Frank Cowherd
02-26-2009, 2:05 PM
The Hearst Aquarium is in a pre-kindergarden class room in the Pheobie Hearst Elementary School in Northwest DC. The school was built in the 30s and the Hearst family donated the money for the building and the aquarium. When first built it was operated as a flow through with water continuously flowing through the aquarium. So likely the fish in the tank were native fishes or goldfish.
Over the intervening years we do not know much of what occurred with the aquarium, but over a year ago the school was looking for an organization to repair and restore the aquarium. PVAS (Potomac Valley Aquarium Society) got involved. The grand daughter of the Hearsts kindly donated the monies to referbish the aquarium.
Sometime in the past the aquarium was "repaired" by pouring a can of epoxy resin into the bottom apparently to fix a broken slate bottom. So when PVAS got the job it was impossible to do anything with the resin in place. Michael Barber (then the president of PVAS) headed the effort. He found a metal company near Philadelphia which took the aquarium, removed the glass and burned off the reisn, then refurbished the metal frame, replaced the concrete base with a metal frame to hold the embossed (with fish and starfish) brass frame and reinforced the marble base with another metal frame. Michael got the glass and a team of PVAS people fitted the glass into the frame. It leaked badly and we did it again. This leaked only a bit and over about 2 months I was able to stop the leaks after many visits. For each leak it took 3 visits, one to drain the tank and then let it dry, one to seal the leak area, and then a visit to refill the tank. On the last visit I got a cylinder of aquarium sealant that said it would stick to anything including old sealant, and with this I resealed all joints. It worked and the aquarium has now held water for over a month.
Well now the Hearst Aquarium is looking good !!! as you can see from the pictures below.
BTW the theme for the tank is a South American biotope, although we maybe are not strictly adhering to this.
The plants we added last week (various vals, crypts, and anubias, which were on driftwood) are doing well as are the six ancistrus who are keeping the algae under control.
This week we added more fish: 6 large pterophyllum scalare (silver angelfish), 6 corydoras paleatus (salt and pepper cats), and 6 hemigrammus rodwayi (gold tetras).
We also added a dozen more vallisneria grasses (commonly called eelgrass, tape grass or corkscrew val and other varieties of val) and a large Sag probably sagittaria platyphylla.
Here are the pictures with the captions listed below, although some were before the newer plants and the tetras were added.
1. Top view,
2 front view
3 two view of frog fountain
4 Teacher and assistant: Denice Dawson (on left) and Christina Hill with angelfish.
5 Better view of frog and embossed design in brass decoration over marble stand
6 view from lest front
7 View from right front
8 Denice and Christina's pre kindergarden class sitting on a rug with a koi pond design.
If someone knows how to put captions under each picture, PM me please.
Frank
Over the intervening years we do not know much of what occurred with the aquarium, but over a year ago the school was looking for an organization to repair and restore the aquarium. PVAS (Potomac Valley Aquarium Society) got involved. The grand daughter of the Hearsts kindly donated the monies to referbish the aquarium.
Sometime in the past the aquarium was "repaired" by pouring a can of epoxy resin into the bottom apparently to fix a broken slate bottom. So when PVAS got the job it was impossible to do anything with the resin in place. Michael Barber (then the president of PVAS) headed the effort. He found a metal company near Philadelphia which took the aquarium, removed the glass and burned off the reisn, then refurbished the metal frame, replaced the concrete base with a metal frame to hold the embossed (with fish and starfish) brass frame and reinforced the marble base with another metal frame. Michael got the glass and a team of PVAS people fitted the glass into the frame. It leaked badly and we did it again. This leaked only a bit and over about 2 months I was able to stop the leaks after many visits. For each leak it took 3 visits, one to drain the tank and then let it dry, one to seal the leak area, and then a visit to refill the tank. On the last visit I got a cylinder of aquarium sealant that said it would stick to anything including old sealant, and with this I resealed all joints. It worked and the aquarium has now held water for over a month.
Well now the Hearst Aquarium is looking good !!! as you can see from the pictures below.
BTW the theme for the tank is a South American biotope, although we maybe are not strictly adhering to this.
The plants we added last week (various vals, crypts, and anubias, which were on driftwood) are doing well as are the six ancistrus who are keeping the algae under control.
This week we added more fish: 6 large pterophyllum scalare (silver angelfish), 6 corydoras paleatus (salt and pepper cats), and 6 hemigrammus rodwayi (gold tetras).
We also added a dozen more vallisneria grasses (commonly called eelgrass, tape grass or corkscrew val and other varieties of val) and a large Sag probably sagittaria platyphylla.
Here are the pictures with the captions listed below, although some were before the newer plants and the tetras were added.
1. Top view,
2 front view
3 two view of frog fountain
4 Teacher and assistant: Denice Dawson (on left) and Christina Hill with angelfish.
5 Better view of frog and embossed design in brass decoration over marble stand
6 view from lest front
7 View from right front
8 Denice and Christina's pre kindergarden class sitting on a rug with a koi pond design.
If someone knows how to put captions under each picture, PM me please.
Frank