The Coral Reef Project At Stratton Elementary School
- Thread starter Brandon Rutherford
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Reef Nutrition
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Glad to hear our algae and TDO are helping you culture those little bugs! Nice culture considering most people have trouble getting them going.
Chad
Chad
Flashy Fins
Active Member
Happy to see updates in this thread!
OP
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Brandon Rutherford
Active Member
Yes, feel a little guilty I don't update more. Just super busy and the health of my critters and students come first. I will try to do better though...
Thanks to all who follow us.
OP
OP
Brandon Rutherford
Active Member
I emailed Lyn about picking a few paintings for your offices. Which ones do you want?
I do weekly 50% water changes on the cultures through a 120 micron screen and drip back in fresh water. That might help. I've also found that the tigger pods seem to do equally well in 1.018 and 1.024 specific gravity water.
Reef Nutrition
We Feed Your Reef
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Lyn was on a whirlwind college tour with her daughter this past week. I'll nudge her to see which ones we want.
Thanks for the Tigriopus culture details; that's useful feedback!.
Chad
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Brandon Rutherford
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Hi R2R
Long time no post. Promoting my project has been on the back burner recently as I deal with other teacher responsiblities and care for my 10 month old son. This said, lots of cool things have been happening at Stratton and I have lots of photos to share.
Our black saddleback clownfish have been growing out and many are ready to sell now.
I've already sold 12 to my local fish store, Sailfin Pet Store, and have an ongoing arrangement to provide more as they sell. So far only 2 have been purchased
I hope to send many more to Quality Marine some time this month. This is the first time my project has actually has the opportunity to generate cash revenue. I'm very excited that I can take some of the strain off my credit card bills but I do need to make sure the IRS is cool with my school project. I might take the time to create the coral reef project as a nonprofit separate from my school.
To help promote our project my student Evani created this screen print for a handbill that will be provided with each sale of our clownfish to promote our product. Hopefully the fact that the proceeds will go to support kids will be a selling point for some people.
Long time no post. Promoting my project has been on the back burner recently as I deal with other teacher responsiblities and care for my 10 month old son. This said, lots of cool things have been happening at Stratton and I have lots of photos to share.
Our black saddleback clownfish have been growing out and many are ready to sell now.
I've already sold 12 to my local fish store, Sailfin Pet Store, and have an ongoing arrangement to provide more as they sell. So far only 2 have been purchased
I hope to send many more to Quality Marine some time this month. This is the first time my project has actually has the opportunity to generate cash revenue. I'm very excited that I can take some of the strain off my credit card bills but I do need to make sure the IRS is cool with my school project. I might take the time to create the coral reef project as a nonprofit separate from my school.
To help promote our project my student Evani created this screen print for a handbill that will be provided with each sale of our clownfish to promote our product. Hopefully the fact that the proceeds will go to support kids will be a selling point for some people.
OP
OP
Brandon Rutherford
Active Member
My student Aly has been able to keep his marine tank alive for almost a year now. I did a home visit last week to check it out. I keep giving him coral frags but none have been able to grow due to the old T5 light he was using. His mom was able to save up for LEDs and I'm hoping he'll be able to get a little nano reef going.
I gave him some green star polyp, xenia, and toadstool coral from one of our tanks. Good place for a new reef keeper to start.
I gave him some green star polyp, xenia, and toadstool coral from one of our tanks. Good place for a new reef keeper to start.
OP
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Brandon Rutherford
Active Member
Also gave Aly my 7 foot rainbow boa to keep in his room for an extended period of time. It was making my boss a little nervous having it in my classroom (unwarranted because it's very well behaved) but it wasn't getting the daily TLC that Aly will give it.
OP
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Brandon Rutherford
Active Member
I am still setting up temporary tanks in classrooms around my school district. Most teachers don't want the bother of year around tanks in their classrooms but are interested in having one for a few months a a time. I set up a 25 gallon tank donated several years ago by Fluval that has been making its rounds to different pre school classrooms. It'll hold a bunch of our clownfish and some inverts that Quality Marine donated for our expo. Sorry for the poor quality, my phones camera was wet.
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Brandon Rutherford
Active Member
Also helped Nipun's mom service the canister filter they use on their home tank.
She brought it in several months ago, complaining that it wasn't moving water. After I sent her this photo she and Nipun have been doing more regular maintenance
Guess that's what happens when you don't have a mechanical filter in your tank you can clean and regularly.
She brought it in several months ago, complaining that it wasn't moving water. After I sent her this photo she and Nipun have been doing more regular maintenance
Guess that's what happens when you don't have a mechanical filter in your tank you can clean and regularly.
OP
OP
Brandon Rutherford
Active Member
Had some bad luck with one of our reef tanks...
Early in my days as a reef keeper I was quick to pick up any and all coral I could get for cheap and wasn't picky about dipping or quarantining it. As a result all of my reef tanks are invected with flat worms. The 120gal tank by Stratton's front office has corals so infected the flatworms are significantly affecting growth. I siphon and pull out corals and dip them but I've never been able to completely remove the worms. One of my spring break goals was to deworm my tanks with salifert flatworm exit, a product many have told me was completely reef safe.
I started with the tank with the least amount of flatworms. This tank has a 90 gallon display and a 60 gallon stand alone refugium connected to it. I disconnected the refugium and drained 1/3 of the display tank, saving the water. As per the instructions, I siphoned off all the worms I could see and dipped the corals I could easily remove from the tank. Then I treated the remaining 60 gallons of water with a 60 gallon dose of flatworm exit. I increased the flow and after about 5 minutes, flat worms started detaching and floating around in the water column but there will still many visible on the coral. As per instructions, I waited 30 minutes and then added 50% more medication, waiting an additional 15 minutes. At this point I started to get concerned about my fish and did a 30 gallon water change, added the 30 gallons I took out originally, re connected the refugium, and starting running two canisters of carbon.
So the full volume of this system is about 150 gallons. Only about 60 gallons were treated with the flatworm exit and of that 60 gallons, only 30 remained after I did the water change and reconnected my system. This 30 gallons of contaminated water, plus the 45 minutes my livestock was exposed the neurotoxins the dying flatworms extruded was enough to kill most of the fish in my tank!
15 minutes after reconnecting my system and getting the water circulating again, my fish started to come out of the rock work and were clearly impaired. Many were lying at the bottom of the tank moving sluggishly and I was able to literally pick up them up.
Over a period of about 5 hours, all of the tangs in the tank and some of the other fish died. It sucked because I had to stay up most of the night, pulling out each fish as it died so it wouldn't put the system under more stress. One managed to work itself into the far back of the tank and I had to take out most of the rocks and coral to get it out.
My purple tang was a rescue fish that had made an amazing recovery after being almost killed by lateral line disease and poor husbandry. It was one of my kids favorite fish.
I lost 13 fish, more than a $1000 work of stock my kiddos and I had to save up for, just to get rid of some worms. And guess what I saw on the glass the next day when the lights came on...
I followed the directions to the letter and will never use Salifert Flatworm Exit again and will just learn to live with the worms.
Moral of the story: No Chemicals
Early in my days as a reef keeper I was quick to pick up any and all coral I could get for cheap and wasn't picky about dipping or quarantining it. As a result all of my reef tanks are invected with flat worms. The 120gal tank by Stratton's front office has corals so infected the flatworms are significantly affecting growth. I siphon and pull out corals and dip them but I've never been able to completely remove the worms. One of my spring break goals was to deworm my tanks with salifert flatworm exit, a product many have told me was completely reef safe.
I started with the tank with the least amount of flatworms. This tank has a 90 gallon display and a 60 gallon stand alone refugium connected to it. I disconnected the refugium and drained 1/3 of the display tank, saving the water. As per the instructions, I siphoned off all the worms I could see and dipped the corals I could easily remove from the tank. Then I treated the remaining 60 gallons of water with a 60 gallon dose of flatworm exit. I increased the flow and after about 5 minutes, flat worms started detaching and floating around in the water column but there will still many visible on the coral. As per instructions, I waited 30 minutes and then added 50% more medication, waiting an additional 15 minutes. At this point I started to get concerned about my fish and did a 30 gallon water change, added the 30 gallons I took out originally, re connected the refugium, and starting running two canisters of carbon.
So the full volume of this system is about 150 gallons. Only about 60 gallons were treated with the flatworm exit and of that 60 gallons, only 30 remained after I did the water change and reconnected my system. This 30 gallons of contaminated water, plus the 45 minutes my livestock was exposed the neurotoxins the dying flatworms extruded was enough to kill most of the fish in my tank!
15 minutes after reconnecting my system and getting the water circulating again, my fish started to come out of the rock work and were clearly impaired. Many were lying at the bottom of the tank moving sluggishly and I was able to literally pick up them up.
Over a period of about 5 hours, all of the tangs in the tank and some of the other fish died. It sucked because I had to stay up most of the night, pulling out each fish as it died so it wouldn't put the system under more stress. One managed to work itself into the far back of the tank and I had to take out most of the rocks and coral to get it out.
My purple tang was a rescue fish that had made an amazing recovery after being almost killed by lateral line disease and poor husbandry. It was one of my kids favorite fish.
I lost 13 fish, more than a $1000 work of stock my kiddos and I had to save up for, just to get rid of some worms. And guess what I saw on the glass the next day when the lights came on...
I followed the directions to the letter and will never use Salifert Flatworm Exit again and will just learn to live with the worms.
Moral of the story: No Chemicals
OP
OP
Brandon Rutherford
Active Member
My project has had a multi year collaboration with a research lab at the University of Illinois. It's run by Dr. Justin Rhodes and is a marine biology lab that studies clownfish neurology. My students take bi yearly field trips to the lab and Justin's grad students come in our classroom to help us with reef related learning. We also help the collect data on clownfish behavior. Justin, along with Chad from Reed Mariculture have been instrumental in helping me setup my fish breeding initiative.
Each year the U of I has an open house where professors and graduate students exhibit the science they're studying. In addition to being a cool event with lots of cutting edge science, it's an opportunity for scientists to network and check out what other types of research is going on. About 3,000 to 4,000 people visit the open house and people from across the country fly in to attend.
This year my project was asked to participate and share the science we have been learning. It was flattering because we were the only non university organization invited and were sharing space with research groups with multi million dollar budgets, doing super fancy things.
My students worked for over three months to create posters, artwork, and design exhibits that showcased our learning to the general public.
Each year the U of I has an open house where professors and graduate students exhibit the science they're studying. In addition to being a cool event with lots of cutting edge science, it's an opportunity for scientists to network and check out what other types of research is going on. About 3,000 to 4,000 people visit the open house and people from across the country fly in to attend.
This year my project was asked to participate and share the science we have been learning. It was flattering because we were the only non university organization invited and were sharing space with research groups with multi million dollar budgets, doing super fancy things.
My students worked for over three months to create posters, artwork, and design exhibits that showcased our learning to the general public.
Last edited:
Macdaddynick1
Valuable Member
Oh man this sucks. :/ someone else crashed their entire tank with FE quite recently. It seems your corals survived..Had some bad luck with one of our reef tanks...
Early in my days as a reef keeper I was quick to pick up any and all coral I could get for cheap and wasn't picky about dipping or quarantining it. As a result all of my reef tanks are invected with flat worms. The 120gal tank by Stratton's front office has corals so infected the flatworms are significantly affecting growth. I siphon and pull out corals and dip them but I've never been able to completely remove the worms. One of my spring break goals was to deworm my tanks with salifert flatworm exit, a product many have told me was completely reef safe.
I started with the tank with the least amount of flatworms. This tank has a 90 gallon display and a 60 gallon stand alone refugium connected to it. I disconnected the refugium and drained 1/3 of the display tank, saving the water. As per the instructions, I siphoned off all the worms I could see and dipped the corals I could easily remove from the tank. Then I treated the remaining 60 gallons of water with a 60 gallon dose of flatworm exit. I increased the flow and after about 5 minutes, flat worms started detaching and floating around in the water column but there will still many visible on the coral. As per instructions, I waited 30 minutes and then added 50% more medication, waiting an additional 15 minutes. At this point I started to get concerned about my fish and did a 30 gallon water change, added the 30 gallons I took out originally, re connected the refugium, and starting running two canisters of carbon.
So the full volume of this system is about 150 gallons. Only about 60 gallons were treated with the flatworm exit and of that 60 gallons, only 30 remained after I did the water change and reconnected my system. This 30 gallons of contaminated water, plus the 45 minutes my livestock was exposed the neurotoxins the dying flatworms extruded was enough to kill most of the fish in my tank!
15 minutes after reconnecting my system and getting the water circulating again, my fish started to come out of the rock work and were clearly impaired. Many were lying at the bottom of the tank moving sluggishly and I was able to literally pick up them up.
Over a period of about 5 hours, all of the tangs in the tank and some of the other fish died. It sucked because I had to stay up most of the night, pulling out each fish as it died so it wouldn't put the system under more stress. One managed to work itself into the far back of the tank and I had to take out most of the rocks and coral to get it out.
My purple tang was a rescue fish that had made an amazing recovery after being almost killed by lateral line disease and poor husbandry. It was one of my kids favorite fish.
I lost 13 fish, more than a $1000 work of stock my kiddos and I had to save up for, just to get rid of some worms. And guess what I saw on the glass the next day when the lights came on...
I followed the directions to the letter and will never use Salifert Flatworm Exit again and will just learn to live with the worms.
Moral of the story: No Chemicals
OP
OP
Brandon Rutherford
Active Member
I hadn't been to this event as an exhibitor before and didn't know what to expect. My students and I tried to create a multidimensional exhibit and asked for a large room. I'm glad we did because over a thousand people came just to our room alone during the two day event.
About 30 kids from Stratton came during the school day and most of those students volunteered to stay after the school day and work on the exhibit all day Saturday. Many kids, including my reef leaders worked 8 plus hours each day. I was so proud of their hard work, their mature behavior, and most importantly, how that they proved they knew some high level marine biology. My kiddos were able to school most of the adults that they talked with and got many, many compliments from some of the top scientists at the U of I. Many of the Stratton kids who attended don't usually receive much recognition from adults and were widely acknowledge by visitors as being scientists in the making. The event was also attended by dozens of elementary schools in my area. My students got to show off in front of hundreds of their peers and I was able to prove to other teachers that kids from the poor school in town could do high level science. Overall a huge boost to my students self esteem and a fun event.
Most popular was our touch tank exhibit. Quality Marine donated all of the invertebrates and we had some cool stuff including a huge zebra mantis shrimp, a bunch of large brittle stars and chocolate chip starfish, a dozen urchins of different types, decorator crabs, horseshoe crabs, a pistol shrimp, arrow head crab, and more.
Handling the animals was a venue for all kinds of good conversation between my kids and the visitors. I'm always struck by how little people, even adults know about ocean life. We heard a lot of really funny (or stupid) questions and a lot of fear about how dangerous or scary some of the animals were. Most rewarding was when people who initially thought the invertebrates were intimidating, were reassured by my students and eventually got to love touching and learning about the ocean critters. Some students that came to our exhibit with their school on Friday and later bugged their parents until they brought them back on Saturday. Several became so knowledgable we deputized them as helpers and they joined our exhibit.
I was also impressed by how gently everyone treated the animals. Some of the starfish and urchins were touched almost constantly. But with the exception of one crab, all of the animals survived and are now thriving in our tanks at school. What helped was that I was able to setup each tank with a cycled sponge filter and we did 200% water changes in continual small doses on all tanks throughout the day. I'm so glad that I have access to such high quality Tropic Marin salt and can afford to use that much water.
And of course there were a ton of selfies
About 30 kids from Stratton came during the school day and most of those students volunteered to stay after the school day and work on the exhibit all day Saturday. Many kids, including my reef leaders worked 8 plus hours each day. I was so proud of their hard work, their mature behavior, and most importantly, how that they proved they knew some high level marine biology. My kiddos were able to school most of the adults that they talked with and got many, many compliments from some of the top scientists at the U of I. Many of the Stratton kids who attended don't usually receive much recognition from adults and were widely acknowledge by visitors as being scientists in the making. The event was also attended by dozens of elementary schools in my area. My students got to show off in front of hundreds of their peers and I was able to prove to other teachers that kids from the poor school in town could do high level science. Overall a huge boost to my students self esteem and a fun event.
Most popular was our touch tank exhibit. Quality Marine donated all of the invertebrates and we had some cool stuff including a huge zebra mantis shrimp, a bunch of large brittle stars and chocolate chip starfish, a dozen urchins of different types, decorator crabs, horseshoe crabs, a pistol shrimp, arrow head crab, and more.
Handling the animals was a venue for all kinds of good conversation between my kids and the visitors. I'm always struck by how little people, even adults know about ocean life. We heard a lot of really funny (or stupid) questions and a lot of fear about how dangerous or scary some of the animals were. Most rewarding was when people who initially thought the invertebrates were intimidating, were reassured by my students and eventually got to love touching and learning about the ocean critters. Some students that came to our exhibit with their school on Friday and later bugged their parents until they brought them back on Saturday. Several became so knowledgable we deputized them as helpers and they joined our exhibit.
I was also impressed by how gently everyone treated the animals. Some of the starfish and urchins were touched almost constantly. But with the exception of one crab, all of the animals survived and are now thriving in our tanks at school. What helped was that I was able to setup each tank with a cycled sponge filter and we did 200% water changes in continual small doses on all tanks throughout the day. I'm so glad that I have access to such high quality Tropic Marin salt and can afford to use that much water.
And of course there were a ton of selfies
OP
OP
Brandon Rutherford
Active Member
Our exhibit also had a jellyfish and plankton section with jellyfish generously provided by Joe Turner at Jellyfish Art. People are always interested in our jellyfish tanks and we got to tell them a lot about jellyfish biology and physiology. Many people underestimate just how simple of a creature a jellyfish is.
We also had microscopes setup with the tig pods, rotifers, and artemia that we hatch and culture. My kids frequently assess the health of the plankton we culture and can point out a lot of anatomical features with our dinky 10x microscopes. There were many microbiologists that attended and we got props for our microscope and lab skills.
We also had kids ready to give basic lessons on coral reefs and explain all of the informational posters we created.
Overall the event was a huge success and we've already been invited back to the next one.
Special thanks to Quality Marine for donating the invertebrates for the touch tanks and Jellyfish Art for the jellyfish.
And a huge thanks to our chief sponsor Tropic Marin for the salt that makes all of this possible.
We also had microscopes setup with the tig pods, rotifers, and artemia that we hatch and culture. My kids frequently assess the health of the plankton we culture and can point out a lot of anatomical features with our dinky 10x microscopes. There were many microbiologists that attended and we got props for our microscope and lab skills.
We also had kids ready to give basic lessons on coral reefs and explain all of the informational posters we created.
Overall the event was a huge success and we've already been invited back to the next one.
Special thanks to Quality Marine for donating the invertebrates for the touch tanks and Jellyfish Art for the jellyfish.
And a huge thanks to our chief sponsor Tropic Marin for the salt that makes all of this possible.
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Sorry about the troubles and good luck with everything. Love love love what you guys are doing. Great kids, great teacher, great program.
JLynn
Active Member
Hey, there's a thread from another forum where a reefkeeper had an aefw infestation and tested multiple different treatments. Garlic is the only one that has the potential to treat a whole tank, and you'd need a lot... but even if it's too late now, for future reference: http://wamas.org/forums/topic/33942-lanmans-acropora-eating-flatworm-aefw-thread/Had some bad luck with one of our reef tanks...
Early in my days as a reef keeper I was quick to pick up any and all coral I could get for cheap and wasn't picky about dipping or quarantining it. As a result all of my reef tanks are invected with flat worms. The 120gal tank by Stratton's front office has corals so infected the flatworms are significantly affecting growth. I siphon and pull out corals and dip them but I've never been able to completely remove the worms. One of my spring break goals was to deworm my tanks with salifert flatworm exit, a product many have told me was completely reef safe.
I started with the tank with the least amount of flatworms. This tank has a 90 gallon display and a 60 gallon stand alone refugium connected to it. I disconnected the refugium and drained 1/3 of the display tank, saving the water. As per the instructions, I siphoned off all the worms I could see and dipped the corals I could easily remove from the tank. Then I treated the remaining 60 gallons of water with a 60 gallon dose of flatworm exit. I increased the flow and after about 5 minutes, flat worms started detaching and floating around in the water column but there will still many visible on the coral. As per instructions, I waited 30 minutes and then added 50% more medication, waiting an additional 15 minutes. At this point I started to get concerned about my fish and did a 30 gallon water change, added the 30 gallons I took out originally, re connected the refugium, and starting running two canisters of carbon.
So the full volume of this system is about 150 gallons. Only about 60 gallons were treated with the flatworm exit and of that 60 gallons, only 30 remained after I did the water change and reconnected my system. This 30 gallons of contaminated water, plus the 45 minutes my livestock was exposed the neurotoxins the dying flatworms extruded was enough to kill most of the fish in my tank!
15 minutes after reconnecting my system and getting the water circulating again, my fish started to come out of the rock work and were clearly impaired. Many were lying at the bottom of the tank moving sluggishly and I was able to literally pick up them up.
Over a period of about 5 hours, all of the tangs in the tank and some of the other fish died. It sucked because I had to stay up most of the night, pulling out each fish as it died so it wouldn't put the system under more stress. One managed to work itself into the far back of the tank and I had to take out most of the rocks and coral to get it out.
My purple tang was a rescue fish that had made an amazing recovery after being almost killed by lateral line disease and poor husbandry. It was one of my kids favorite fish.
I lost 13 fish, more than a $1000 work of stock my kiddos and I had to save up for, just to get rid of some worms. And guess what I saw on the glass the next day when the lights came on...
I followed the directions to the letter and will never use Salifert Flatworm Exit again and will just learn to live with the worms.
Moral of the story: No Chemicals
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How's the tanks doing this summer?
