Ultra small living reef aquariums for the science classroom, how to build
Hello, what an amazing site you have and I am thankful to be on board.
Nothing is for sale, I'm just a serious hobbyist with a lot of technical experience and Id like to help out anyone looking to have a one of a kind item in their classroom.
These are easily transportable as the video shows, so you can move them back and forth between home and classroom on breaks and no tedious testing is needed to raise any of the common stony corals because we have worked out all the dosing approaches in the aquarium forums over the years.
I am a moderator at reefs.org for example and we design items like these in support of worldwide marine biology hobbies...its ready to go to the classroom and out of the hobby forums because the reef vase pictured in my profile is easily repeatable without vast technical knowledge of aquaria, and frankly kids love them.
What Im disseminating here is the steps on how to set one of these up. You will buy your own vase, air pump, corals etc from wherever you choose, this is just a technique of assembly that allows classrooms to keep live corals where before it was definately cost and procedurally restrictive to those with "salty thumbs".
You buy a vase, buy a lid that fits inside the neck, insert a heater and bubble stone and add a few corals to start. Of course you have to buy an entry level reef light and add freshwater to replace evaporation, as these are basic saltwater steps, but the entire investment is about $150 and this is unheard of in reef aquarium standards. The small water volume eliminates variables that usually require pH testing and much tinkering, no testing is required for a reef vase. Calcium drops are added 3x per week in certain steps and gallon water changes are every two weeks, it is self sustaining and easy to run.
I know if I ever taught biology I would have about 5 of these with different fauna of the world's oceans so that's why I stopped by. Nice to meet you all, email me at my listed site or contact me on youtube comments and I'd love to provide anyone a tutorial on construction, a trip to your local wal mart is 80% of the work.
Brandon M.
*of all the various micro reefs in this vid, the vase reef is the one to try. The others are complex but are repeatable as well.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_XOsitYhihc
Nothing is for sale, I'm just a serious hobbyist with a lot of technical experience and Id like to help out anyone looking to have a one of a kind item in their classroom.
These are easily transportable as the video shows, so you can move them back and forth between home and classroom on breaks and no tedious testing is needed to raise any of the common stony corals because we have worked out all the dosing approaches in the aquarium forums over the years.
I am a moderator at reefs.org for example and we design items like these in support of worldwide marine biology hobbies...its ready to go to the classroom and out of the hobby forums because the reef vase pictured in my profile is easily repeatable without vast technical knowledge of aquaria, and frankly kids love them.
What Im disseminating here is the steps on how to set one of these up. You will buy your own vase, air pump, corals etc from wherever you choose, this is just a technique of assembly that allows classrooms to keep live corals where before it was definately cost and procedurally restrictive to those with "salty thumbs".
You buy a vase, buy a lid that fits inside the neck, insert a heater and bubble stone and add a few corals to start. Of course you have to buy an entry level reef light and add freshwater to replace evaporation, as these are basic saltwater steps, but the entire investment is about $150 and this is unheard of in reef aquarium standards. The small water volume eliminates variables that usually require pH testing and much tinkering, no testing is required for a reef vase. Calcium drops are added 3x per week in certain steps and gallon water changes are every two weeks, it is self sustaining and easy to run.
I know if I ever taught biology I would have about 5 of these with different fauna of the world's oceans so that's why I stopped by. Nice to meet you all, email me at my listed site or contact me on youtube comments and I'd love to provide anyone a tutorial on construction, a trip to your local wal mart is 80% of the work.
Brandon M.
*of all the various micro reefs in this vid, the vase reef is the one to try. The others are complex but are repeatable as well.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_XOsitYhihc
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