Bellevue High Marine Club

Hi Guys,

sorry I did not make it up to your swap this year: I heard I missed another good one!! For those that do not know me: I run a marine science program at Bellevue High School which is about an hour west of Cleveland. We were the 2010 MACNA national classroom of the year. The year after I had two students win full rides to Hawaii and Southern Cal to study Marine Biology.

We have a 412 gal sps dominated display tank ganged to a 240 mangrove tree swamp and 50 gal frag tank. We also have a 8' long by 4' wide shark tank with two bamboo sharks that we did hormone studies on to determine base line captive shark stress levels. In the future we hope to induce mild safe stress events to measure response rates and recovery times. Working with the University of Toledo my students discovered a hormone present in the fecal pellets previously unknown to any fishes.

I also wanted to share a bit about what my students are up to now and invite you to check us out on facebook (a page we just started)

We just started a study in seahorse breeding with the addition of three pairs of H. erectus from Salty Critter. Dan donated a pair plus gave us a major break to be able to swing buying the others

another group of students are gearing up to cope with the seahorse fry

other groups are working with peppermint shrimp training them to be social and monitor breeding rates and success

Please check us out from time to time and feel free to share stories and offer advice as my students continue on with some pretty neat projects

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Bellevue ... 1738777855

thanks for your time
David Bowers
David.Bowers@bellevueschools.org

[erm213]

That is pretty cool David!

Thank you and thanks to all those who stopped by our site. We really appreciate you taking the time to check us out. Please feel free to stop by any time to see what we are up to and to share any experiences you have had with our study projects

[erm213]

briney dave wrote:

Thank you and thanks to all those who stopped by our site. We really appreciate you taking the time to check us out. Please feel free to stop by any time to see what we are up to and to share any experiences you have had with our study projects

I think a field trip is in order! What are your biggest needs, I'm sure we could drum up some donations.

Erik

We used to sell candy bars at lunch to the hungry masses and we cleared 3K + a year. We were more than self sustaining!!! New health regulations now ban us from doing that and we have yet to find a fund raising project that is worth doing. I will not sell $50 candles or tubs of very expensive frozen cookie dough. Those are not fair to the folks that want to support us. So if anyone has a good idea for a fair yet successful fund raiser that would be golden.

We do get to run the basketball concessions stand a couple times per year that is most of our budget (way less than we would like and have project ideas for but it keeps us going)

in the mean time we can always use boxes of I/O salt and folks who can chip in toward replacement light bulbs.

I can not tell you how much I hate just asking for money. Also I don''t know how some folks would react if we brought frags to a swap meet as many guys have either donated pieces or given us a break on prices. So I would hate to come back with their same frags that they are still trying to sell to others

We had kicked around the idea of a mini swap here at Bellevue but not sure how many folks would be willing to drive to us but we do have some great corals to frag

I would very much love to hear about your ideas on what we can/should do

added a few more photos today. We fragged our large colony of ORA red planet, a pretty blue tort, and a very bright green sps that I have forgotten the name of; plus some recent pics of our seahorses

check us out if you have time


thanks
David

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Bellevue ... 1738777855

what is everyone's opinion on us taking frags to the swap next month?? would that be offensive or rude considering that some guys will be there that have either donated corals or sold them below market to help us out


the last thing I would ever want to do is burn a bridge much less one that has be so welcoming and helpful as the coral keeping community here in Ohio

We really need new light bulbs just to keep things as they are much less accommodate new student projects. While we can sure use that money that would generate we do not want to harm those who support us with their knowledge and often money or materials

please share your thoughts

[erm213]

briney dave wrote:

what is everyone's opinion on us taking frags to the swap next month?? would that be offensive or rude considering that some guys will be there that have either donated corals or sold them below market to help us out


the last thing I would ever want to do is burn a bridge much less one that has be so welcoming and helpful as the coral keeping community here in Ohio

We really need new light bulbs just to keep things as they are much less accommodate new student projects. While we can sure use that money that would generate we do not want to harm those who support us with their knowledge and often money or materials

please share your thoughts

I think you should. It wouldn't bother me one bit. You are not doing this to profit, but to further the education of these students. If you do decide to do it, you can list what frags you have for sale on fragswapper.com

Hope to see you there.

Erik

thanks Eric, I hope everyone (or at least most folks) feel that way but sure do want to hear from others