water; just be prepared for excessive evaporation and do your daily top offs.

[Rougiem]

Thanks Woodstock and Witfull! That was another idea I was kicking around. I will try your suggestions.

Cheers!

[Frankie]

I would set up a chiller also. You can get a drop-in chiller so you dont have to plumb it in. Thats what i use and have had great sucess with it. You could hook up a Madusa controler to regulate the heater and chiller all at once so there not fighting each other.
I have a question, do you work there in the summer also? Who's going to care for it during summer break? Also, is the school funding this tank? I hope so
You can drill some holes in the top of the canopy, one on each side at the rear and screw on some cooling fans pulling the air out. On the sides of the canopy drill one hole on each to let the air flow in. You can get the fans at the lfs im sure if it's a reliable place.

[Rougiem]

Originally Posted by FFrankie

I have a question, do you work there in the summer also? Who's going to care for it during summer break? Also, is the school funding this tank? I hope so

FFrankie: Thank you for the great information. In regards to your questions: I will be taking care of it in the summer. We do not have a great deal of livestock in there now. I want to wait till the start of the school year.

The school is not funding the tank, however, money for it was secured through a grant I applied for last year. We will have to do some fund raising to keep it going. I have used a lot of the money already and I still have to add more equipment. I will make it work though. Hope that helps.

Cheers!