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I am a high school teacher as well. I have had reef tanks and frog tanks in my classroom. My students aren't all high risk, but I do deal with the lower 1/3 of the students usually. I found that if I took the time at the start of the year to explain to the students how fragile the ecosystems were in the tank (i.e. throwing a penny into the reef tank could kill everything in there, handling the frogs is more dangerous to them than it is to you) and how important it was to me, I had very few problems with students messing with the tanks and animals. I also keep the tanks up front. Don't stick the tanks within arms length of where the students sit. It's just too tempting to easily distracted students.
1. They make heating pads for reptiles that the tank just sits on. If you have a water feature in your tank, you can put a small aquarium heater under the false bottom. My room gets below 70 in the winter. You would be surprised how much the lights can heat up a tank.
2. If you make the tank theirs I don't think you will have a problem, but a 20 gal tall tank is pretty portable (easy for two people) and big enough for a pair of azureus or some other tinc morph. You could also keep the tank on a lab cart with lockable wheels.
I find that students usually live up to their teachers expectations. If you assume they are going to mess with your tanks they usually will, but the opposite is also true.
3. All you really need are fruit flies which are easy to culture and dust with calcium and vitamin supplements.
4. You really can't go wrong azureus for this situation. I mean a blue frog that is out in front of the tank most of the time and if they are not, will come out to feed as soon as you put in the flies. How can you beat that!.
I think a 20 gal tall tank is just about perfect for a pair of azureus. Its easy to light, relatively easy to transport and won't cost you too much to set up and plant. A 40 gal has a lot of area to fill with plants and decorations. If you want to use a 40 gal, you might look into keeping a small group of bicolors (terribilis would be great too, but they may be too expensive unless you can get them donated). If you go with the bicolors you will need to supplement with crickets. Azureus don't need (or even want) crickets. Azureus also don't have a call that might bug students who are taking tests or just get annoyed by sounds like that.
I feed my frogs 4 days a week. I don't feed Wednesday or on the weekends. They do great. The 20 gal is small enough to take home over the summer. (The reef tank wasn't so I had to go back to school 3 times a week to take care of the tank.
)
My students are usually very interested in the frogs for a couple days. After that there are usually 2-4 students who will come up to check on the frog a couple times a week. The rest of the students think its neat that we have frogs in the class but aren't motivated enough to come take a look (or maybe they think it would be uncool). We also collect some eggs from the tank at the start of the year and watch them grow to froglet size.
Its been fun for me to share the hobby with my students. I'm not even teaching biology anymore, but it is amazing how much physics and earth science you can demonstrate with frog tanks and reef tanks.
1. They make heating pads for reptiles that the tank just sits on. If you have a water feature in your tank, you can put a small aquarium heater under the false bottom. My room gets below 70 in the winter. You would be surprised how much the lights can heat up a tank.
2. If you make the tank theirs I don't think you will have a problem, but a 20 gal tall tank is pretty portable (easy for two people) and big enough for a pair of azureus or some other tinc morph. You could also keep the tank on a lab cart with lockable wheels.
I find that students usually live up to their teachers expectations. If you assume they are going to mess with your tanks they usually will, but the opposite is also true.
3. All you really need are fruit flies which are easy to culture and dust with calcium and vitamin supplements.
4. You really can't go wrong azureus for this situation. I mean a blue frog that is out in front of the tank most of the time and if they are not, will come out to feed as soon as you put in the flies. How can you beat that!.
I think a 20 gal tall tank is just about perfect for a pair of azureus. Its easy to light, relatively easy to transport and won't cost you too much to set up and plant. A 40 gal has a lot of area to fill with plants and decorations. If you want to use a 40 gal, you might look into keeping a small group of bicolors (terribilis would be great too, but they may be too expensive unless you can get them donated). If you go with the bicolors you will need to supplement with crickets. Azureus don't need (or even want) crickets. Azureus also don't have a call that might bug students who are taking tests or just get annoyed by sounds like that.
I feed my frogs 4 days a week. I don't feed Wednesday or on the weekends. They do great. The 20 gal is small enough to take home over the summer. (The reef tank wasn't so I had to go back to school 3 times a week to take care of the tank.
)My students are usually very interested in the frogs for a couple days. After that there are usually 2-4 students who will come up to check on the frog a couple times a week. The rest of the students think its neat that we have frogs in the class but aren't motivated enough to come take a look (or maybe they think it would be uncool). We also collect some eggs from the tank at the start of the year and watch them grow to froglet size.
Its been fun for me to share the hobby with my students. I'm not even teaching biology anymore, but it is amazing how much physics and earth science you can demonstrate with frog tanks and reef tanks.
