Stocking Ideas

Though actually buying the fish is a long ways away, right now we throwing around a lot of ideas for how we want to stock the tank. The plan is for a peaceful community tank with lots of diversity in fish size and color. Since this tank is all about the integration of science and art, we determined that GloFish, a genetically engineered zebra danio that glows under blacklight, would be the perfect centerpiece. For more on GloFish, you can see their official website here: http://www.glofish.com/.

Electric Green, Sunburst Orange, and Starfire Red GloFish

Zebra danios/glofish are a peaceful fish that do well in schools. We plan on having anywhere from 10-15 of them depending on how we stock the tank. They generally are 2.5" when fully grown and come in red, blue, orange, and green. Danios are fast swimmers and top dwellers, so the hope is for them to be very active in the tower of the tank.

A mature boesemani rainbow fish

Adding to the color of the tank will be around 6 Boesemani rainbow fish. A schooling fish named for its brilliant orange-->blue scales, the rainbow fish prefers to swim in wide as opposed to tall areas, making it perfectly suited for upper levels of the lower pool of the tank.

The third school of fish will be 7 of some sort of tetra. We are considering white or black skirt tetra as well as black phantom tetras or diamond tetras. Some of these fish have a reputation for being nippy, so if we choose to have a type of fish with flowing fins or long tails (like a guppy), we will have to adjust which tetra we plan to buy.

A corydora catfish

Inhabiting the bottom of the tank pool will be corydora catfish. This bottom dwelling fish schools together and is an excellent "clean up crew" for freshwater tanks. We will likely have 6 of them, though we might switch out the "cories" for a type of plecostomus (another freshwater bottom dweller) depending on local availability. Plecos can get rather large if you aren't careful about which species you purchase, and we don't want to end up with a fish that will be too big for its home.

In addition, we will have a single honey dwarf gourami in the tank. This small fish does well in community tanks as it is generally very peaceful. However, it does get aggressive with members of its own kind, so there will be only one in the GraviTank. The gourami is a close cousin of the "siamese fighting fish," the betta fish, which is one of the most popular pet fish. Both species are labyrinth fish or anabantoids, meaning they have a type of "lung" (it's not a lung, it's the labyrinth organ) with which they can breath air from the surface. This is a great boon in the often poorly oxygenated waters these fish come from.

Colorful guppies

Lastly, we are debating between getting a small group (4-6) of guppies, mollies, or platies. All of these fish are notorious for constantly reproducing and over running their tanks with fry. But since GraviTank will have such a variety of species, eggs and fry will be tasty treats for the other fish far before they reach maturity. We will have to be wary of other fish fin nipping at the guppies if we get them, which might make the mollies or platies a better choice. Both fish come in a variety of colors and are very pretty.

We will hopefully have live plants and good hiding places for all of these fish. More on that to come.

Design

Current dimensions: Lower tank is 4ft x 2ft x 1 ft, and the tower is 1ft x 1 ft x 3ft, with four mouths on the bottom 9in x 7in. Water level in the lower tank is estimated to be about 10in.

The Goals of the Project

GraviTank is a project to design, build, and stock a large aquarium as a permanent installation in East Campus. This project involves four people using several disciplines, including mechanical engineering to design and build the tank, electrical engineering to install multi-colored LEDs, biology in selecting the compatible fish and plant life, and art to create a pleasing visual appearance. The tank will be a 75-gallon version of a "bottomless" tank, an aquarium with a large, shallow base, and a tower of water in the center held up by a lack of air pressure at the top of the tower. A 3-D rendering of the tank has been included in the supplemental materials. Gravitank will be constructed out of polycarbonate sheets, glued together with epoxy and sealed with aquarium-grade silicon glue. All materials used to make the tank will be certified kitchen-grade and thus completely safe to the fish. Our team will use fifty LEDs to light the tank, in addition to the standard tank lighting required for healthy fish and plant growth. The LEDs will cycle through five color channels, providing a variety of lighting options to enhance the natural tones of the fish. In the spirit of the arts at MIT, the centerpiece of our tank will be GloFish. Genetically engineered by injecting GFP DNA into the common zebra danio, the beautiful GloFish is a living example of melding art and science. The GloFish will be just one of the diverse array of fish we are planning for the tank. Other fish, including boesemani rainbow fish, corydora catfish, tetras, and mollies, will complement the GloFish and lead to a peaceful, healthy aquarium full of color and life. GraviTank’s aquascape will be organic. We will use driftwood and live plants (java ferns, Christmas moss, hornwort, and other low-maintenance plants) to create a natural feel to the tank, providing a safe environment for the animals without distracting viewers from the fish.

Our main goal in working on GraviTank is to build a vivid, dynamic piece of art that shows that many different disciplines can work together to create something amazing. Our community already puts a great deal of effort into beautifying our living space, through murals and other installations, and our team feels that GraviTank can be our contribution to mixing art and science at MIT.

The immediate impact of this project will happen right after its completion at the end of August. Our goal is to finish building and stocking the tank by the start of undergraduate freshman orientation. We feel that this tank is a great way to introduce freshman to MIT, as it involves so much of what we do. The tank will be viewable by all students at any time, and we will have an reception during Rush to display the tank and answer any questions others might have about GraviTank. After this, the tank will be on permanent display in East Campus, and remain a fixture for all future residents and visitors to see.