First Tank!

We have our first tank in construction! It's so exciting! Our dream is becoming a reality. And soon that dream will be shared with all of you! Here are pictures of the tank construction:

We also have an update on how everything is going. I mentioned last time that we were waiting on our tax number and it should have come last month. Well, sadly, we haven't got it yet and talking to the IRS about it doesn't help. They have recently told us they are backed up and we have to wait. How long it'll take we don't know. We are hoping that it will be within the next few months. This will slow down our progress sadly.

Without the tax number we can't ask for grants or donations from businesses. We can, however, still except donations and  help from our wonderful supporters, like you! We have various fundraisers that we will be doing and we hope to do another kickstarter soon. The only problem is we have to have a higher goal in order to provide our supporters and fans the best possible price on the T-Shirts.

So what we need from you guys is to buy t-shirts and tell your friends to as well. Then we can reach our goal and get more tanks built! And have more money saved so we can open our doors to you. So look for a kickstarter to be popping up on our Facebook page in the next few months.

We are also selling tanks (like the one pictured) to businesses that would like to house them until the East Idaho Aquarium is open. How it works is, you buy 175 gallon tank. It is 6 feet long, includes fish and decor, filters, stand and FREE maintenance every week or two until the aquarium is open (normally $200+ a month.) You will also get a rock engraved with your business name or logo on it.

This rock will be transferred to the aquarium when it opens as well and will be free advertising for your company, telling others that you helped make the East Idaho Aquarium a possibility. These tanks are $1,500 to purchase. They can also be used as a tax write off when you return them (donate them back) to the East Idaho Aquarium.

Look for all our wonderful fundraisers that we will be doing soon. And don't forget to tell your friends to help us out too!

Like our Facebook page, support our fundraisers, donate, and come volunteer if you can! We love the help of others!

Thanks for reading!

EIA

Goals for 2014

This year some of our goals for the aquarium are to:

~Get our Tax Exempt number and write grants for funds.

~Raise the funds to start building the aquarium.

~Build and sell tanks to be housed in temporary places until the aquarium is open.

~Settle on a location and finish the process of securing it.

~Finish revising our Business Plan.

~Finish our new and official website.

Here are the ways we want to accomplish each goal:

~Getting our Tax Exempt number is just a matter of waiting for the IRS to send us back our information. We have applied and sent it in so it is only a matter of time. We were told to expect it this month. Hopefully we get it and can start getting lots of grants and really get the aquarium going! 

~To raise funds, besides writing grants when we can, we will be doing fundraisers, letting our wonderful fans adopt fish that will be in our aquarium and accepting donations. As well as selling tanks to businesses.

~We want to start construction on our tanks. We want to make several 175 gallon tanks and sell them to businesses to keep in their buildings. This will help us advertise, help businesses get more customers, and when the aquarium is almost ready we will take the tanks back and have engraved rocks in those tanks stating who had bought them and therefore giving advertising to that company. It can be used as a tax write off for those businesses stating they donated the tank to us. Here are the details:

          ~175 gallons

          ~6 feet long

          ~Includes fish and decor

          ~Filters

          ~Engraved rock with Business's name

          ~Stand

          ~FREE maintenance! (This would normally cost $200+ a month) 

Please contact us on Facebook or through this blogs email if you or someone you know is interested.

~We have a location in mind and have been in contact with the owners. We are, however, still open to other suggestion and locations. And we are, of course, willing to look into a building that someone would want to donate to us for the location of our aquarium. The building we are looking at will be more of a start up building and we would want to upgrade to a bigger and more permanent building sometime in the future. 

~We are in the process of revising our Business Plan. We have to make a few changes and make sure we have everything covered and taken care of. If anyone knows how to write business plans and would be willing to help us out we would gladly accept help. 

~We also have someone working on our official website! We are hoping we can get it done and up and running in the next few months. It is going to be awesome and we are super excited for everyone to see it! 

So that is our update on our goals and plans for this year. I will continue to update you guys on what is happening as we complete goals and have more come up. Keep looking for updates as the year goes on! 

Adopt-A-Tank-Inhabitant- Mushroom Coral

Our Adopt-A-Tank-Inhabitant of the Day is the Mushroom Coral If you are interested in adopting today's highlighted inhabitant as a donation to the East Idaho Aquarium please contact eastidahoaquarium@yahoo.com for more details.

The Actinodiscus Mushrooms, commonly as known mushroom coral, are also referred to as Mushroom Anemones and Disc Anemones. They were previously in a genus called Discosoma. These invertebrates display a wide variety of colors, textures, and patterns. An Actinodiscus Mushrooom receives some of its nutritional requirements through the photosynthesis of the symbiotic algae zooxanthellae which it hosts. It also feeds on other nutrients and particulate matter and benefits from additional food in the form of micro-plankton or brine shrimp fed to each polyp of the colony.