Hi All -
One reader, Brian Carpenter, had a very insightful suggestion - why only ask for cash donations to help fund the project? Why not ask for donations of the specific equipment we need? Many people have used fish tank equipment around and some of it may be suitable for the purposes of the Trout in the Classroom project. I thought this was a great idea - I had thought to look from some used tanks and filter/pumps to try to reduce the overall start up costs but had not thought to ask for donations of the equipment.
One caveat - trout are fairly fragile creatures and the environment we're creating and maintaining needs to be carefully controlled. I'm not an expert at raising trout (or fish in general as the attrition rate in our small home tank can attest) so I'm trying to follow the guidelines set out on the TIC website as closely as possible. If someone has experience with raising trout or similar cold water fish, please add your thoughts and suggestions. That said I think we'll try to accept only equipment that very closely matches the description/functionality outlined in the references linked below. If you have equipment you think might fill the needs outlined below, please contact me (tmleamon(at)yahoo.com) or via the comments section below.
Here are links to the suggested equipment lists. We have not purchased anything at this time, though I am examining several 55 gallon tanks on Craigslist. Note that the kits from ThatPetPlace do not include the tanks which I had originally priced at roughly $300 new.
Thanks for your interest and support!
http://www.troutintheclassroom.org/teachers/technical-information/equipment-list
http://www.thatpetplace.com/Trout-in-the-Classroom
And a nice schematic of the set up:
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