May 22nd

During this project i learned that there is a lot more work into owning an aquarium then i thought. Many things i learned by experience start off with the water quality checks. I had no idea that there were things you had to test for in an aquarium in order to keep the fish alive. The ammonia and nitrate test were something i didn't understand at first but after a while i understood the process and what it was for. I also understood the process of changing the water and having to use the cyphon. In the water change i also realized after several times of doing water changes and not seeing the nitrate go down that sometimes it is needed to pick up the rocks because the food and fish waste can get under there and never get clean. I also realized that when doing a water change in a big tank to make sure that the water level for the filter at the bottom is filled up also to a certain line so the tank is not running dry. Next year i think the students that get assigned the bigger tanks should be allowed more time to clean out the tank because i found that this year with all the amount of work that the tanks needs to be done we didn't have enough time to change the water as much as we needed to.