Kids and reefs ...

jeremy.gosnell · Jul 14, 2016

My 4 year old daughter spends a lot of time at my tank with me. She can frag corals, identify fish/corals/inverts - feeds the fish and even helps out with water changes. She's consistently enthralled by the aquarium world, spotting something entirely new at almost every visit to the tank.

Who else incorporates their kids into their reefing experience? I am planning a touch-tank for my daughter, similar to those at public aquariums. Has anyone else tried this?

ReefQueen · Jul 14, 2016

That is adorable! My 2 year old just discovered hermit crabs, so he spends about 2 minutes a day (which equals out to about 2 hours in toddler time haha) pointing them out and calling "crab"! Mine also tells me to go away a lot lol, it's usually when he wants to try and do something he knows he is not supposed to do haha. I think the touch tank idea would be awesome! How would you stock it?

ngvu1 · Jul 14, 2016

"Touch tank"? How big and what kind of live stocks are you going to do? And is this going to be a salt water touch tank? I would not dare to get one due to space limitation. Sounds like fun for 1 day or 1 week maybe, but man having a touch tank inside an average house is too much IMO.

jeremy.gosnell · Jul 14, 2016

I was going to do like a 60 gallon coral flat, something I would get custom built out of acrylic. Probably about 12 inches tall (bottom to top) and around 36" left to right and front to back. Probably a deep sand bed, some chocolate chip starfish (and several other large star species that fare well when handled) macro-algae, various cories, conch and large snails - along with some of the big, reef-eating hermit crab species. From my experience, kids love playing with macroalge - when I trim back seagrass and cheato from my refugium, my daughter likes sifting through it looks for asterna stars. As she gets older, the tank can sort of grow with her. At some point we could do seahorses or maybe even cuttlefish. Unique stuff that kids can interact with a bit more than a "don't dare touch that" reef tank.

ReefQueen · Jul 14, 2016

I think that's a great idea. Can I suggest some cleaner shrimp? I can't keep mine off of me when I'm in the tank lol.

PostShawn · Jul 14, 2016

ReefQueen said:
That is adorable! My 2 year old just discovered hermit crabs, so he spends about 2 minutes a day (which equals out to about 2 hours in toddler time haha) pointing them out and calling "crab"! Mine also tells me to go away a lot lol, it's usually when he wants to try and do something he knows he is not supposed to do haha. I think the touch tank idea would be awesome! How would you stock it?

Haha, my 2 year old does the same thing.
2 year old: Crab.
me: Yes a crab.
2 year old: Crab... two crabs.
me: That's right, there's two.
2 year old: Two crabs. Two crabs.
me: lots of crabs.
2 year old: lots of crabs. Nemo fish! Nemo. Crab. Nemo. Dory!
me: Crabs and Nemo. No Dory because it's only a 28g tank.
2 year old: Flower! (pronounced: flow-wah)
me: yes those zoas look like flowers.
...and so on.

It's really one of the best joys of having a tank is having your child interested and making these special memories. It helps to justify any costs.

ngvu1 · Jul 14, 2016

How about a purple lobster too? Just do not touch the claws

ReefQueen said:
I think that's a great idea. Can I suggest some cleaner shrimp? I can't keep mine off of me when I'm in the tank lol.

ReefQueen · Jul 14, 2016

Lol

PostShawn said:
Haha, my 2 year old does the same thing.
2 year old: Crab.
me: Yes a crab.
2 year old: Crab... two crabs.
me: That's right, there's two.
2 year old: Two crabs. Two crabs.
me: lots of crabs.
2 year old: lots of crabs. Nemo fish! Nemo. Crab. Nemo. Dory!
me: Crabs and Nemo. No Dory because it's only a 28g tank.
2 year old: Flower! (pronounced: flow-wah)
me: yes those zoas look like flowers.
...and so on.

It's really one of the best joys of having a tank is having your child interested and making these special memories. It helps to justify any costs.