Hi. I am new to this forum but think it is great. I'd love to come to club meetings but I'm not in Atlanta. I am in Opelika, Alabama.
A little history: I am a long-time reef keeper and freshwater aquarium keeper/breeder, but have not had a reef tank in almost 15 years. I got rid of my last one when my wife and I were young, poor, and starting a family.
I'm currently building a reef tank with some 5th graders after spending the whole school year studying all things water related and the critters that live in water.
It has been some very great lessons and a lot of fun to do with kids. Their enthusiasm for even little things is remarkable. We began by building our own rock (arogocrete and oystercrete). We made some great looking stuff and even made water passages through it to hide the overflow and returns to and from the sump. The large pieces of rock are currently curing in a creek behind the school (over a month now) and the smaller pieces are in toilet tanks throughout the school. (Constant water changes):up:
We are building a square tank 28"X28"X17" that will be viewable from all sides and from the top (perfect for a classroom). I have built a lot of tanks and getting the class involved in this one is fun too.
I plan on letting this project be a multi-year project as we have no budget for it. This year's class will get to build the tank, rock, and possibly set up the sump, plumbing, lights, (a dad of one of my students gave me $110 toward lights) and fill it up with saltwater and crete-rock. Next year we'll add protein skimmer and some living stuff. We plan to seed it with whatever rubble and sand we can scrounge from PetCo and a guy I know locally with a reef tank. Hopefully we'll see some coralline and other goodies start to show up on our homemade rock as the 2011-2012 school year progresses. If anyone is interested in seeing this project (slowly) progress, perhaps I'll post photos as we go.
At any rate I look forward to being a part of the discussions here.
Cheers.
CW
A little history: I am a long-time reef keeper and freshwater aquarium keeper/breeder, but have not had a reef tank in almost 15 years. I got rid of my last one when my wife and I were young, poor, and starting a family.
I'm currently building a reef tank with some 5th graders after spending the whole school year studying all things water related and the critters that live in water.
It has been some very great lessons and a lot of fun to do with kids. Their enthusiasm for even little things is remarkable. We began by building our own rock (arogocrete and oystercrete). We made some great looking stuff and even made water passages through it to hide the overflow and returns to and from the sump. The large pieces of rock are currently curing in a creek behind the school (over a month now) and the smaller pieces are in toilet tanks throughout the school. (Constant water changes):up:
We are building a square tank 28"X28"X17" that will be viewable from all sides and from the top (perfect for a classroom). I have built a lot of tanks and getting the class involved in this one is fun too.
I plan on letting this project be a multi-year project as we have no budget for it. This year's class will get to build the tank, rock, and possibly set up the sump, plumbing, lights, (a dad of one of my students gave me $110 toward lights) and fill it up with saltwater and crete-rock. Next year we'll add protein skimmer and some living stuff. We plan to seed it with whatever rubble and sand we can scrounge from PetCo and a guy I know locally with a reef tank. Hopefully we'll see some coralline and other goodies start to show up on our homemade rock as the 2011-2012 school year progresses. If anyone is interested in seeing this project (slowly) progress, perhaps I'll post photos as we go.
At any rate I look forward to being a part of the discussions here.
Cheers.
CW
