learning ideas

so i got my daughter into a montissori school and the guidelines for her attending is that the parent or parents dedicate 10 volunteer hours a year. I thought a fun way to volunteer is by making and setting up a 10 gallon tank for the kids ages 18mo up to 9 years so its a a pretty big age range. I'm wanting the school to be able to use the aquarium to be able to teach the children some fun lessons.

I'm going to set it up as a planted tank so that i can donate some of my over grown plants to it.

So i need some good ideas of things i can add to it (plants/fish/whatever) or use as a breeding project. My only idea so far is to get some bulbs so that the kids could watch some of the plants grow! i need more ideas, things that i can add for the kids to watch that are safe while the water is cycling, i have snails but snails arn't to exciting for young kids.... anyone else have any good ideas for when the tank is cycling and then fish to add after the cycling is done?

Well I've donated Killifish for kids classrooms for the learning of lifecycles and such.

10g don't leave much room for cichlids, the other thing is put a trio of guppys in there so they can watch the fry grow specially if its planted.

Shaysfishys wrote:

Well I've donated Killifish for kids classrooms for the learning of lifecycles and such.

10g don't leave much room for cichlids, the other thing is put a trio of guppys in there so they can watch the fry grow specially if its planted.

I was thinking that and maybe a mickey mouse platy so they can relate the tail markings to mickeymouse.

Are there any kind of shrimp that i can add to the tank while it cycles? or anything at all to add while it cycles other than snails?

Just take some filter media from one of your cycled tanks and use it in the new filter. Pretty much have an instant cycle. Once you have one tank cycled there is no need to go through the whole cycling stage again. When I set up a tank I add water, put a sponge filter or media from another tank on/in the new tank, add fish and I am done. You may get a slight ammonia spike, so check your parameters.

Okay thanks! sounds good cant wait to talk to them about this idea i hope they like it! im sure they will, when i went there they had 2 snakes a giant frog and a rabbit, im sure they would be down for some help on an aquarium :)

one betta and 3-4 smaller corys.

get some ghost shrimp! Super duper cheap and way fun to watch! Plus they breed really quickly and its fun to watch them carry their little eggs under the females

I did this same thing when my oldest was in elementary school. The younger kids get a kick out of it, and the older kids can test the water and keep a chart of things like pH, ammonia, nitrite and nitrate.

If you can get a bigger tank I'd do it, even a 15 or 20 gal, since it is easy for a 10-gal to go south with a minor mishap (little kids LOVE to dump entire containers of fish food in at once, plus who knows what other things, like people food!). Also, the fish you get need to be hardy (I like mollies for this) since nobody will be there for weekends and holidays and such. It is much harder on little kids to see dead fish than it is for adults.

ooo good tips tankgirl i never even thought about the kids checking water conditions! that will be fun :)

Ill see if i can find a cheap larger tank. I was doing 10 gal since i already have one i could donate. ill see what we can come up with! i have molly, platy, and guppys here with me so i think ill just donate some fry to them so they can watch them grow too.

Along with Tank-girl's idea I recommend putting the fish food into daily packets...use a medicine weekly dispenser...so it is harder for the children to over feed the fish. MM platties sound like a great idea hardy little guys that have enough color and move enough to keep the kids attention.

Yes the weekly medicine containers are AWESOME for pre-measured feedings, they also come in month packs! 4 week long containers that all sit neatly into a boxy thing. Can be readily found at thrift stores!

For a larger tank put an ad on CL pet section for wanted donation tank for classroom. Who knows someone may donate a really nice set up.