Lots of big fish

Mr Morgan has been filling up his live bait tank with interesting fish for our fishtank. We now have some big fish mooching about in the tank.

To get around the poor quality pictures through the glass I bought in my underwater camera today and took a few snaps.

The amazing octopus and the big crayfish

Mr Johnson got a big crayfish and we put that in the tank. He hides in a bucket.

The octopus has his favourite spot

Then Floyd and Sebastian found an ocotopus under the wharf. A really cute little one. We put him into the fishtank also.

Room 22 Visit the Tank

Room 22 came to visit the tank. The class wrote short paragraphs about the visit and here are a selection…

Room 22’s Salt Water Fish Tank Visit

Last week Room 22 walked to the MBAS salt water fish tank. Mr Ross came too. Me and my mates got to feed the fish. I liked it when the fish were swimming up to eat.

By Luke J

Classroom visit from Mrs McRobbies class

Today during a free period I showed Mrs McRobbies class the blog for the fishtank and then we went to the tank and had a look at the animals. The kids each got to feed the fish and a good time was had by all.

The kids waiting to see the fish.

A bait ball in the tank!

Today was a big day for the tank. Turns out the outflow pipe was blocked with some silicone and a shell. We put some gauze over the inflow pipe, removed sections of pipe and cleared them. The most effective was blocking the pipe with a thumb and then pulling the thumb out really quickly.

The blocked pipe

While we were working on the pipe we noticed the inhabitants of the tank had drawn the attention of some students at lunch.

More for the tank

It was low tide after school today so it was off to somewhere else to see what we could find for the fish tank. This time we went to the end of Simpsons Beach and checked out the rockpools there.

On the way to the rock pools

We found some shrimps, some more snails, some small fish that were really fast!

Cleaning critters are in

Today even though it was mid tide Floyd, Sebastian, Marlon and I went to the rocks at the north end of Buffalo Beach. We wanted a few things that would help to clean out the tank. The tank is building up it’s ecosystem so we thought some cleaners would be a good idea.

We got some cushion stars which cruise around eating debris. With time and patience these can be hand fed on the side of the glass. They extrude their stomachs to digest their food! They come in all sorts of sizes from very tiny to the size of a childs hand.

Cushion Stars

We caught some shrimps, including a pregnant one which was cool to look at with all the eggs in between it’s legs.

Water is in

Today I got a text saying tanker is at school. It was a hurried breakfast and then lots of playing with hoses and water. It worked really well and the tank was full in no time without any major flooding.

The tanker at school

Sand is in

We put in some sand. We think that a thick layer of sand in the bottom of the tank will help with the biomass of the tank and provide some filtration. We took sand from as low on the beach as we could so that  it’s organisms would come with us back to the tank.

The view from inside the tank

We bucketed in the sand and spread it over the bottom of the tank.

Starting the tank

Mr Lidgard has had a salt water tank in the science department for a number of years. In 2009 it never got filled and wasn’t used. This year (2010) we aim to get all excited about this tank and start using it more and more.

The tank empty and cleaned out

Mt Lidgard emptied out the fresh water and took out the old sand.  Now we are ready to start filling it with interesting stuff.