Adding saltwater aquarium to classroom and need advice

[reefiniteasy]

I am an elementary school science teacher in Florida. I teach kindergarten through fifth grade students. Many of our science standards revolve around the study of plants and animals. To help with this we have several habitats in the classroom. In our classroom we have a huge aquatic turtle habitat with Pink Belly Sideneck Turtles. We have a 38 gallon freshwater aquarium with South American Cichlids and a 65 gallon freshwater African Cichlid habitat. My students constantly ask me for Clownfish so I finally decided to jump into the saltwater side of fish keeping. Not knowing where to start and being on a limited teacher budget I decided to write letters to many manufacturers. So far this is the equipment and supplies that have been donated:
Coralife - 16 gallon BioCube and stand.
Caribsea - reef sand and LifeRock
AquaFX has offered to set us up with a RO/DI system and corals
Cobalt Aquatics - NeoTherm heater
ESV Aquarium Products - B-Ionic Seawater System and additional additives
I also purchased the InTank media basket

My goal is to eventually have a small reef but I am going to begin with just fish and slowly step into coral. I am thinking about a Clownfish pair and a Goby. I need advice on what ATO unit to invest in and if a protein skimmer is necessary on the biocube and if so, what fits? Of course, any additional advice would be appreciated.

 

[hdsoftail1065]

Welcome to R2R Alex! I have a 32 Biocube, you can get by without a skimmer on a 16 imo with weekly water changes. I don't have an ATO on ours, if your running it with the top on it evaporation doesn't seem to bad.

 

[mike werner]

agreed.save money on a skimmer.ato is not necessary unless you will be away from it for extended periods (week or two) of time.
It warms my heart to see manufactures donate nice equipment for the good of the kids.your kids are very lucky to have a teacher who actually cares and goes above and beyond the call of duty for them.this project is one they will remember for a life time.thank you for helping to educate our youth.we need more teachers in this world like you.

 

[mike werner]

if you contact me when you are ready to add corals I would be happy to donate or purchase all the beginner corals you need.please take me up on this offer.this is an open invitation and does not expire.

 

[LowLi]

cool teacher ;Happy

 

[biophilia]

If it works with your budget (or you can get a donation), the AutoAqua Smart ATO is about as simple and fail-safe as it gets. It has an optical rather than mechanical sensor and a microchip to monitor and automatically shut down if it detects unusual activity like the pump running for much more than the average time. The smart microchip has saved my tank on many occasions when snails or asterina stars have decided to scale the overflow and crawl onto the sensor.

I think that a reliable ATO is more important than a skimmer on a nano tank if you're able to keep a solid water change schedule. Lucky kids!

 

[LowLi]

this ato has been doing pretty good for me 85$ https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B075R5LFXN/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o06_s02?ie=UTF8&psc=1

 

[ruppertb]

I will be following along as I have been asked to set up an aquarium at a new school my son is to attend. It is an academy for grades 7-12 for students with high functioning autism and will start out at only 20 students. They asked if I would be interested in setting up a tank for learning and calming.

 

[reefiniteasy]

if you contact me when you are ready to add corals I would be happy to donate or purchase all the beginner corals you need.please take me up on this offer.this is an open invitation and does not expire.

Don’t you worry. I will take you up on that offer when I am ready. Thank you so much for your generosity.

 

[reefiniteasy]

Thank you all for being so welcoming.

My only real concern with this project is managing evaporation and temperature. Being in Florida, our school has AC. However, it is off during the evening and on weekends. During those times the classroom gets warm to hot. Knowing how much evaporates from my freshwater tanks, I’m pretty sure I’ll need the ATO. Even with the tank lids, the water vapor finds a way out. The question is whether or not I’ll need a chiller to manage the high weekend classroom temps.

 

[Elude82]

Yes. An ATO will be necessary than. Especially being away for the weekends. The AutoAqua Smart ATO is pretty flawless. If the room gets too hot, setting the tank up will be in vain, without a Chiller. Most tanks should not exceed 78 degrees. What part of Florida are you in. I’m in Daytona Beach.

 

[reefiniteasy]

Yes. An ATO will be necessary than. Especially being away for the weekends. The AutoAqua Smart ATO is pretty flawless. If the room gets too hot, setting the tank up will be in vain, without a Chiller. Most tanks should not exceed 78 degrees. What part of Florida are you in. I’m in Daytona Beach.

Hey, thanks for the response. I'm in Kissimmee. I think a chiller is going to be critical to the success of this tank. My Cichlid aquariums get up to 82-83 degress on the weekends, but once the AC kicks on Monday morning the temps drop. They handle it very well but I know the saltwater aquarium won't. I wrote letters to JBJ and AquaEuro to see if they can contribute a chiller to the project but so far we have not heard back. Hopefully they respond and are willing to help out. Chillers are so expensive, it's crazy!

 

[Montiman]

I have an aquarium I maintain at my church in the preschool area. Being in Phoenix it gets really hot when the air is off. I would recommend starting with a zoo med aquacool fan. I have found this fits on my Bio Cube without any modification and has lowered the temperature 4-5 degrees. I would definitely add the ATO if you go with the fan. It will dramatically increase evaporation but could save you a lot of money on a chiller.

 

[reefiniteasy]

This is a list of all the equipment and supplies I have so far for this project. If you can look over the list and tell me if I am missing anything I would be very appreciative. I am going to use a 20 gallon Brute trash can for RO/DI storage in the classroom and I'm going to use 2 ten gallon Brute cans for ATO and salt mixing. Also, what additives/conditioners should I purchase?

16 gallon BioCube and stand
InTank media basket
Cobalt NeoTherm Heater
CaribSea reef sand
CaribSea Life Rock
Purigen
ChemiPure Blue 6 pack 5.5oz
Poly Filter Floss
Tunze Nano Osmolator
Hydor Koralia Evolution Nano 425
Tunze Silence Pump 1073.008
Aqua FX Barracuda RO/DI
Instant Ocean Reef Crystals 2 160 gallon buckets
Very Gee STX-3 Refractometer
Egg crate for under the rock

We go back to school on August 6th so I am getting close to setting up the aquarium. I can't wait to start a build thread.

Here are some pictures of the awesome donations from Coralife, Cobalt, Aqua FX, Instant Ocean, and Caribsea. I can't thank these companies enough for their support of elementary education.

 

[Dimmy007]

Do you plan on teaching your kids about the cycling process as well? Or are they going to want the clowns and bother you for a month or more until the cycling is done? If so then I would start the setup asap. Get the cycling process started now and by the 2nd week in August you could be at the position to add the fish.

 

[reefiniteasy]

Do you plan on teaching your kids about the cycling process as well? Or are they going to want the clowns and bother you for a month or more until the cycling is done? If so then I would start the setup asap. Get the cycling process started now and by the 2nd week in August you could be at the position to add the fish.

That's funny, I was just thinking about that. I'm going to start the process when school starts just because I will be there everyday at that point. This way I can make sure things are going as planned. Right now I only go in every other day to feed the turtle and Cichlids. My older students know all about the cycling process. We went through that when I set up our 65 gallon African Cichlid habitat. This year I am starting a club for fourth and fifth graders. It will be their responsibility to care for the habitats, maintenance and all.

 

[reefiniteasy]

I realized I abandoned this thread without updating everyone on where I was at with my tank. Here is a link to my build thread. It has taken pretty much a full year to really get things going. Check it out:

My classroom sorta-reef

 

[vetteguy53081]

firefish goby, percula clown, watchman goby. chromis and 6 line wrasse

 

[reefiniteasy]

I have been leaning towards a firefish goby or the clown. I don’t know if the 16 gallon is truly enough space for a pair of clowns. My students want them bad. It’s not much space. I was thinking the firefish goby and a shrimp of some kind. Thank you for the suggestions.

 

[vetteguy53081]

I have been leaning towards a firefish goby or the clown. I don’t know if the 16 gallon is truly enough space for a pair of clowns. My students want them bad. It’s not much space. I was thinking the firefish goby and a shrimp of some kind. Thank you for the suggestions.

Clowns grow up to 2.5". They'll be fine. Anemone and firefish all in this tank - Yes