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Post by gabor129 on Oct 17, 2013 15:54:26 GMT -5
I hope the girls enjoy the learning curve! Research is a big part of this hobby!
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Post by guppyguy on Oct 17, 2013 18:23:27 GMT -5
Your very right Gabe. You never stop learning in the fish hobby. But the more you learn the better fish hobbyist you can be. And since different fish have different needs it always a great idea to research each fish. I hope you enjoy you new fish when they come in. I will be donating some wild guppy descendants to your tank and you will have them in a few weeks.
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Post by fin on Oct 17, 2013 20:45:57 GMT -5
welcome to the club and maybe when some of your students become interested in the hobby they can come visit us at one of our monthly meetings and see what else is happening in the world of fish and thank you for introducing our future members.
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Post by lesfromlakeshore on Oct 18, 2013 10:56:52 GMT -5
By now your new catfish should be in your class aquarium. They are about a year old and still have some growing to do which is why I picked them out for your class. You will also notice that I have a problem will math.. lol I told you I had 7, when I caught them out of one of my tanks there were actually 8. So you get a bonus fish. They will more then double in size over the course of the school year. Now a little about feeding: Fish always look hungry even when their not. One of the biggest mistakes that new fish keepers make is to over feed their fish. The extra food goes uneaten and will quickly destroy your water quality. You can start off by giving them a little flake food and see how they do. Before you leave at the end of the day drop in 2 of those tablets I gave you and they will be set. Any questions please feel free to ask.
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Post by Ms. Walker on Oct 18, 2013 15:32:33 GMT -5
Oh, happy day! The students swarmed the door when Mrs. Flynn brought the cooler of fish down to our room. We opened the box and the students gathered to watch the fish swimming in the bags. Our 2 Aqua Techs put the closed bags into the tank and set their ipod timer for 15 minutes. We left the tank area so we would not stress the fish out. While they waited, they began their online research of the catfish. When the timer rang, some students gathered to watch the release. Then a few of them pulled up chairs to just sit and watch during their snack break. They have named them Cory, Dora, Con, and Color (do you see what they did there?) and the other 4 names are names of students in the class. We hope the fish are okay for their first weekend alone. The water is still on the basic side, so if there is something you think we should do about that, let us know.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 18, 2013 15:40:22 GMT -5
Nice photos. Hope they're enjoying the tank.
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Post by Ms. Walker on Oct 18, 2013 15:47:34 GMT -5
We've decided to do a "Fish Facts" display on the board behind the tank. Students will research java fern and corydoras concolor and create a display of info and photos with enough room to add whatever else might come to the tank. We'll post who the current "Aqua Techs" are and maybe a weekly journal to record how the fish and plants are doing. Anything else you can think of?
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Post by gabor129 on Oct 18, 2013 15:59:58 GMT -5
Nice pictures. That board is a great idea. I was thinking maybe add a feeding schedule to the board to?
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Post by lesfromlakeshore on Oct 18, 2013 16:48:10 GMT -5
Great to see the students excited about the fish. I think the "Fish Facts is a great idea as the students will get a general idea as to what their needs are. Now as more and more fish and plants come in they can look at all these facts and come up with a plan as to how to best take care of them. As they do their research they will notice some small differences in their care but these are all community fish and will adjust to these differences. When I dropped the box off in the office and told them that the box contained "Live Fish " for Ms. Walkers class all 3 lady's had big smiles on their faces which in turn put a big smile on my face.
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Post by Admin on Oct 18, 2013 17:49:27 GMT -5
This is excellent, great ideas to work the aquarium into your lessons, I am glad this is working out very well and great job Les
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Post by guppyguy on Oct 18, 2013 19:29:01 GMT -5
I am very happy this is going well. I am sure you Aqua Techs will do a great job. And the fish facts is a excellent idea.
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Post by Ms. Walker on Oct 21, 2013 12:09:26 GMT -5
There are still 8 fish today! They are mostly hiding and then swimming about in a school from time to time - when it is quiet and no one is near the tank.
The kids say:
They are fast, but they all hang out at the bottom. How often do we feed them?" When do we feed them flakes? When do we feed them pellets?
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Post by lesfromlakeshore on Oct 21, 2013 12:46:54 GMT -5
You can feed them flakes at the beginning of the school day and a again at lunch time. Then at the end of the school day they could drop in 2 tablets. Remember not to over feed, so they should feed a little at a time until they figure out how much they eat. All flake food should be eaten at each feeding, so if the aqua-tech's notice that they eat all the flake right away many give them a little more. It's actually harder to figure out how much to feed when there are only a few fish in the tank . As the population of fish increase it will become easier.
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Post by gabor129 on Oct 21, 2013 15:23:06 GMT -5
Once the platys are in there there will not be much of the flake food left for the corydoras to eat! Than it will increase the food and so on for each group of fish you are going to put in, however like Les said the more fish the easier to adjust.
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Post by lesfromlakeshore on Oct 22, 2013 12:51:35 GMT -5
So tomorrow between 9 and 10am you will be receiving another fish delivery. A member of our club ( gabor129)is donating some young red wagtail platy's. These platy's are actually fry of fish that another member( guppyguy) had in his tanks. So they are locally raised fish that will acclimate well in your tank. During your research on these fish you will see that they are livebearing fish and throughout the school year should grow and produce their own fry. How exciting is that.
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