taking anemone to school

[Tazmaniancowboy]

My son's 4th grade class is learning about anemones, corals and sea life. He was excited to tell the teacher about my system. While at parent teachers conference I offered to bring in a couple of my anemones. I have a RBTA and GBTA on the same rock so my original thought was to just bring them in a 5 gallon salt bucket to show and then bring them back to my tank. I am now thinking I would like to leave them in the classroom in a clear rubbermade for them to watch for about 3 days. I have a hang on top carbon filter and a small heater that I thought I would use for this.

What do you think I should do, Bring them in the bucket(where they will probably retract and be nothing to show or let them settle in in the class where the class can watch and I would think less stress in the tote for a few days?

 

[downbeach]

Light??

 

[adesimone1]

Yes light is a must if you get a light I would leave it there for a couple of days until it opens up.

 

[Edwardw771]

got a ten gallon tank laying around? If not I have one.

 

[downbeach]

The other question is, if you remove them from their comfort zone, will they stay attached to the rock?

 

[MatteZ]

Leaving it at school would be awesome for the kids! I would set it up in a small tank on a friday or saturday at home to let them get adjusted then bring them in monday morning to the school

 

[NikkiT]

If you remove them from the tank, they have a pretty good chance of going for a walk at the school or when back in the tank.
with that in mind, I do not recommend housing the anems in a small tank with power heads, filters, or heaters. They can (and will) kill themselves by walking into a power head or a heater in a small tank.
It only takes an hour or two for a dead anem to crash a small tank.

 

[Fish Brain]

How big is the rock? Will it fit in a 8 gallon Biocube? You can borrow my cube if you want. Then you will have safe flow, heat and light.

 

[adesimone1]

+1 Brian

 

[Tazmaniancowboy]

I will probably get stoned for making this comment, but I was not too concerned about light. While I know they need light to survive a healthy life, I have had anemones in the past in near dark conditions for 3-4 weeks with lighting problems and they bounced back perfectly fine. Since I am planning on leaving them there for 3-4 days they would have been fine with classroom lighting and sunlight. I am well aware that they may walk, but that is something I will have to put up with if I volunteer them under any conditions. I have no problem with this other than the possibility of sitting on a heater, the filter I am not concerned about with the screen and foam I can put on it.

Nikki, my first thought included a powerhead then I pictured a chopped up anemone so I decided the HOT filter with sponge would be best being it is only short term, I did not think too much about the heater, thanks for that reminder!

Ed, all of my small tanks are too big, hence the rubbermade, thanks for the offer. Brian, that would probably be the best option. I will PM you

 

[jgraz]

Don, if for some reason you go with a small 10gal tank I have a 4x18" T5 that you can use. It fits perfectly on the lip of the tank. Basically covers the whole top. That way it also keeps hands out as well. Just let me know I can bring it on Saturday.

 

[MadReefer]

This brings back memories. I did the same thing for my daughter long time ago. I put the nem in a small 5g hex tank the day before and brought in. It opened half way and actually ate some dried krill.
I brought it home within an hour, no light or heater and all was fine. The one thing that did happen was I stupidly picked up the tank from the top and the plastic rim came off spilling the nem and some water on the floor. There was enough water to bring the nem home but the janitor was called to cleanup the mess. To this day all the kids talk about this and my daughter is still embarrassed.

Anyway, it is great idea and hope all goes well. By the way I still have that hex tank. LOL

 

[Tazmaniancowboy]

How big is the rock? Will it fit in a 8 gallon Biocube? You can borrow my cube if you want. Then you will have safe flow, heat and light.

Thank you for the cube Brian and George and Dan for the handoff. I set it up tonight with a variety of stuff including a red and green BTA, toadstool, some zoos that were on the rock, 3 branches of hammer, kenya tree, gorgonia, and a few asterina stars, baby brittles, snail, algae and of course I included a clown. Pretty excited to present it to the class tomorrow and my son is also. He told me he would take good care of it while it is there!

I cut a piece of filter floss for it and I assume I should throw some carbon in a mesh bag under it. How much carbon should I put in it?

 

[Fish Brain]

Saw the picture, nice little reef setup, I'm sure the kids are going to love it! I was thinking it would be just a rock and two nems. LoL

I ran about 1/2-3/4 of a cup carbon and a 1/2 unit of Chemipure Elite when I was running the system.

 

[TanksNStuff]

Saw the picture, nice little reef setup, I'm sure the kids are going to love it! I was thinking it would be just a rock and two nems. LoL

I ran about 1/2-3/4 of a cup carbon and a 1/2 unit of Chemipure Elite when I was running the system.

Please share the photo... I'd love to see how it was setup.

And Don, I can't take any credit for getting you the tank. All I did was answer the phone and arranged the transfer from Brian to Dan to you, lol.

 

[Fish Brain]

 

[TanksNStuff]

Wow, that is a nice job Don. The kids will really enjoy that!

 

[Tazmaniancowboy]

nice little reef setup, I'm sure the kids are going to love it! I was thinking it would be just a rock and two nems. LoL

This was the original plan, but I found out that each kid in the class chose specific things to read and write about pertaining to reef life. SO I grabbed a few more things from the tank to cover different types of coral, life, etc.

I set the tank up before school started today and the kids went nuts as they entered the classroom! I was actually planning on setting up and running, but the teacher asked me to speak about it to them. That session lasted 45 minutes! It was great to see the interest , expressions, and the questions they asked. The teacher will be sending them up to the tank 2 at a time throughout the week with their notebooks to jot down things they see and any questions they might have and asked me to come in early Friday afternoon to answer those questions before I break it down to bring it home.

The teacher also asked me to put as many pictures together as I can showing all of my tanks and stages to show on the big screen. Now I have homework

Really was a great experience

 

[TanksNStuff]

That's great Don. There's nothing more exciting than sparking an interest in kids! I think the funny part is that now YOU have homework, lol.

 

[MatteZ]

That's awesome!!! Probably the best homework you will ever do!