This document is meant to be a teacher’s first line of defense for all water quality issues. Please keep a copy nearby at all times and become familiar with the content. Our goal was to greatly reduce ammonia spikes and other water quality issues that cause stress for the fish, students and teachers!
TIC Unfolds—Things to Expect and Watch Out For
by John Fischer, Brian Cowden, & Rochelle Gandour
In an effort to keep down costs and improve water quality issues such as ammonia spikes (our # 1 water quality concern) here are some guidelines that I suggest teachers and students follow if using the Millennium 3000 filter:
Please be patient as we are working on this article currently. Check back soon for more information on this important topic related to the water quality in your tank.
It has been wonderful to hear from so many of you through personal e-mails about your classes’ successes and failures. We have a wide variety of backgrounds in our teachers, some with much tank experience and others with very little. Many of you have taught me about such important areas as ammonia and chloramides. It appears that mortality rates have varied greatly throughout the state. Some tanks have hundreds of fry while others are down to 50 or less. We had two schools lose all fry, one due to a chiller malfunction and the other to water quality issues. Both schools will be re-supplied with fry to get them back on track. By the way, I now have the back-up chiller should any of you need to use it while yours is repaired. Let’s hope we’re done with the breakdowns for this year!
Some of you have noticed a white foam that is accumulating on the water in the tanks. This is a by-product of the eggs hatching and is normal. If you desire, the foam can be scooped out of the water. You may also notice a slight odor to this foam which is also a normal occurrence.
