High school classroom nano tank

[derpychicken777]

Hi guys! Back in the area of my old high school, and I’m setting up a small saltwater tank as well as a larger neocaridinia shrimp tank to stay in my bio teacher’s classroom for future students to look at. I want to say it’s a 3 gallon container but I’m not too sure. It has the crappy little LEDs on top, and most likely this tank will never get a water change, only top offs. I’ll probably rely on turf algae and hair algae as main nutrient removal, and the current inhabitants are some aptasia. Some issues though:

Filter: not sure what to use. Currently there is an HOB filter motor in there

I can either try a sponge filter, but I would like some movement to keep the aptasia wavy. If I use this motor, I’d have to DIY a filter around it, and if I used a full HOB I wouldn’t be able to fit on the lid, which would increase evaporation and I fear may increase maintenance.

Lighting: sunlight and this LED. Should be enough for aptasia but once again if i go the full HOB filter route I can’t really use this lid. Any ideas?

Livestock: right now, just some aptasia. I’ll have to rely on algae for nutrient export. Would something like a really small snail or hermit crab do fine in here too? No fish for sure.

 

[Rtaylor]

You probably can get away with just biological filtration with your stocking plan. Just add 3-5 lbs of live rock. Algae is good for nutrient export, but maybe consider some of the prettier macro algaes like the various types of caulerpa or some of the red macro algaes. For flow, add a small wave makers. Amazon has some inexpensive ones that work fine. You could easily add 5-10 snails/ crabs with the algae, particularly if you can get a pod population going. Reach out to local reefing community for the algae, rock, and pods. I’m sure people would be willing to donate these types of items especially since you don’t need much. You could likely also get some of the more prolific/hardy coral like gsp or pulsing Xenia donated which would add tons of visual interest and diversity and would do ok with lower lighting and higher nutrients.

 

[derpychicken777]

You probably can get away with just biological filtration with your stocking plan. Just add 3-5 lbs of live rock. Algae is good for nutrient export, but maybe consider some of the prettier macro algaes like the various types of caulerpa or some of the red macro algaes. For flow, add a small wave makers. Amazon has some inexpensive ones that work fine. You could easily add 5-10 snails/ crabs with the algae, particularly if you can get a pod population going. Reach out to local reefing community for the algae, rock, and pods. I’m sure people would be willing to donate these types of items especially since you don’t need much. You could likely also get some of the more prolific/hardy coral like gsp or pulsing Xenia donated which would add tons of visual interest and diversity and would do ok with lower lighting and higher nutrients.

Thank you! I may just remove the aptasia then if I could really get those corals to survive. However, I don’t know any good ways to connect with the local community, I’m in the DMV area, falls Church specifically. Would a post here work or maybe on facebook?

 

[Kasrift]

Thank you! I may just remove the aptasia then if I could really get those corals to survive. However, I don’t know any good ways to connect with the local community, I’m in the DMV area, falls Church specifically. Would a post here work or maybe on facebook?

You could just do aptasia and put a peppermint shrimp in to eat them, could add for some fun biodiversity with no fish.

 

[derpychicken777]

You could just do aptasia and put a peppermint shrimp in to eat them, could add for some fun biodiversity with no fish.

Put them in my own tank once to deal with the aptaisia, killed it all along with a conch and all the neat microlife in the tank lol. Still dont know if this tiny thing is going to emphasize the micro life with things such as mini feather dusters and stuff in it or if I should make it emphasize macro life and have a big invert in there that may eat off everything else.

 

[elinorholka1]

Hi guys! Back in the area of my old high school, and I’m setting up a small saltwater tank as well as a larger neocaridinia shrimp tank to stay in my bio teacher’s classroom for future students to look at. I want to say it’s a 3 gallon container but I’m not too sure. It has the crappy little LEDs on top, and most likely this tank will never get a water change, only top offs. I’ll probably rely on turf algae and hair algae as main nutrient removal, and the current inhabitants are some aptasia. Some issues though:

Filter: not sure what to use. Currently there is an HOB filter motor in there

I can either try a sponge filter, but I would like some movement to keep the aptasia wavy. If I use this motor, I’d have to DIY a filter around it, and if I used a full HOB I wouldn’t be able to fit on the lid, which would increase evaporation and I fear may increase maintenance.

Lighting: sunlight and this LED. Should be enough for aptasia but once again if i go the full HOB filter route I can’t really use this lid. Any ideas?

Livestock: right now, just some aptasia. I’ll have to rely on algae for nutrient export. Would something like a really small snail or hermit crab do fine in here too? No fish for sure.

I think this is a good idea, I also made for the college a 'nano tank'

 

[elinorholka1]

Hi guys! Back in the area of my old high school, and I’m setting up a small saltwater tank as well as a larger neocaridinia shrimp tank to stay in my bio teacher’s classroom for future students to look at. I want to say it’s a 3 gallon container but I’m not too sure. It has the crappy little LEDs on top, and most likely this tank will never get a water change, only top offs. I’ll probably rely on turf algae and hair algae as main nutrient removal, and the current inhabitants are some aptasia. Some issues though:

Filter: not sure what to use. Currently there is an HOB filter motor in there

I can either try a sponge filter, but I would like some movement to keep the aptasia wavy. If I use this motor, I’d have to DIY a filter around it, and if I used a full HOB I wouldn’t be able to fit on the lid, which would increase evaporation and I fear may increase maintenance.

Lighting: sunlight and this LED. Should be enough for aptasia but once again if i go the full HOB filter route I can’t really use this lid. Any ideas?

Livestock: right now, just some aptasia. I’ll have to rely on algae for nutrient export. Would something like a really small snail or hermit crab do fine in here too? No fish for sure.

And one more question, how long did this take you? Because I want to repeat the procedure.

 

[Eric R.]

Thank you! I may just remove the aptasia then if I could really get those corals to survive. However, I don’t know any good ways to connect with the local community, I’m in the DMV area, falls Church specifically. Would a post here work or maybe on facebook?

You should register and post on the WAMAS forum. It's a very active reefing club in your area. https://wamas.org/forums/home.php/

 

[elinorholka1]

You should register and post on the WAMAS forum. It's a very active reefing club in your area. https://wamas.org/forums/home.php/

Thanks a lot!

 

[elinorholka1]

Hi guys! Back in the area of my old high school, and I’m setting up a small saltwater tank as well as a larger neocaridinia shrimp tank to stay in my bio teacher’s classroom for future students to look at. I want to say it’s a 3 gallon container but I’m not too sure. It has the crappy little LEDs on top, and most likely this tank will never get a water change, only top offs. I’ll probably rely on turf algae and hair algae as main nutrient removal, and the current inhabitants are some aptasia. Some issues though:

Filter: not sure what to use. Currently there is an HOB filter motor in there

Besides this I have to say that the inspiration to redo this water tank was given to me by the writing I did for school about famous person, by the way, it helped me a lot https://samplius.com/free-essay-examples/famous-person/ because from here I managed to find practically everything I needed, I think this really is an icon of style, because a lot of people try to at least approach the style that created it, I also tried to make this tank as beautiful as I can, because in our school everything is quite stylish and this really quite loud spoils the beauty. I hope now this will be many years ahead as a good decoration.

Lighting: sunlight and this LED. Should be enough for aptasia but once again if i go the full HOB filter route I can’t really use this lid. Any ideas?

Livestock: right now, just some aptasia. I’ll have to rely on algae for nutrient export. Would something like a really small snail or hermit crab do fine in here too? No fish for sure.

This is what I managed to do.

 

[derpychicken777]

Probably gonna get some **** for this but is this serious? You want to donate a 3 gallon tank in very rough condition with aiptasia and grow hair algae in a highschool classroom where no one knows how to look after the tank or that you just have them a tank full of pests? Lol I see the good intentions but this is a horrible plan. I hope it's good intentions at least I wouldn't give my worst enemy a pico tank full of pests to try and take care of. Stick to the shrimp tank.

I hope you realized the pico tank is ******* meant for aptaisia? Sheesh. It's like you completely missed the point of the pico. It's not supposed to have coral, it is just a display tank for macroalgae and aptaisia. Curernently doing well although the only problem I have run into with that tank is the aptaisia all face towards the window and away from the classroom which makes them a bit hard to see. The ten gallon nano reef has also been doing pretty well too, some update pictures