Touch-Tank is delighted to announce a My First Aquarium Contest offered from our partners at Touch Tanks for Kids. The details of the contest are still under negotiation though as we understand it…the pay off includes more resources for your Aquarium Projects.
Aquariums connect participants to nature by creating an ecosystem that demonstrates science lessons and teaches caretakers about responsibility and interdependency preparing them for life.
Aquariums are a hands-on/minds-on learning experience that help teachers prepare students for superior achievements in Science, Math, English, History, Ecology, Writing, and more.
Touch Tanks for Kids wants the contest to have a huge impact on environmental learning so send in your suggestions and comments concerning the best ways to manage a successful contests and stayed tuned for more details coming soon!
While visiting the Children’s Discovery Museum located on 171 Capitol Street in Augusta, Maine, Touch Tank learned several things about Touch Tanks for Kids executive director, Mike Martin. Mike loves his family, discovered his passion for the ocean while serving in the Navy, and graduated from the University of Maine at Augusta in 2004.
While discussing how aquariums create awareness about pollution and ocean acidification, Mike explained how more aquariums in homes, classrooms and business motivate people to reduce their contribution to the problems that our waterways face. Between 1751 and 1994 ocean pH has decreased from approximately 8.179 to 8.104, the ongoing decrease in the pH of the Earth’s oceans, caused by their uptake of anthropogenic carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, is a major threat to human existence.
Mike’s community service serves as a platform to bring more awareness to the issues that threaten the waters of the world, so when the members of the University of Maine at Augusta’s Alumni Association needed contributions for the creative section of their next news letter, Mike offered to share his first aquarium experience as a way to bring additional awareness to the cause.
Dan the Turtle
Below are some exerts, the story in its entirety can be read in the next edition of the UMAA newsletter found on the University’s web site by clicking right HERE and checking back often.
My First Aquarium
When I was young, I had no interest in attempting to keep fish alive in an aquarium. I had better things do-like spying on my teenage sisters and their boyfriends. They hated my intrusions so much that they would bribe me with cash and adventure often sending me down the road to Wortman’s Store to buy them cigarettes………..
As I remember, we had about an hour to make the two mile round trip up the Leisure Life (a local restaurant that we called “Loose Your Wife”) Road, through the woods and back home……………….
Jon spotted Dan the Turtle first and yelled at Daigle, “Hey Dan did you write your name on that rock?”
I shouted, “That’s no rock, it’s moving, it’s a turtle!”……………
When we arrived at my house, our fathers were standing on MacAfee Street, both of them mad has hell, red faced and ready for discipline. We knew instantly that we were in a dire situation
Touch Tank contributors recently had the pleasure of accompanying the executive director of Touch Tanks for Kids, Mike Martin, and two of his children, Kyera and Madelyn, on a trip to the Children’s Discovery Museum located at 171 Capital Street in Augusta, Maine. The museum’s director Valencia Schubert invited Mike to join the museum’s board after she discovered to world’s finest teaching aquarium while searching for ways to improve the museum.
Valencia grew up in Boothbay, a coastal Maine community where she learned all about the wonderful sea creatures of a Northern Atlantic cold-water touch tank. Valencia understood that providing children an opportunity to observe and occasionally interact with the creatures of the sea presents educational value and brings more children to the museum.
After two years of fund raising, the Children’s Discovery Museum Touch Tank Project got some needed support when the museum’s board of director decided to move locations from Water Street to 121 Capital Street. The move created a lot of publicity because the board needed much help to successful move all the museum’s exhibits to the new, easily assessable Capitol Street location.
Ammonia is a lethal water condition in both freshwater and marine aquariums. Fish are extremely vulnerable to high ammonia levels. This condition either kills them outright or stresses them out so much that they become more susceptible to disease.
Emergency Ammonia Level Treatment for Your Aquarium
Step 1
Use an ammonia test kit to determine ammonia levels. An ammonia level of greater than 1-ppm demands immediate action. Note: Established (45 days or longer) tanks should register zero ammonia.
Step 2
The most likely causes of ammonia spikes are overfeeding and dead/decaying animals. Account for all aquarium stock to make sure nothing is dead. If you find a dead creature, remove it!
Step 3
If your fish are stressed, add additives to reduce ammonia. Signs of stress include fish gasping for air near the surface or lying on the sand bed. This temporary solution reduces the fish’s stress while you find the source of the ammonia problem.
Step 4
Discontinue feeding until the ammonia levels are lowered. No worries, a few missed meals will not harm your fish.
Step 5
Dilution is the solution to pollution. Complete a water change of up to no more than 40 percent of the water using distilled or reverse osmosis water from an aquarium store.
Marine aquarium must prepare salt water while using a hydrometer to ensure proper salinity. Note: It is recommended that the added water be at the same temperature as your aquarium.
Step 6
Wait one day and test for ammonia. If the ammonia levels remain above 1 ppm, complete another water change of no more than 10 percent of the total volume.
Step 7
Continue to monitor by testing for ammonia often.
If you follow these steps the emergency of too much ammonia in your aquarium will be repaired and your fish will get along just swimmingly. Monitoring your aquarium ammonia levels is a vital key to proper fish tank maintenance.
This video gives a wonderful description of simple fish tank cleaning, and remember to return all inhabitants to your aquarium and wait a two of weeks before changing the filter. If the filter is changed at the same time as the other cleaning, an unsafe ammonia spike may occur because all the beneficial bacteria that eliminate the toxins might be removed. This is vital for your fish tank maintenance.
Clean and replace the filter media entirely. Experts caution that replacing the filter media removes too many of the beneficial bacteria, and triggers a new tank break-in cycle, but most agree that sufficient bacteria inhabit the rocks, plants and gravel. This prevents the tank from cycling when the filter is replaced. The filter used on your teaching aquarium may determine your approach to filter cleaning.
partners at Touch Tanks for Kids. The details of the contest are still under negotiation though as we understand it…the pay off includes more resources for your Aquarium Projects.
