[ryan72]

Hello Everyone,

A few years back I started a FOWLR setup in my Biology classroom (Ferndale High School, Fendale Mighigan-ferndaleschools.org). It was a great teaching tool that my students really loved. With the power outage this summer, we lost just about everything. I decided to make it an even better leraning tool/student project and make the jump to a reef setup. I quickly learned that I can not afford this myself and with budgets tighter than ever, my school can not either. I am new to this site, but have been reading and learning much from you all. I would never ask for any freebies for myself, but for my students and school I can beg and plead and still respect myself in the morning. I have aquired some frags from locals, but the reef is really pretty bare as of now. I was wondering if anyone would be so kind as to possibly donate anything to this much loved project? We could use just about anything, but to be more precise, the reef currently needs:

tanks is an 85 gallon with a 35 gallon refugium-MH & PC lights, DIY skimmer, kalk top off, RO/DI unit, about 50 lbs. LR, southdown DSB

frags-softies, polyps, LPS, SPS, etc. any will make great research topics
light bulbs-we have Single ended 250, 400, and 175 MH and 55/66 W straight pin PCs that I have learned cost alot to replace-used bulbs with some life left will work just fine too
MH reflector/socket
Test kits-the cheap ones I have aren't very accurate
sand sifting detrivores-the DSB may need some help
pump for closed loop-increase of circulation possibly needed
ideas/solutions on how to cool the tank in the upcoming summer in a non-airconditioned school

ANY HELP YOU CAN OFFER WOULD BE A TREMENDOUS HELP!

I can provide any of you with a letter on school letterhead as a receipt. I will try to upload some of the pictures I have to show you the reef. Thanks for considering to help out my students growing love of the reef.

Sincerely,

Ryan Dunlap
Ferndale High School
881 Pinecrest Dr.
Ferndale, MI 48220

rdunlap@ferndaleschools.org
dunlapry@msu.edu

please contact me with any questions

[Reefland]

That is awesome!

If your willing to pay shipping via Priority Mail, I have some new test kits (Salifert) that I would be willing to send as a donation from Reefland.com. They are some of the less commonly used test but for a school project, they would be great. I think I have a Boron, a Silicate and some others. Drop me a PM and we'll discuss.

Scott Z.

[Poseidon]

Great Idea Ryan... I will be happy to help as well. Being I am in the Flint area, it would not be to hard, or to long of a trip to bring you some goodies. I know I will have some Xenia for ya for sure! (in about a month anyway, I just gave away half of what I had, and I have some promised out already.) Have you contacted Tropicoruim yet? They are in Romulus and I bet they would contribute a few frags if given the proper opprotunity. I also have Green star Polyps and Yellow Polyps that both need thinning. If you need any Algae for the sump, I'm sure I can come up with that too... Maybe shoot me a PM, and give me your E-mail, I'm sure we can arrainge it.

[ryan72]

thanks! I'll shoot you a PM.

Funny you mentioned Tropicorium. I was just there today. I did mention I was from a school and trying to stock my classroom's reef project but didn't get an discount or offers to help. They were pretty busy though and I should have given them some notice and time to think about it. I picked up a bunch of chaeto algae and a little squamosa clam there. I really just went to check it our as Ive heard alot about it.

I am going to try to post some pics.

[Reefland]

Looks like you have got a nice little project going on there. There's one thing missing from the room though; where are the kids at!

Scott Z.

[ryan72]

a few more pics

[ryan72]

I am not allowed to post pics of any students for security reasons. The way I understand it from the powers that be is that putting a student's pic on a website could cause a lawsuit for a million different crazy reasons. I like my job so I'm not going to break any rules because i'd be fired faster than I'm typing this!

[Reefland]

Oh I was just joking of course.

Your project looks pretty nice. What kind of corals do you have so far?

[ryan72]

there are a few little mushrooms, a couple brown sps frags-just got these Fri from a nice LFS owner, a cool green singularia (sp?), a small toadstool leather, a small xenia, some green/brown star ployps, and some fish