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

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.

Same octopus, different colour

He is fun to watch as he changes colour and is really clever with his tentacles.

More colour as he hunts for the mussle

Alien creature!

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

Room 22’s Salt Water Fish Tank Visit

Last week we went to the Mercury Bay Area School salt fish tank. I liked a crab because he had big nippers and I liked the fish because he was swimming very fast.

By Vinnie

Room 22’s Salt Water Fish Tank Visit

Last week we went to Mr Ross’s fish tank. It was cool over there when we got to feed the fish. We saw yellow mullet and some star fish. My favourite fish was a crab. It was cool and when I saw a fish I could not believe my eyes.

By Taine

Room 22’s Salt Water Fish Tank Visit

Last week Room 22 got to go to the MBAS salt water tank. We went with Mr Ross, Floyd’s Dad. When we were there, we saw yellow-eyed fish, starfish, snails, rocks, seaweed, crabs, mussels and shrimp. I got to go inside the feed the fish. It was fun.

By Izzy

Room 22’s Salt Water Fish Tank Visit

Last week me and the rest of the class went to the salt water fish tank. I caught most of the fish but the big ones died. The flounders died too. I saw snails, a starfish, a rock cod, yellow-eyed mullet, crabs, shrimp and triple fins. It was fun. We got to feed the fish. The rock cod was hard to see.

By Floyd

Room 22’s Salt Water Fish Tank Visit

Last week Room 22 walked to MBAS fish tank. There were mussels, sandfish, starfish, shrimps, crabs and snails. The best thing of all was feeding the fish.

By Piper

Room 22’s Salt Water Fish Tank Visit

Last week Room 22 walked to the MBAS salt water fish tank with Mr Ross. There were starfish, sandfish, mussels, crabs, yellow-eyed mullet and shrimp. I liked feeding the fish.

By Rory

Room 22’s Salt Water Fish Tank Visit

Last week Room 22 went to the salt water tank. I felt happy because I got to feed the fish with Mr Ross. When I finished going in, I chose Shayla to go in next. I saw crabs, starfish, fish, snails, mussels, seaweed and sand fish.

By Dana

Room 22’s Salt Water Fish Tank Visit

Last week Room 22 went to the MBAS salt water fish tank. I liked watching the hermit crabs lick and nip. I loved the smell of the fish food and I liked the yellow fish. They were pretty.

By Brandan

Room 22’s Salt Water Fish Tank Visit

Last week my class and I walked over to the fish tank. There were crabs, fish, starfish, seaweed, rocks and tiny shrimp. I liked the crabs and I fed the fish. We walked back to the class.

By Olivia

Room 22’s Salt Water Fish Tank Visit

Last week Room 22 walked to Mercury Bay Area School’s salt water fish tank. Room 22 looked on the outside first. When everybody had a good study, four kids at a time got to go inside. Inside there were rocks, snails, fish, and lots of other things. After we had a good look inside we got to feed the fish.

By Keera

Room 22’s Salt Water Fish Tank Visit

Last Friday Room 22 walked to MBAS’s salt water fish tank. It was fun feeding the fish. Mr Ross took room 22. We all got a chance to feed the fish. I saw the inside body of a dead rabbit. I also saw crabs, fish, seaweed, shrimp and rocks.

By Alice

Room 22’s Salt Water Fish Tank Visit

Last week Room 22 went to the salt water fish tank. Room 22 had lots of fun because we were watching the fish and we got to feed the fish. We saw a starfish.

By Shayla

Room 22’s Salt Water Fish Tank Visit

Last week Room 22 went to the salt water fish tank. We saw hermit crabs and fish. I saw a crab cleaning the windows.

By Abbey

Room 22’s Salt Water Fish Tank Visit

Last week Room 22 went to the salt water fish tank. Room 22 fed the yellow-eyed mullets. My favourite fish were the hermit crabs and the yellow-eyed mullets.

By Luke E

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.

Student interest

Then after school four kids and I went to the creek. It was full of little yellow eyed mullet of various sizes. Past experience has shown that these don’t survive transplanting and low oxygenated water well so once we had caught a few in the hand nets and the throwing nets we rushed them to the tank.

Schooling fish

I left a hand net there to remove the dead and dying in the morning but after a few hours in the tank they all did look to be in good shape.

Fish in the tank

These fish have made the tank suddenly seem full as they move fast around the tank.

On the way to the rock pools

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

Small fish and snails

We also caught a couple of crabs that were again different from the ones we have so far.

Our biggest crab yet!

More of the big crab

We also got some more hermit crabs and found a loose mussel with some seaweed on it. The mussel won’t survive but the weed will fill the tank with something interesting.

Mussel and weed

We found some huge soft sea anemones that were impossible to remove from the rocks. They would be great in the tank if there was a safe way to transplant them. They had really colorful tentacles.

A great day out hunting and the tank is starting to get more and more interesting.

The spoils of the ocean

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.

We caught some baby rock cod. Tiny little black fish.

We caught some crabs like this one. It seemed to have the local seaweed on it’s back. Do they collect them or do they grow naturally? Not sure but Mr Scott informs us that this is a porcelain crab (Petrolisthes elongatus)

Porcelain Crab (Petrolisthes elongatus)

We also picked up a small collection of snails. Not too many as these are primarily above water grazers.

Catseye Snails

And the regular from that end of the beach. Little black to blue crabs that live under almost every rock. They are filter feeders and have fans that they wave around in the current to catch food. We got these in a selection of sizes. Mr Scott informs us that these are porcelain crabs (Petrolisthes elongatus).

porcelain crab (Petrolisthes elongatus)

A great time was had by little people and big people alike and it is great to have some life in the tank again.

The tank is exciting already.

The tanker at school

Connecting the hoses

Not the best clothes for pumping water!

Ready to turn it on

Beats carrying buckets

Filling up fast!

Now we need to wait a week or so for all the organisms in the water to bloom and die off. Shrimps and crabs are good now but not much else. We are waiting for equilibrium and for all the organisms to get firmly established.

The view from inside the tank

We bucketed in the sand and spread it over the bottom of the tank. We had some stones from a few years ago and these have been put into the tank all piled up at one end.

View from outside the tank and through the window.

Next is salt water. Mr Johnston has a friend who pumps water in a truck and he will be helping us out on Tuesday.

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.

The tank is big! I could crawl inside it easy!

The filtration is done in external tanks.

In one corner of the tank is a triangular area full of rocks.

External filtration system

The water is gravity fed out of the tank and onto a box of plastic things with loads of surface area.

Here some sort of organism that uses oxygen can work. The water trickles over these balls and down into a tank with shells in it.

From here the water moves to a tank with crushed shells in it.

And from here to a tank where it is pumped back up to the main tank.

Hopefully later in the year someone else will explain how these filtration methods work.