Reef nutrition

Maureen's Classroom DSA 105

I have an EB8 and a EB4 just to have enough low wattage outlets. All my stuff is under the tank with the sump. Since I'm the only one messing with that area, if I wet it, it's my own fault.

So Mola, you have some wires going from stand across the gap to the lower cab? I'd put some protection on those. Even something like 'wire mold' would provide good protection. Loose wires sets off some primeval desire in the young males brain to mess with it! :D

If you have room you could put the EB8 under the tank and partition off the area or make a box out of some plastic container. You could make it a design project for the students! There's lots of examples on RC or R2R.
 
So I am relieved with how the sump area turned out b/c yesterday afternoon I really thought my plan wouldn't work. I am pleased:
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I got a grant in the spring for some tank items of my choice as long as they included a bunch of 3M Command hooks and such. I was not interested in those products but got cord clips, hooks and sticky strips to fulfill the requirement. Turns out those are cool items! All my cords are organized.

My modules and such are in the upper cabinet, but I drilled an extra hole in it this afternoon to also add a power strip to a different outlet since I just learned lights can go on that so I can stash the bulky power supplies in the cabinet. Need to learn more about my Tunze Nanostreams and where to place theirs. Osmolator controller is a pain and cannot go through a hole so I will mount it behind the tank.
Picked up a rectangular cover like wiremold but since none of the cords are long enough to go up and over at right angles I just wrapped the cords in that spiral cover stuff. Left out the EB8 power cord. Photo in the future after I finish.
 
One last question about routing cables and Apex - I read you should keep power cables and probe cables separate to avoid interference. Can power cables for different devices be together in the same cord cover? Where should Aquabus cables go?
Wanted to finish today but drill is at home and there is no way light and pump cords will fit thru the hole I already drilled - ugh!
 
You will be fine having power cables & aquabus cables together, Try your best to have probe (ORP,pH, Salinity, ect) wires away from any power wires....

Now that being said I have some of my probe wires near my EB8 and I don't have any issues...they say to do this to prevent any issues that could arise...
 
Thanks Jon. I will just route everything thru two separate spiral covers. I remembered this is a classroom, not my living room, so why was I trying to hide everything besides for safety? Depending on how it comes out in the control cabinet, maybe in the fall I will see if master craftsman shop teacher can cut a hole in the cabinet door for a glass panel so we can see in.
 
Feeling accomplished! Tamed the tangle:

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Could always add a poster if I want to hide the gap.
I thought the inside of the cabinet would turn out better but I underestimated the yardage of cords and was surprised my power strip has no points for wall mounting:

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Still have Apex reading to do and stuff to figure out, but thank you to club members who provided advice to get me started. Got half my stuff on the EB8 under the tank and half on a power strip. So glad to have it up and running and monitoring from home! Drainback when power is off seems to pose no problem, though I might lower my sump/fuge level a bit for extra security. Enough of mechanical tasks for now; I'm ready to spend more time focusing on what's IN the tank!
 
That looks fantastic! Well the first pic - the second looks a lot like my Apex. :eek:

Is the tank between stand and cabinet the ATO res?
 
Our classroom tank survived the first summer and annual room cleaning. Here are a few shots of our inverts:
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We have an abundance of urchins that keep appearing. Students enjoy seeing what the large pick-tipped one "wears" each day - plant, shells, gorgonian, coral polyps. Plants and xenia have been carried away and dropped off somewhere so either they are dead are growing behind rocks. I hope some BAR members would like to adopt urchins in the future because we have too many.
There are also porcelain crabs of all sizes - incredible to watch them wave their filter fans through the water! These are not the tiny ones that live in anemones.
Two brittle and serpent stars, various snails and crabs, two large peppermint shrimp, sea cucumbers and our hitchhiker tiger goby are the main attractions at the moment. We target feed most of them with a baster.
Something is wrong with our small hitchhiker mantis shrimp. I thought it died during the summer but when I went to take down its little tank it was alive in its burrow. Hardly eats and rarely comes out to spy on us.
Most of my fledgling after school reef club students went on to high school, so I'm trying to get a new group of students familiar with tank tasks. They haven't started up our website again yet but last year's students got it off to a terrific start. Our tank adventures are found at: SequoiaReef.weebly.com
 
Forgot to say that the Herbie overflow is silent. Tunze Osmolator ATO is also awesome. Steady water level means no adjusting of return pump. In the spring I had kids mix saltwater at 33-34 ppt because salinity increased so much over weekends. No longer an issue. Never had ATO on my old tank at home but I totally will if/when I set one up again.
 
Wow nice tank Maureen!

I'm positive anytime you want some donations for the tank....just make a new thread looking for donations and you'll get tons of people offering.
 
Yep, while most of what I can frag would only be a couple of polyps just let me if you want them/when you're ready for them.
 
Well, it has been a lot tougher than I thought to bring my grand plans for the classroom tank to life. Once a week after school reef club definitely does not cut it so I am lobbying the principal hard for any sort of marine science elective class for next year, even a 6th grade 10-week rotation class. Also, haven't figured out how to do tank stuff with classes of 37 students and an already packed curriculum. Trying to relate our intro chemistry topics frequently but nothing as substantial as I had hoped. Still, students love the tank and are getting a lot out of watching it change. Since it's still mostly inverts they have become skilled at really observing behaviors and looking for small things. I'm glad we didn't start out with a bunch of fish because I think they would have attracted most of the attention.

In Nov we had some water issues but traced it back to my lack of oversight of the RODI system, now fixed. Dec I was all ready to order a bunch of LPS (and take BAR members up on frag offers), then life got in the way then over winter break I guess a couple gorgonians died and maybe a rock flower anemone because Monday nitrates were crazy high. They had come in with the live rock. The weird thing is that two other gorgonians and all inverts look just great. So, coral plans are on hold and I am doing water changes this week and next.

Our first rotifer culture did not do well after a month and we tried to keep it going until Dec but it crashed. We will try starting it up again later this month. More successful is the brine shrimp hatching. Why do we need zooplankton besides for our reef? For our new...

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Moon jellies!
They are in a kreisel tank (like the ones in the Steinhart tour) that keeps water gently circulating so they do not get stuck anywhere. Check out a jelly who just ate:

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