IWishIWasAFish
Well-known member
It's been a while of limping along in a nano, but we're finally back in business with a 40 gallon cube (thanks to Saltwater City LFS for a school discount price!). It's glass, with two programmable LED lights. I love our new tank set up! Our Azure damsel is extremely happy with it as well, it's full of shelter and hiding places. He's coming out and swimming all around instead of hiding like he did in the old tank.
I put it all together this weekend. Bought a piece of plexiglass for a partial lid, since the evaporation is just too fast otherwise. I have a K4 and a K2 or K3 in there, set to flow across the back wall, as well as a cute little variable flow bubble generator that the kids love which generates countercurrent. It was a new challenge for me to make the rock work interesting from three sides, with good flow and no "back" for the creatures to hide behind, yet have them still feel safe. I stacked the rocks, and left plenty of sheltered spaces and swim through arches. I also used some coral skeleton fragments gathered on my trip to Hawaii last summer to make little pillars, which I think give it a lot of character. I was on Hawaii during the hurricane last summer, and right afterwards we visited the beaches. One beach had been significantly eroded by the storm, and as the sandy part of the beach was actually made of layers of coral fragments and sand, there were a massive amount of coral fragments on the beach. I picked out some with interesting shapes and textures. I meant to keep them for teaching about corals, but I can't get them to stop stinking, so into the tank the big ones go! I also have a plant next to the tank, where it can enjoy the light and hide the cords.
Another cool thing, I think our keyhole limpet may have reproduced before passing on. I've had it for almost 8 years, and in the move I discovered its shell. There were already little micro feather duster worm shells and coraline on it, so I know it wasn't a victim of the recent heater incident. Recently, the kids spotted some little teeny limpets (picture the size of an a in a paperback novel) so we think maybe they will grow up to be keyhole limpet adults like him. I don't know anywhere else they could have come from. If that's what they are, we may have ten or twenty of them and our algae problem would be forever solved. In fact, we'd be giving some away! So fun when creatures grow in our aquarium. I spotted a peanut worm a few months ago, and I hope he's still with us - such a fascinating creature!
Where could I post asking if anyone has some frags they'd be willing to give us for cheap or free? I had downsized significantly before this new tank, and then we had an unfortunate incident with the heater that killed most of our coral. Our fish are fine - we have the azure damsel and a court jester goby. Our cleaner shrimp died though, and all the little tiny brittle stars that lived in our rocks. Maybe I can get a couple from someone I get frags from. I loved them. We'd love to have some pulsing xenia, a plating montipora and anything else relatively tough. Also, I'm looking to buy some berghia nudibranchs to eat our aiptasia - which of course survived the heat wave. ;-) I know I can cruise the sale section, but at the end of the year us teachers are under water with things to do, so I thought I'd just ask, maybe I could achieve some one-stop shopping. I don't see the "wanted" forum that used to be there any more, or I'd post there! The school is in Bellevue, I'm willing to drive about an hour in any direction, or you can come see our tank here, and even watch the kids jump up and down in glee at new creatures.
You can see photos here - https://lessonplansscience.wordpress.com/ They were too large for ReefFrontiers to want to post them, so I put them up on my blog instead. Hope you enjoy the photos! They didn't turn out the greatest, but you should be able to see things well enough to get the idea.
I put it all together this weekend. Bought a piece of plexiglass for a partial lid, since the evaporation is just too fast otherwise. I have a K4 and a K2 or K3 in there, set to flow across the back wall, as well as a cute little variable flow bubble generator that the kids love which generates countercurrent. It was a new challenge for me to make the rock work interesting from three sides, with good flow and no "back" for the creatures to hide behind, yet have them still feel safe. I stacked the rocks, and left plenty of sheltered spaces and swim through arches. I also used some coral skeleton fragments gathered on my trip to Hawaii last summer to make little pillars, which I think give it a lot of character. I was on Hawaii during the hurricane last summer, and right afterwards we visited the beaches. One beach had been significantly eroded by the storm, and as the sandy part of the beach was actually made of layers of coral fragments and sand, there were a massive amount of coral fragments on the beach. I picked out some with interesting shapes and textures. I meant to keep them for teaching about corals, but I can't get them to stop stinking, so into the tank the big ones go! I also have a plant next to the tank, where it can enjoy the light and hide the cords.
Another cool thing, I think our keyhole limpet may have reproduced before passing on. I've had it for almost 8 years, and in the move I discovered its shell. There were already little micro feather duster worm shells and coraline on it, so I know it wasn't a victim of the recent heater incident. Recently, the kids spotted some little teeny limpets (picture the size of an a in a paperback novel) so we think maybe they will grow up to be keyhole limpet adults like him. I don't know anywhere else they could have come from. If that's what they are, we may have ten or twenty of them
and our algae problem would be forever solved. In fact, we'd be giving some away! So fun when creatures grow in our aquarium. I spotted a peanut worm a few months ago, and I hope he's still with us - such a fascinating creature!Where could I post asking if anyone has some frags they'd be willing to give us for cheap or free? I had downsized significantly before this new tank, and then we had an unfortunate incident with the heater that killed most of our coral. Our fish are fine - we have the azure damsel and a court jester goby. Our cleaner shrimp died though, and all the little tiny brittle stars that lived in our rocks. Maybe I can get a couple from someone I get frags from. I loved them. We'd love to have some pulsing xenia, a plating montipora and anything else relatively tough. Also, I'm looking to buy some berghia nudibranchs to eat our aiptasia - which of course survived the heat wave. ;-) I know I can cruise the sale section, but at the end of the year us teachers are under water with things to do, so I thought I'd just ask, maybe I could achieve some one-stop shopping. I don't see the "wanted" forum that used to be there any more, or I'd post there!
The school is in Bellevue, I'm willing to drive about an hour in any direction, or you can come see our tank here, and even watch the kids jump up and down in glee at new creatures. You can see photos here - https://lessonplansscience.wordpress.com/ They were too large for ReefFrontiers to want to post them, so I put them up on my blog instead. Hope you enjoy the photos! They didn't turn out the greatest, but you should be able to see things well enough to get the idea.
