Summer-Fall 2001

Shaun Huszarik donates 220 gallon reef aquarium system for student research to Augsburg's Biology Department

A generous donation, a new reef system, and new opportunities:

For some years now, the Augsburg College Biology Department has maintained a thriving reef aquarium system, which has enhanced the teaching of invertebrate and plant biology, and has fascinated students (see Augsburg reef aquarium web site). During the summer of 2001, the existing reef 130 gallon reef system was also used for nutrient import/export research by biology major Keneeshia Williams. However, the size and setup of the existing system has limited the sorts of research that could be done. For example, controlled studies of coral growth and colony development would need much more open tank space than existed in our 130 gallon system.

This limitation is now being lifted, thanks to the very generous donation of a large reef aquarium system to the department. Early this summer, Professor Bill Capman recieved an e-mail from fellow Twin Cities Marine Aquarium Society member Shaun Huszarik asking whether we could use his 220 gallon, 7' x 2' x 2' reef tank. Shaun was about to move to the west coast and could not take his large impressive reef system with him. The Biology Department concluded that space could be made in the animal room, and decided to take Shaun up on his offer.

As of the time of this writing (Fall 2001), the new system is thriving, and it is being developed into a multi-tank reef system designed expressly for the purpose of supporting student research with live corals and other marine organisms. Twin Cities Marine Aquarium Society Member David Grigor (who has been remarkably generous with his time - see below), is building us a 100 gallon acrylic sump to go under the tank and drilling a set of smaller tanks for the adjacent teaching lab that will be plumbed into the large system in the animal room. An additional large research tank (approximately 8' x 2' x 14") will be purchased using donated funds in the near future and placed over the 220 gallon tank donated by Shaun. Total volume of all of these interconnected tanks in the end will be roughly 500-600 gallons, with the large 220 gallon tank and sump providing high quality water chemistry and chemical and biological stability for the other research tanks. Multiple compartments in the sump will also allow us to house a greatly expanded array of marine organisms for use in teaching, including such things as predaceaous crabs and sea stars, sand dollars, jellyfish, and a variety of other organisms that are incompatible with a reef tank.

Though the new system is not yet complete, it is already being used by Professor Esther McLaughlin's Invertebrate Biology students for research projects studying stony coral growth, soft coral polyp behavior, and sessile polychete worm settling behavior.

Check back for updates and additional photos showing the progress of this wonderful new reef aquarium system made possible Shaun Huzarik's generous donation.

Moving the tank:

Moving this tank and its inhabitants was quite an undertaking, both because the tank is large and heavy, and because it needed to be set up immediately so that the living inhabitants of the tank did not die in the buckets and tubs they were moved in.

The move took place on a Sunday afternoon in July. Professors Bill Capman and Dale Pederson had the invaluable help of David Grigor (another Twin Cities Marine Aquairum Society Member) and two strong biology students, T.J. Bramwell and John Tieben (we could not have done this without T.J. and John!).

Though Shaun had sold much of his livestock and live rock, there was still a considerable amount of live rock, live corals, fish, and some other organisms in the tank, so the first task was packing all of the remaining inhabitants of the tank up into buckets and tubs, and the sand and about half of the water were packed up as well. The tank's plumbing and other equipment were disconnected and the enormous tank was then moved to the front lawn for rinsing with the garden hose. Then, all of this was packed into Dale's truck and David's trailer and transported to Augsburg.

Even completely empty, a 7 foot long glass aquarium is incredibly heavy, and even with 5 people we only just barely managed to carry the tank up to the lab and into the animal room without disaster!

While the rest of us took a short break to eat, Dale made an emergency 9:00 PM run to the lumber yard to buy a sheet of plywood we discovered we needed at the last minute. Then, as the rest of us worked on getting the tank set up, David Grigor finished construction of a custom light box he built to suspend Shaun's metal halide lights over the tank in its new location (since corals require strong lighting in order to live, getting the lights set up right away was essential, and Shaun's aquarium hood would not fit in the new location). Once the lights, water circulation pumps and other life support equipment were in place, and the sand was in place, we filled the tank using the transported water as well as about 100 gallons of fresh synthetic seawater made up by Bill Capman the night before. This brought us to about midnight, at which time T.J., John, and Dale went home, while David and Bill acclimated the transported organisms to the new water and moved them into the tank.

David and Bill finally left at 3:00 AM, hoping the live corals and fish would all survive the trauma of the move.

Needless to say, we were all exhausted in the end, and there was spilled water and sand everywhere, but the move was a great success. Not a single coral, fish, hermit crab, or sea cucumber died, and the new system got off to a good healthy start.

And most importantly...we didn't break the tank!