HS Teacher is this possible?

To whom it may concern,

I am new to this forum environment. A group of my high school students is very interested in the environmental effects on coral. They want to set up
experiments manipulating the coral env. and see the outcome, for example on growth or some other factor. I am not experienced at all in coral, I do keep some salt water tanks at school but those have local USA northeast salt marsh stuff in them.

We need an experimental coral, a coral that is we can grow in a high school environment. A coral that grows fairly fast/one that is not going to be overly difficult to grow for students given experience and expense.

Is this even possible to find. Any suggestions or help would be greatly appreciated.

Rich Kurtz
Commack High School

 

very interesting. you could maybe try soft corals. they are inexpensive, most requiring low flow and low light, making them a reletively easy to care for.

 

The biggest issue I see with an experiment like this, is that many coral just up and die if conditions change. Some even minor changes will cause mass die off.

Great Idea though. One would have to create an Ideal environment first and have success at growth. I would imagine this could take longer than one school year to obtain.
There are many people here at 3Reef, me included, that would be happy to help with information and techniques.

Please let us know what information we can help with to get this going

J

 

I would think mushrooms,kenya tree,xeina, or something along those lines word work, you would need at least 2 tanks one for a base line and one to change the environment on say something as simple as global warming you could just raise the temp a few degrees in that tank .

 

Good experiment, but hard to execute. Even "fast" growing corals are slow compared to most high school experiment. You'd need a year, multiple tanks. Maintaining your controls would be an extensive effort.

A thought.... How modifying water chemistry (environment) effects algae growth... vary the nitrate levels...

Algae is FAST.

Something like that might be more achievable.

M

 

You have not stated the parameters of the tank right now. These are what are at minimum required to help coral survive;
Alkalinity: 8-12 DKH
Calcium : 38-450 ppm
Magnesium: 1180-1400 ppm
SG (Salinity): .022-.025
Temp: 76-80 degrees
PH: 8.0-8.3

In your enviroment (school), soft coral will be the way to go, as mentioned. A Colt coral is a good choice as are mushroom coral, preferably "Fuzzy" Mushrooms.
A protein skimmer should be employed.

 

I think the focus would be more on hard corals as they are more affected by changes in PH, temperature, salinity, nitrate levels etc. I may be guessing, but would the experiments have to do with the acidification of the oceans? Changes in Ph, in this case the addition of CO2 affect the ability of corals to produce bicarbonate, I believe, and prevents them from forming their skeletons properly. I think a simple experiment can be done with a few small tanks, same lighting, use lower K bulbs for faster growth etc. I would use a coral such as a montipora digitata which grows pretty quickly and is more hardy then other hard corals. Plus it's pretty inexpensive. You could add various amount of CO2 to each tank using a small CO2 cylinder/tank, valve and bubble counter or affect the environment in other ways such as varying Kelvin temperature with the bulbs, temperature, a little harder to do, levels of calcium, carbonates, nitrates, phosphate, magnesium etc. in the water. I think it would be fun and I dont' think it would take more then a year. IMO a semester would get enough growth to noticeable see a difference if there was one.

 

Jason,

Thanks for getting back to me. I am not that comfortable yet with this forum.
Are you just getting this message or does it go to the entire forum.

The replies are varied, being of different opinions. We need to create an environment in
our school lab that enables us to grow marine coral. I want my students to learn something about the marine environment, have fun, learn science. Even though science through coral would maybe be frustrating and a long learning curve for growth and that is really science. Teens will get frustrated if they are watching coral be unsuccessful. Of course the opposite is true maybe it can work. One of the suggestions made to me via the forum is to use algae instead. I thought that was a good idea. School starts for us in 3 weeks so I hope you do not mind if I pick your experienced brain for help.

Thanks
rich

 

Seano,

Thanks for the information. School starts soon so we will get on it soon

rich

 

If school is starting in 3 weeks, coral may not be an option. It'll take longer than that to get the tank cycled. Then, it needs to mature a decent amount to keep corals.