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It's educational!

Kezzab

Member
Joined
18 Jan 2016
Messages
1,492
Location
Carlisle
My wife asked me to set up a tank at the school she works at. Based on the equipment they already had and the fact maintenance needs to be super simple ive gone for a hillstream type set up with loaches. Not strictly planted, but i may add some emergent stuff. My input will be limited once its running, so with this they should be able to water change easily straight from the tap.

The big rock has a sort of waterfall thing using a pump and spray bar and there are 2 circulation pumps plus an internal filter.

Good to do something a bit different and hopefully there'll be enough to interest her pupils.

This is about where we got to today.

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Well done :)

But

Criticism to follow :oops:

I’d place a few open rocks on sand and avoid all the crevices - gunk will collect in there rapidly and it’s going to be difficult for the kids (teacher ;)) to remove (though perhaps there is sufficient current?)

And you know the kids will want to feed often :p

Maybe some outgoing Corydoras (choose suitable species and number) to sift the sand and give the kids something to watch - and they may even spawn

Hillstream loaches can be shy and sensitive fish (and most loaches need lots of swimming or growing room) - sorry I can’t guess (reasonably) at tank size
 
Hi,
Cheers for your comments. They are secondary kids so there'll be slighy more control and some clear instructions.

There's a lot of current and the idea, as per this article, https://www.zoo.ox.ac.uk/article/extreme-flow-hillstream-loaches, is to move the rocks around (apart from the huge ones) so cleaning should be ok.

Tank is 100cm by 35cm by 50cm high, so a reasonable size.
K
 
Sounds grand :cool:

Most school aquarium tanks here are primary school
“Your” kids should be well able :)
 
Love simplicity!

Get some emergents though. It will help stabilise system way better.
 
Looks good. If your going hillstream loach, I'd definitely consider some white cloud mountain minnows to add movement. They are one of the few fish that don't seem to predate their young and you get batches of fry, that would like the gaps in the rocks and mulm, coming through which would be fun.
 
It's taken a while to get hold of different bits of equipment and find a time to go get this sorted but today was the day.

I've replaced the internal filter with a much larger external and added a light i had in a 'bits box'. The light doesnt quite fit and is a bit underpowered but will do for now. The filter seems good, but i had to rig up a slightly heath robinson intake pipe arrangement. The filter media had been in the sump of my home tank for about a month.

Fish wise I've added 20 small white cloud mountain minnows. I'll now let all this settle in and hopefully get some algae growth and then add some loaches in a month or so.

For circulation, as well as the filter there's an eheim 2000lph pump on a spray bar (top of big rock) and 2 Fluval CP3 circulation pumps. The latter aren't on at the moment as they are a bit OTT for the tiny wcmm. They'll go on when the loaches go in.

I'm a bit gutted I'm not really going to see it much!

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Also, while i was in school i spied this antique air pump cranking away in a lab tank,


old skool.
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So... with the wife's school basically shut this tank has been limping on witj some input from the caretaker. With little prospect of a return before September its now set up in our outhouse... 4 tanks on the go means i definitely have MTS now.

Hopefully it will clear soon. It was an extremely fast tear down and set up!!!
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