A Guide of Tropical Aquarium Fish provides tropical fish tank tips for fish geeks. This informative site provides numerous links to tips and 
suggestions about keeping your aquariums in fantastic working condition. They are open to a link exchange with websites that create related material.
Keeping an aquarium is a challenging task; DO NOT take a decision to own tropical fish lightly. If you are responsible and reliable, your tropical fish will live. If you are not, do not attempt to keep tropical fish in your home.
A Guide of Tropical Aquarium Fish website concentrates on tropical fish, specializing in freshwater set-ups. All the information required to set up a tropical tank is provided with-in and the information complements the information found on Touch-Tank that specialize in cold water marine aquariums. Both set-ups are great for teaching life skills in the classroom.
It takes money to purchase and operate aquariums. They require filters, heaters, lights and pumps, decor, plants, water treatments and of course inhabitants, fish and invertebrates to live in the fish tank. The benefits include:
Reduce stress-allowing for superior learning
Minimize nervousness-relaxing prospects helping them purchase
Lessen anxiety-helping small children who aren’t used to being away from their parents for a extended period of time adjust to the new environment
Show students how fish live
Demonstrate the value of natural aquatic habitats
Teach children responsible as they care for the live inhabitants
Encourage respect as caretakers learn to nurture other living things and care for those more vulnerable than themselves.
“it’s all been well worth it.” Aquarium owners as well as educational aquarium educators often repeat these words of a young tropical fish aquarium owner.
Attention Teacher and PTCO Members, Touch-Tank suggests that your group consider applying for a Touch Tanks for Kids Grant , or a Lobster Fundraising campaign for complete funding for your educational aquarium projects.
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Recently, Touch-Tank saw the most fascinating email. The message was from, Heather Stapleton, the Education Coordinator of the Environmental Learning Center (ELC) in Vero Beach, Florida regarding their new acrylic fish aquarium made by Marine Ecological Habitats of Biddeford, Maine.
THIS IS GREAT!!!….from”_” a ELC touch tank volunteer,
Without the ELC I probably wouldn’t love the environment and I would not have had the chance to experience some of the things.
Ever since the touch tank opened it really opened my eyes to how much I love marine life. Without getting to volunteer I could not have had the opportunity to get to know everything that’s in the ELC like the sea hare.
I have always loved being outside and nature but I thought I would want to be a doctor but now I want to a biologist. The ELC has helped me realize something that I love and want to continue with it in the future.
The good news is that the ELC offers education programs for students some 
of which include lessons about the creatures who live in ELC’s new acrylic fish aquarium. The formal programs fill up quickly, so have your teacher contact Heather, the Education Coordinator at the ELC, at 772-589-5050 or heather@DiscoverELC.org for more information.
The ELC offers an elevated boardwalk system meandering through a mangrove forest, a Wet Lab with loads of touchable exhibits and aquaria with marine life, a Dry Lab with more exhibits, a pre-school play area, interactive computers, native plant gardens, picnic pavilions and more.
For a great educational experience stop by the ELC of Vero Beach, and to get the most from your visit, purchase the Trek & Tracks field guide in the Entry Pavilion.
Remember to stop by ELC’s newest attraction, a new L shaped marine tank that they purchased with help from a Touch Tanks for Kids Grant.
The July Touch Tank Schedule at the ELC
Sat July 10: 10a – 12p
Sun July 11: 2p – 4p
Sat July 17: 10a – 12p
Sun July 18: 2p – 4p
Sat July 24: 10a – 12p
Sun July 25: 2p – 4p
For more information, check out the PROGRAM SCHEDULE and THE ELC CAMPUS pages on the Environmental Learning Center website, AND when you visit, tell them what you think about the new acrylic fish aquarium.
This site is created and maintained by Shannon Mae Development, Inc.
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Stop by the Marine Environment Research Institute (MERI) of Blue Hill, Maine and witness live marine life in a ocean aquarium , or join MERI’s marine experts on an Eco-tour of Blue Hill Bay and learn about MERI’s Coastal Monitoring. 
MERI Center for Marine Studies’ ocean room presents an opportunity for experiential learning. With an interactive touch tank and other aquariums featuring a friendly lumpfish named Norman, as well as lobsters, crabs, sea anemones, sea stars, mussels, fish and other species native to the Gulf of Maine, MERI promotes shared knowledge and appreciation of marine life.
“For teachers and schools, the Ocean Aquarium builds excitement about marine science education in the classroom. Above all, the Ocean Aquarium was designed to appeal to our children. The more they understand and feel connected with ocean life, the more deeply they will care about what happens to our oceans and the quality of life along our coast.”
MERI’s vision has been created to have a dynamic marine science center that will increase our understanding of the Gulf of Maine and lasting positive impact on our community and the oceans. Touch-Tank thinks they succeed, visit the ocean aquarium at the MERI center today, you’ll be happy that you did.
MERI Center for Marine Studies
55 Main Street, Blue Hill, ME 04614
info@meriresearch.org
This site is created and maintained by Shannon Mae Development, Inc.
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A horseshoe crab makes a nice resident for your marine aquariums. Touch-Tank caught up with Coastal Carol an expert in intertidal exploration to learn more about the horseshoe crabs that have survived for over 250 million years. The video depicts some of what we learned about the horseshoe crab.
Contact Touch Tanks for Kids to bring an interactive aquarium experience to your students. They will learn more when observing a horseshoe crab molt and mature. Grants available!
Caution:
Handle with care; you can pinch your fingers between the two parts of the shell.
Mating
Each spring during the high tides of the new and full moons, horseshoe crabs come to the sandy shorelines to spawn. They lay there green eggs in sand and depend on waves to wash the sand over the nest.
Males are generally smaller than their mates. They cluster along the water’s edge and wait patiently for the females to arrive. The male attaches to the female’s shell with glove-like claws and awaits high tide. He fertilizes the eggs when he is pulled over the nest where the female deposit as many as 20,000 green eggs in sand. After the spring ritual is over, they return to the deeper waters of the ocean.
Horseshoe Crab Facts
They are not really crabs 
They are related to scorpions, ticks and spiders
They have their own classification (Class Merostomata)
Their blood is blue
They are not dangerous
They are found along the western shores of the Atlantic Ocean from Maine to the Yucatan with another three species living in the coastal waters from Japan to Indonesia
They can go a year without eating
Their hard, curved shells protect them from predators.
They endure extreme temperatures and salinity changes
Their tails push them through the sand and muck, act as a rudder, and help them turnover
Their central mouth is surrounded by its legs 
Their eggs take about 2 weeks to hatch
They have 2 compound eyes on the top of their shells with a range of about 3 feet
They can swim upside down and use a dozen legs and a flap hiding nearly 200 flattened gills to propel themselves
They usual feed at night but will eat anytime
They burrow for worms and mollusks
They grow by twenty-five percent while molting
The larvae molt six times during the first year
After sixteen molts, they completely mature into adults, maturity takes
between 9 and 12 years
Before the arrival of artificial fertilizers, they were dried for used as fertilizer and poultry food supplements.
Some fish eat the juveniles and the recently molted
Their eggs are important food for migratory shore birds that pass over the Delaware Bay during the spring mating season
Extract from their blood is used to test the purity of medicines.
Parts of their shells speed blood clotting and are used for absorbent sutures. Read more on Horseshoe Crabs Love Marine Aquariums…
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Marine Ecological Habitats designs and builds the best self-contained marine
Inspires Excellence
aquariums available. They use the highest-quality American-made cast acrylic and the quality is unmatched. All their systems include superior parts that will not rust, corrode or delaminate, and filtration systems use the finest biological, chemical and particle removal process that provides a healthier environment for both marine life and people who use Marine Eco’s equipment.
Touch Tanks are long-term scientific research/teaching tools. Like all of Marine Eco’s marine habitats’ products, Touch Tanks feature the finest quality components, including three quarter inch American Acrylic and are designed to last many years.Their marine aquariums are child-friendly, easy to maintain and mobile. The tank’s design allows educators to recreate life in the sea to a remarkable degree of accuracy.
Touch-Tank highly recommends Marine Ecological Habitats products because 
of their superior quality that prevents environmental issues. The Biddeford, Maine Company offers several touch tank designs and Touch-Tank would like to introduce our readers to three unique Marine Eco’s touch tanks that provide a greater learning experience: the original touch tank, the Sea Bus and the L-shaped touch tank.
The original touch tank retails for $7000. The 110-gallon self-contained unit overall size is 60” long, 32” Wide, and 36” high. It is prefect for classroom instruction!
The Sea Bus retails for $4000. The 25-gallon self-contained unit is a completely mobile classroom, prefect for short-term educational presentation.
The L Shaped touch tank retails for $13,500. The self-contained touch tank, presently in construction will soon be on display at the Environmental Learning Center (ELC): 255 Live Oak Drive, Vero Beach, FL 32963; Phone: 772-589-5050; Email: Info@DiscoverELC.org
Hours of Operation:
Tuesday – Friday 10am-4pm
Saturday 9am-12pm (extended to 4pm during winter season),
Sunday 1pm – 4pm
Contact Marine Ecological Habitats to learn more about their marien aquariums and other products.
This site is created and maintained by Shannon Mae Development, Inc.
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Touch Tank
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