School Tanks Need Help

Mikaila31 · Apr 15, 2008

My high school has 4 tanks: (2) 180gal, 40gal, 5 gal. All have problems that range from small to full blown neglect. I have tried to care for these tanks before, but I found it impossible with the the equipment they have there. Also they are barely cared for over the summer so any work I do goes up in smoke. The 180gals are the worst one is set up with a mix of cold and tropical fish. It has no heater the filter is a 60gal HOB, it has a UGF set up w/ the pipes and everything but their are no power heads attached. Water changes are very far appart.

The other 180gal is set up as a native US fish tank. Filtration is the exact same, including the UGF w/ no power heads. Water changes are much more frequent on this tank. I have been complaining about the tanks to the teacher and I have been giving them stuff to read about cycling and basic maintenance. A lot of it came off this site. Conditions have improved slightly but no where near enough.

About a week ago about 50+ bait minnows where added to the native tank. I went in and complained on Friday, I also took a water sample from the tank. I tested it when I got home and found .25ppm of ammonia and .25ppm of nitrite, no doubt from all the minnows. I went back and complained to her today (tuesday), I told her not to add so many minnows at one time and told her the results of the water test. Most of the minnows had disappeared and their were only about 15 left. That was when she told me something very surprising. The DRN had come and done a check up on the tank and they had brought all the minnows with them and had added them all to the tank :blink:

. People have suggested before that I contact the DNR about the tanks, but my senior year has been very busy and I have never gotten around to it. It surprises me that someone came in and even more so that they actually made the situation worse. They told the teacher to keep a school of bait minnows in the tank at all times. Also what left me speechless is that they didn't say anything about the water quality, the lack of filtration on the tank, or the heath of the fish.

So I'm not sure what to do here. I'm telling the teacher stuff that is the opposite what the DNR said. Of course the teacher is going to listen to the DNR (they can take the fish away) not to me a 17 year old high school student. More so the teachers are all biology teachers, you would think they would be bothered by how bad the tanks look and they would at least know the biology behind a aquarium. The two 180gal need at least $1000 put into them to get them to run properly. I'm not use to tanks this large so i've got no clue on the most efficient and cheapest way to filter and heat them. I know HOBs aren't going to cut it though

. So ideas, opinions, suggestions, or anything else is welcome. Cuz I got nothing.

Tolak · Apr 15, 2008

The DNR is the Department of Natural Resources. While native fish may come under their jurisdiction, an aquarium is not a natural situation, as a natural body of water would be. The requirements are much different. They probably have no idea as to the filtration requirements.

$1000 is way overboard for what you would be paying to get adequate heat & filtration for a pair of 180 gallons, one not requiring any heat. First a quick question; are the 180's reasonably close to each other, and are the smaller tanks nearby? If they are close you could filter the 180 gallon tanks for $200 or less, add another $25 for the other two.

To heat the non-native 180 you will need a pair of 300W heaters, around $40 for the pair. As far as maintenance equipment, they water supply & drain location will determine what can be done & how cheaply for maintaining these two tanks. For a pair of 180's buckets should not even be considered, unless they want to involve the weight lifting team in weekly maintenance.

You are under $300 to get those tanks running properly. Have your biology teachers check out this site, if they can't be bothered they certainly are not concerned with continuing education as it applies to their career. While they certainly know more than most about teaching general biology, they do not know enough about the narrow field of aquatics.

Evad · Apr 16, 2008

First of all its so cool that you care enough to solve the problem despite all the pushback you are getting. Kudos to you!

I used to work for DNR in Washington State. I suspect every state is a bit different, but up here there are a lot of Native coldwater fish that you are not allowed to keep in tanks. The DNR is likely allowing this to happen at the school for educational purposes, and they may have even supplied the fish which is why they are dictating the conditions.

I would be surprised if you need to heat the native tank - but if you do I suspect you won't need to heat it much, which means you may not need two 300w heaters - if that saves you a bit of money. You would first need to look at how much you need to raise the temp vs. room temp and then go from there.

Good luck!

Mikaila31 · Apr 16, 2008

The 180 gals are relatively close to each other. One is in a class room the other is located in a supply room next door. They are both in large in-wall display cabinets. From in the rooms the tanks are accessible and on the other side of the tank is large pane of glass that allows viewing from the hallway. The other two tanks are within 15ft of one of the 180gal tanks. All the tanks are about 10ft from some type of sink or drain. So how would you suggest filtering these tanks?

When I was doing maintenance they had lots of gravel vacs/syphon. I would attach 3-4 together to make a hose and use this to drain and fill the tank. You could do a 25% water change in an hour, it just that a 25% water change does not seem to have that much of an effect on such a under filtered tank.

I'm glad you don't think it will cost as much as I thought it would. They need to do something about the lighting which shouldn't be too hard to fix. The only other major problem is that the gravel in one of the 180gal looks like it is a marine gravel. The tank is also decorated with huge pieces of dead coral.

All the fish are supplied by the students for extra credit. The native fish are caught from nearby lakes and the tropicals and coldwater fish are all random assortments of fish that the kids brought in.

Tolak · Apr 16, 2008

What you are going to do is set up an air powered central filtration system as cheap as possible. Start with a decent pump, DAPMH-15 from this site will run the filters on a pair of 180’s; http

/www.jehmco.com/html/diaphragm_air_p....html#DAPMH8-15 Buy a pair of the manifolds as well, use one for each 180 gallon. Just under $100.

You will be using sponge filters for bio filtration; http

/www.jehmco.com/html/hydro-sponge_filters.html box filters for mechanical filtration; http

/www.jehmco.com/html/box_filters.html $32 on the 4 sponges, $20 on the 4 boxes. If you build the sponge & box filters yourself you might have $20 in materials tops.

If you run box filters with enough air they will filter better than a hob power filter. Most folks try to run them with the little pumps from their lfs, these work, but nowhere near the mechanical filtration a box filter is capable of. You don’t need much air for the sponges, these are low flow bio filters. Save the air for the boxes, fill these with cheap ply floss that is sold at WalMart for stuffing pillows or other craft items.

Big Al’s has the 300w VisiTherms on sale; http

/www.bigalsonline.com/BigAlsUS/ctl36...rm300wattheater

You will need a pair of these for the tropical 180 gallon tank, the natives will get by fine without a heater. A bit over $41 with shipping.

AT-S, airline tubing, may as well get 25”, for about $3; http

/www.jehmco.com/html/air_accessories...l#Airlinetubing

Somewhere around $4 left out of $200, you will need some tubing to connect the pump & manifolds; http

/www.jehmco.com/html/tubing.html

With one manifold per 180 gallon you can add another two air powered devices beyond the pair of boxes & sponges. I run 150 gallon tubs with a pair of boxes, and run extra sponges for setting up tanks, instant cycle.

To run the other tanks, a little more tubing, a couple more boxes & sponges, and an extra manifold. For smaller tanks you can add some bio media to the boxes, put floss on top, and eliminate the sponge filter. If you do decide to go this route I would go with a bit larger pump; http

/www.angelsplus.com/PumpsDanner.htm

So, add $10 for a bigger pump, $10 for another manifold, $26 for a couple more boxes & sponges, and some more tubing, and you have the whole thing filtered, and the tropical 180 heated, for under $300. To save on tubing costs, if the tanks are a distance apart, get some pvc pipe from any Home Depot or the like. Run it up & across, then back down to the tanks.

For water changes on those larger tanks get a garden hose, use that to siphon & fill. Ace Hardware sell a nice chrome adapter that will attach to most any faucet when you remove the aerator.