Children's Museum Aquariums

[gwenvet]

Has anyone seen the two salt tanks that the Childrens Museum has? We were just there yesterday and I was surprised to see them being overrun with Aiptasia. They are EVERYWHERE! I have some aiptasia eating peppermint shrimp they could have. Anyone know their aquarist? Does he/she frequent here? I think they need some help.

 

[plantguy]

I along with many others have spent years trying to get them to address the problem, which at this point means a rebuild, which they are not willing to do because of the cost, and the high probability that that area will not be there much longer to make room for new exhibits.

I donated close to $1000 worth of berghia, and about 300 peppermints for the 500, and it made no difference whatsoever. The smaller tank used to be clear of them, sad to hear its got the plague now.

 

[gwenvet]

WOW, 300 peppermints didn't touch it? Guess my few won't make a dent. It's really too bad.

 

[Tsquare71]

Well I had about 100 or so in a 50 gal and I have less then 20 left. Shimp and Kent calcuim injection right into them SOB 's. I Just took care of my last 20 tonight. I'm hoping their all gone.

 

[Scalare102079]

unfortunately, 100 or so isn't even close to the quantity in that 500. I also have had a crack at that tank and bailed. As plantguy said, I and fully agree, that tank has more issues than meets the eye. A total breakdown and a full rebuild is the only way at this point.

 

[gwenvet]

Yeah, maybe more like 1000+. I wonder what they're going to do with their fish when they break it down to make room for new exhibits. (He, he) Although even the clown is too big for my tank!
My kids are really going to miss that area. They LOVE that submarine! But they run right past the fish...sigh!

 

[plantguy]

Yeah, its a shame. With a little work that area could be great, and its definitely a kid favorite. I stopped trying to make sense of it long ago, it only leads to headaches.

 

[DaveAngie79]

has anyone ever used kents kalkwasser (spelling hope its right) it works great for killing them mixed very milky they instantly melt away my 75 was over run with them and i tried everything to kill them nothing worked till i started doing this

 

[Scalare102079]

Kalk slurry was tried, and utterly failed.. the numbers are just wayyy too high to get a good handle on them fast.

 

[DaveAngie79]

that sucks, what a waste

 

[DaveAngie79]

that sucks, what a waste
oh how is that wave maker working i sold you

 

[Scalare102079]

working great! thx!

 

[plantguy]

Yeah, these are not normal densities we are talking about here. The tank has full size aiptasia that are over 1" dia on the base. Ill have to see if I can dig out the video, but in one attempt, we nailed every single one you could see, which I would guess was in the 1800-2200 range. This took three people about 4 hours. Once done, we all high-fived, and walked out the door, thinking we had made a good dent.

Next morning, it looked like we had done nothing.

With that many full size breeding factories, Its like fighting a forest fire with a squirt gun.

 

[Tsquare71]

I still have the little SOB's from my last injection in them. It looks like I took 4-6 of them out for sure. NEXT WEEK BABY!! yeah right

 

[Jova]

I saw those tanks a couple of months ago, and it just blew my mind. To me, it was the perfect example of a very poorly run neglected reef aquarium, and a real shame that it's the "example" for the public. But I've seen many of these types of "bad" displays all over... In fact, I was amazed when I saw an exhibition at the Shedd Aquarium in Chicago where they featured what they stated were "jawfish", while in fact, the display contained a bunch of engineer gobies... It really blows my mind, because when you go into a museum, the idea is to automatically accept that everything you see and read is correct, but from my experiences, more often than not, it's completely misleading... which is a real shame.