The
graduating seniors of the class of ‘99 voted to place two
aquariums in the atrium of the remodeled HUB-Robeson student union
as their class gift.This
project garnered almost 30% more in contributions than any
previous class gift. The aquariums were installed in
October/November, 1999.One
of aquariums is a Coral Reef aquarium, and the other was initially
an African Cichlid aquarium – soon to be replaced by a Rain
Forest Amphibians exhibit.The
aquariums, aside from their decorative value, also function as
living laboratories for teaching environmental science, biology,
geology and chemistry to Penn State students as well as State
College Area High School and elementary school students.Our mission is to educate and increase the awareness and
understanding of coral reefs,bring the beauty of coral reefs to central Pennsylvania,
and hopefully excite future generations of students to do
research on coral reefs and to better understand the ecology of
this special ecosystem.Approximately
10,000 Penn State students walk by the aquarium every day!!It is an official stop for the campus tour groups.We give about 4 tours a month to elementary and middle
school classes, and host around 20 - 30 different college classes
/ labs here at the Aquarium per semester. The college classes
range from Geo Sciences, Biology, and Oceanography, to Chemistry,
Ichthyology, and Marine Ecology.Three to five students per year have done research on coral
structure, proteomics and culture or water chemistry
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Currently,
the Aquariums are managed by a committee headed by Dr. Robert Minard and
Dr. Sanjay Joshi.The daily
feedings, upkeep and routine maintenance are done by a dozen or so
volunteers from the Penn State Marine Science Society, Chemistry Club
and Biology Club.
The
Aquarium
The aquarium is
96” long, 42” front to back and 30” tall, manufactured by Tom
Majocha of Pittsburgh.The tank is visible from 3 sides, and these 3 sides are made
of 1” thick laminated starfire glass.The back is also 1” thick and coated on the outside with dark
blue Opaci Coat 300 Water based Silicone.
Penn
State Aquarium – Front View
Aquarium
back, showing the three closed circulation loops.
Sump
Lights
– 4 Diamond Lumen Arc III Reflectors with Ushio 10000K lamps
Calcium
Reactor
Student
volunteer Nick Hartman ready to scrape the front glass
Sump
The sump designed
with the help of James Wiseman is a combination sump and refugium.The basic dimensions of the sump are 50” L X 30” B X 25” H
with a 34”LX19”BX19”H refugium built into it. The water flow goes
around the refugium, making two 90 degree bends which allows for the
small bubbles to diffuse out of the water.Water is pumped into the refugium from the sump by a separate
pump and it overflows into the sump.A UV sterilizer also draws water from the sump and returns it
back into the sump.The
refugium has a deep sand bed, along with some poor growth of macro
algae. The refugium is lit by two 55W Compact Fluorescent lamps (one
Actinic and one Daylight), on a reverse daylight schedule.A titanium heat exchanger plugged into the building’s
chilled water system is also fed from and returned to the sump.
Lighting
The lighting is
provided by four 400W metal halide lamps.We have been using the 10000K Ushio lamps since the beginning. No
supplemental actinic is used. The lamps are mounted in Diamond
Lighting’s Lumen Arc III reflectors and also use the Diamond Light
ballasts which are mounted remotely.The lights are mounted in an aluminum frame, which can easily be
raised and lowered, through the use of pulleys and a winch, to allow for
easy maintenance access.The
Diamond Lumen Arc reflectors are very efficient in directing the light
downward into the tank as can be seen in the picture. Each light is on
for 12 hrs/day on a staggered schedule, with lights coming on at one hr.
intervals, thus providing a gradual step up and step down of the lights.
Circulation
The main
circulation is provided by an Iwaki 100RT, which returns the water at
the 2 ends of the tank.Additional
circulation is provided by 3 Iwaki 70RT in a closed loop arrangement
drawing water from 3 holes drilled in the back of the tank, and
returning the flow over the top of the tank (see figure 2).Two of these closed loop pumps are connected to 1” Sea Swirls
to provide randomization of the flow.Ball valves and unions are used to enable easy removal of the
pumps for maintenance.
Filtration
In addition to the
approximately 250-300 lbs of live rock (Fiji live rock from Harbor
Aquatics) and about 100 lbs of sand, a ETS 1200 Skimmer (donated by
Champion Lighting) driven by a Iwaki 100RLT is used.Two HOT Magnum filters are used as activated carbon and phosphate
removal filters.
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Other
Hardware
A custom built
calcium reactor (build by Brian Fergusson) is used to help maintain the
calcium and alkalinity levels.A
Neptune Aqua Controller with the windows software is used for monitoring
pH, temperature, Redox and dissolved Oxygen levels.In addition with X-10 controls, the Neptune Aquacontroller is
used to control the lights and the pumps used for the chiller, and as a
wave maker to cycle pumps on and off.
Right view of the tank
Maintenance
Most maintenance
is performed by a team of volunteer students, but most have never kept
an aquarium.Daily
maintenance regimen is feeding the fish twice a day with a combination
of flake food, pellet food, frozen food and Nori.In addition, the volunteers are required to fill out a checklist
of all the vital parameters of the tank.This provides a frequent check on whether the tank is operating
properly and also helps in teaching good animal husbandry practice.The student volunteers are provided basic training in tank
maintenance.A 10% water
change and skimmer cleaning is performed weekly.Any significant maintenance such as scraping the coralline is
performed by a select few.Given
that there is no front access to the tank all maintenance has to
performed from the back room, and posses some interesting challenges.Given that tank is 42” from the front to back, this makes it
very difficult to reach the front of the tank from the back.The space above the tank was designed to accommodate large planks
to allow a person to lay on them while performing maintenance tasks on
the front glass.These must be lifted into place and set on I-beams at the
ends of the tank
Livestock
The tank, as you
can see from the pictures, is now completely overgrown with corals,
several of them started as frags from my personal tank.The large size of tank allows corals to get really large. Heavy
pruning is often necessary to prevent corals from competing with each
other for space and light.There
is a heavy fish load in the tank with the fish population comprising,
There are also 2
giant cucumbers (12-15” long), 1 Tridacna Gigas (15”), 1 Tridacna
Derasa (10”) and 1 Tridacna Derasa (6”), several sea stars, blue
legged hermits, and snails.
There
are approximately 40 species of coral in the tank with about 80% of them
SPS corals (see pics)
Right
top view showing one of the green bali staghorn acropora
Right
middle view of tank
Left
middle of view of tank
Table
Acroporas
View
of tank middle
View
from from one end of tank
View
from the end including the reflection of the front
