Bissell Childcare Centre Tank
 

I got motivated today at my work (Bissell chilcare centre) and set up a SW tank :biggrin: One of the volunteers at my work offered to pay for a tank and I got a good deal from Lyndsy on an 8g biocube. The plan is to add 2 clownfish a BTA and some coral.

I had a stand/heater/salt/prime etc. at home that I used and I raided Doug's sump for live rock and Vollia: Tank in a day :mrgreen:

iPhone pic
http://i261.photobucket.com/albums/i...t/C052B2F6.jpg

Nice, I've thought about doing the same thing for the kids at work too. Just to many fears of it getting smashed.

Nice. The biggest feat though will be keeping all those sticky little hands out of the tank. :lol:

It's in the infant room (that's the room I work in) so it's unlikely the 0-19 month olds could smash it. I took care of a 30g FW tank at my old Childcare centre work and it was in the front entrance. Not sure how it didn't get smashed with all the parents letting their kids bang on the glass but somehow it survived.

That's why it's a fully enclosed biocube that little babies won't be able to reach into and older children only have supervised access to :twised:

Most will just stare in awe your kids are going to love it

Neat idea!

One already was and all that's in there is a hermit crab :lol:

Thanks, but I forgot to account for the drooling. The literal drooling, that is, as one baby was already sucking on the glass

Hey it can pass as a baby salt lick.. Oh wait that's for cows.. Ah well as long as it they are smiling while they drool its a good thing no?

:lol: agreed :biggrin: I admit it was cool watching a one year old stare and smile and look totally enthralled with the tank, can't wait to see how they react when there's fish in it to look at :biggrin:

What a great thing to do! :lol:

Nice job girly! These are the LEDs I was thinking of for the tank.

http://www.modularled.ca/stunner-strips/

Cool thanks. Would one of these be enough light for an 8g biocube?

Royal blue & 12000k white- 6watt 12" strip? I really want to replace the power compact but I'm kinda broke so I can't really justify to much money for a donated tank.

I think one would be better then the PC,s that are in there for a start anyways. Tell you what I will buy you one & donate it to the kids, deal.

Wow that would be amazing! And yes better then the PC lights especially since only one bulb works. Keep the receipt for it and give it to me and I'll turn it in at work at and get you a charitable donation receipt that you can use at tax time.

I was just thinking Doug was right and I should of started this thread in the tank journal section :redface: I will ask a mod to move it for me and change the title to: Bissell childcare SW tank

Because our centre is a drop in free childcare centre, and because we have very diverse clientele, I'm not sure I'll be allowed to post pic's of any of the children looking at the tank (privacy policies) but I will do tank updates. If anyone is curious about the Bissell centre, here is a link to our website http://bissellcentre.org/ The Bissell centre is way more then just childcare, they have many programs including a drop in centre for homeless people across the street from the daycare, a family support team and parenting programs, a community closet that provides clothing to people who need it, a homeless to home program that help house people, an employment program and many more I'm forgetting, but check out the link as everything is on the website.

When it's up an cycled let me know I'll donate a frag or 2

Sweet thanks. The cycle (in theory) should be fairly fast since I used fully cured live rock from Doug (my boyfriend's) tank at home. I transported the rock from my house to the daycare fully submerged in water and it took me around 3.5 hours to fully set up the tank. Needless (or maybe sad) to say 10-15 pounds of live rock in a bucket of water is very heavy! Got my workout in for that day :lol: I'm going to test everything on Monday and see were it's at, yesterday the water was clear so I was happy to see that. So far the hermit crab seems fine, a feather duster (attached to the rock) was opened up and of course a few evil aiptasia that are on the rock seem alive and well :twised: Down the road when everything is stable I will add a peppermint shrimp to hopefully take care of it.

Thanks mods for moving my thread :biggrin:

I've got a few heads of green and purple hammer and a frag of zoos set aside for ya. :-)

Sweet :mrgreen:

Whooohooo!!!!!!!!! :cheer2: Ron from Aquarium Illusions just called me let me know AI is able to donate a refractometer and a bucket of instant ocean salt :cheer2: YAY!!!!!!!!!! :mrgreen:

I've got a sweet 3" RBTA you can have for the clowns to host. Free for the kiddies. It'll bigger by the time your ready for it.

Tim that's perfect thank-you :biggrin: Steve at Red Coral said he would donate the clownfish, it's all coming together wonderfully :mrgreen:

Laurie, LMK when it's ready for some corals. I could frag a piece of my green w/purple tip hammer maybe I could make a scroll coral combo frag of yellow and purple and zoas/palys of coarse.

Will do thanks :biggrin:

Me too Laurie, I've got lots of frags you can have when your ready.

This thread goes to show what a great community canreef is! What a stellar group of people here, so very generous and thoughtful!

Laurie, your daycare sounds amazing and provides a much needed service in the community.

Looking forward to seeing this tank grow, please keep us posted on how things progress!

Hey girly, Martin has the stunner strips in stock so we have some LEDs for this little bugger :biggrin:

It is an amazing centre and the ladies I work with are fantastic, I really do like my job :biggrin:

I totally agree, canreef is a wonderful community and its wonderful that so many people are willing to help out and donate items :biggrin:

I will defiantly keep up on updates, so everyone can see how it's coming along.

:cheer2: Awesome! I also got some money (sold some stuff) so can you bring down another led strip so there will be two altogether :biggrin: Thank-you :biggrin:

Thank-you Jason :biggrin: At this rate the tank will be full in no time :mrgreen:

Tested the water today. First checked the salinity and oddly it was high (1.030) when it should of been low since I added extra top off water for the weekend. Got it down to 1.025, and checking the calibration on my refractometer when I get home.

Happy to report the crab and rock feather duster survived the weekend. Tested the parameters and ammonia is at 0 nitrite 0 and nitrate 10 :biggrin:

Reading through this thread is encouraging - great to hear how folks in the Edm area are coming together to do something like this - great job! Looking forward to seeing it full of lifestock.

Thanks I plan on adding clownfish soon, although I admit its pretty cool to see how excited the kids get just over the tank and rock. A 16 month old (today) kept running to the tank, looked in it, then squealed in excitement and then ran away. Super cute to watch.

I was able to get someone to cover me at work today so I went to Red Coral and got 2 clownfish for the tank :mrgreen: Thank-you Steve for the donation :mrgreen:

The clowns also got names, the darker orange one (at the top of the pic) is nemo (surprise surprise :lol:) and the lighter orange one (below the other one) is Tang, because he looks similar to the colour of Tang orange juice. I admit I had a chuckle to myself at the irony of thinking I have a "tang" in my 8g biocube :lol:

My co-worker Josalynn got a decent pic, which she posted to her Facebook page, and I used the pic for here :biggrin:
http://i261.photobucket.com/albums/i...t/2B24C9FA.jpg

This build is going fairly quickly and I just wanted to clarify that normally you wouldn't be able to move as fast as I am with additions. The only reason I can get away with it is because I started with fully cured, well established, live rock that I transferred from my house to the daycare (which is 20 mins away) and I moved the rock fully submerged in water so that there was little to no die off. Similar to doing a tank transfer.

Got some new additions and took more tank pic's so you can see the aquascape better. All pic's are taken with my iPhone, so not the best quality, but not to bad.

The front of the tank (you can see plastic needle point mesh covering the top overflow because Tang got partly stuck in it his first night in the tank)
http://i261.photobucket.com/albums/i...t/FF50C61E.jpg

http://i261.photobucket.com/albums/i...t/28C23F66.jpg

left side
http://i261.photobucket.com/albums/i...t/0D809C53.jpg

right side
http://i261.photobucket.com/albums/i...t/AA7165D9.jpg

Nemo
http://i261.photobucket.com/albums/i...t/1162DAC6.jpg

Tang
http://i261.photobucket.com/albums/i...t/9325EABC.jpg

peppermint shrimp (here's hoping he likes aiptasa since I see several in there already :twised:)
http://i261.photobucket.com/albums/i...309F70F7-1.jpg

Green clown goby who we named "Hulk" :lol:
http://i261.photobucket.com/albums/i...E2F79DA7-1.jpg

http://i261.photobucket.com/albums/i...t/66C873D4.jpg

Grizz came to my work today with awesome LED lights :cheer2:

Thank-you Grizz for donating one strip, and installing them, and thank-you Martin at Modular LED http://www.modularled.ca/ for donating the other strip :biggrin:

Grizz hard at work installing them
http://i261.photobucket.com/albums/i...AC59E445-1.jpg

Much improved light & colour :mrgreen: (the iPhone throws the colour off a bit, but it is way nicer then before)
http://i261.photobucket.com/albums/i...t/FB149981.jpg

That tank needs some coral!!
Ive got a nice green devils hand and some zoas for you Laurie

Agreed! I plan on adding sps so I'll have to pass on the devils hand. In a little tank leather corals would fight to much with the sps and would also take up a fair amount of space. With an anemone going in, there won't be to much space to work with. However I do want to add zoas, they're easy to squeeze in :biggrin: Are you going to the reef meet this Sunday? If you are feel free to bring zoa frags with you and I'll bring them to my work on Monday :mrgreen:

In that case in got pink with blue polyp birdsnest and some red Monti cap

Sweet :biggrin: