¡Aquarium Mania!

Bogotá, Colombia

My favorite one I made in Quito (30-gallons) for my classroom

I've hardly left Bogotá in the four months I've been here. Once was to a finca outside of the city. The only other time was to visit in Quito, Ecuador. That's not to say I haven't been doing anything exciting. Quite the contrary, I have been occupied with continuing to nest in my apartment (I'll share more about that in a different post) and getting to know more of my new home city.

The 20-gallon aquarium I created for my Bogotá apartment

Those of you who have known me over the last couple of years know that there is one topic that will get me talking 'til I turn blue in the gills: AQUARIUMS. I love talking about the science behind them, the purposes for having one, the different species to keep, and my own personal aquariums. Growing up, the only pet my brother and I were allowed to keep were fish. My brother usually went for either tetras or zebrafish whereas I opted for the classic(ly boring) carp, the goldfish. They were there at home but I'm positive my mom was the one who took care of mine. The longest living one I had lasted for at least two years and was named Fruit Punch, because it (as I rationalized) changed colors. I used to wonder if it was replaced without my knowing but I have long chosen to believe it managed to survive that long.

The breeding aquariums in
my Milwaukee classroom

Then went years, nay decades, that I didn't have another fish. The summer before my final year teaching in Milwaukee, I was selected to participated under a grant from the National Institutes of Health through UW- Milwaukee. There's a slew of other organizations and labels that went along with it (SEPA, WiNSTEP, etc.) but what it was was learning how to teach skills integrated with knowledge using model organisms. Our organisms were earthworms and zebrafish, and at the end of the training we were provided an incredible amount of equipment to begin managing a mini-aquatics lab to support the grant. The purpose of the zebrafish was to breed them and perform toxicology studies with the embryos; another purpose was to help raise alarm among students with the devastating problem of lead poisoning in Milwaukee. I never succeeded with acquiring a single embryo by the end of the year. It culminated with me translocating all the equipment from my classroom to my friend and colleague Rochelle's classroom, since I was moving to Ecuador in a couple short months and I had no intention of neither moving nor storing any of the equipment.


A couple more years passed while living in Quito. My friend and colleague Michelle had left for her new job in Venezuela and I inherited the sealed mesocosms of aquatic organisms her classes had created over the years. That was the beginning of my current obsession with aquariums. Over the next two years, I slowly learned all I could about setting up and maintaining tanks. I practiced my learning and altered variables slowly and one-by-one. And I started getting reeeeeeal good. At the end of my time in Quito, I had seven tanks, built five with my own hands, had seven different species of fish plus shrimp and snails, and eight species of plants. It was bittersweet leaving them all behind for my move to Colombia, while knowing I had more expertise with this hobby and could get things started quickly after arriving in Bogotá.

A couple aquariums in my Quito classroom

A 30-gallon aquarium I made for my Quito apartment

Students aquascaping, in Bogotá

In my new job, we have homeroom/advisory for 30 minutes each day. One of those days is called "Explore" and it is an enrichment time for teachers to have a class sharing or teaching one of their passions and for students to select one to try for a semester and do learning that has nothing to do with school. We were asked if we had a class we'd want to do and, if so, come up with a catchy title and description [turns out the name I came up with, Aquarium Mania, was by and large the wackiest name]. Initially, eleven students signed up and currently there are fifteen. My only role has been getting the materials and teaching them the skills and processes... they have built two-10 gallon aquariums, came up with the purposes and designs for them, washed the gravel, and aquascaped them with real and artificial plants and other hardscape materials. It has been rewarding to see my students become more and more passionate about the topic and aquarium care.

The "unnatural" one my students designed, in Bogotá

The "natural" one my students designed, in Bogotá

Finally, at the end of November, I started construction on a personal aquarium for my apartment. In fact, it is the first of three that I am going to be creating by the end of this current school year. In due time, once I get the animals, I'll share a video about the process of doing this first one.

The first aquatics lab I designed, in Quito

These current experiences have motivated me to get going on several projects I want to accomplish related to aquariums. First, I am going to continue expanding the number of aquariums and species in my classroom so I can have a fully-operational aquatics lab to use for learning experiences. I also plan to design and produce various hydroponics (cultivating plants without soil) and aquaponics (maintaining a fishery that produces the 'fertilizers' for cultivating plants without soil) systems. Additionally, I'd also like to begin vermicomposting (using worms to aid in composting) and construct a greenhouse.

The Zebra Danio breeding tanks I made for a student's research project

... and the breeding was successful! (in Quito)

Stay tuned for what I get accomplished in 2020. It's going to be intense!