Setting Up a Mohave tui chub (MTC) Display Aquarium

One Monday in early February, a visited was paid to Bob Hilburn at the Desert Discovery Center in Barstow. The purpose of the visit was to see the three tanks that he set up at the center through a research grant with Debra Hughson (NPS). For more information about the goals of this project visit one of these two links: link one or link two. The goal of this visit was to make a create a materials list in an attempt to replicate the setup at the Discovery Center at the Lewis Center in Apple Valley.

Later on that evening, while driving back from Barstow, another visit was paid to the Victorville PetSmart in an attempt to acquire a donation of supplies or funding to help set up the Lewis Center MTC display aquarium. I was given the name and number of Joanne Sherry in Arizona that oversees corporate donations. A week letter after our phone conversation the Lewis Center's display aquarium project was given $400 dollars in gift cards to help begin the project. The items in the following slide-show were purchased with PetSmart's donation online with the exception of the aquarium stand.

The MTC aquarium display will be set up in the back of the Technology Building on the Lewis Center's Mojave River Campus once the permitting process allowing the school to be in possession of an endangered species is completed. The process was begun early in February, 2008. One April 2nd, 2008, the aquarium display was installed. It has been filled with well water from the same well that will be used to replenish Deppe Pond, a soon to be operational refugium for the MTC. A web cam, installed in early August, 2008, allows you to view the MTC in the display online. Double click on the image of the aquarium at right to view in "real time the display. We hope to have MTC in the display by mid-October 2008.

To be continued...