Dichotomous Key

Take a picture of the dichotomous key you designed and the them explain the importance of using one when assessing a water body

our algae dichotomous key

A Dichotomous key is a type of chart that helps you find an organism based on characteristics and traits that leads to the identification of that organism. In a water body, it can tell you what is what when your just given characteristics. 

Purpose, materials and Procedure: Aquarium

Aquarium Lab Report

Title: My Aquarium

Purpose: to monitor a freshwater ecosystem and to collect/ interpret data

Materials:

• pitcher
• plug
• cup 
• water
• tank (mine is a 1.5 gallon)
• dechlorinator
• bacteria
• gravel 
• light
• decor
• live aquarium plants
• hiding spot
• ammonia test kit
• filter
• nitrite test kit
• food 
• towels
• fish net
• food
• strainer/siv
• 4 guppies (male)

Procedure (steps):

1. clean tank/ aquarium
2. use strainer/ siv with warm water to clean gravel
3. rinse aquarium/tank with water (NO SOAP)
4. place gravel and decor in empty aquarium
5. gravel first
6. decor second
7. use pitcher and fill aquarium with tap water
8. pour gently so you don't agitate the gavel and decor
9. if water spills, use paper towels
10. add dechlorinator and bacteria
11. wait 24 hours so aquarium can stabilize
12. test water with nitrite and ammonia test kit
13. if tests register "OK" add fish
14. pour guppies into fish net
15. immediately add fish to aquarium ( 4 male guppies)

my aquarium

Qualitative Data (Observations):
9-18-13

•  added clam to tank
• fish tend to swim near top
• added 2 more plants

9-19-13

• ammonia spike(2.0)
• water change

9-24-13

• fish disappeared at the beginning of class then reappeared at the end of class
• water=clear
• plants look healthy

10-2-13

• nitrite shot up to 5.0 mg/l
• water=clear
• plants look healty
• ammonia=.50mg/l

10-7-13

• ammonia is 0
• nitrite shot up to 5.0mg/l
• fish in filtration (still alive) :)

10-9-13

• fish look good
• water=clear
• fish ate today
• ammonia=good
• nitrite=bad

10-10-13

• ammonia=good
• nitrite=5.0mg/l
• plants look healthy and green
• fish still swim near the top

Conclusion Questions:

1. Ammonia: it comes from fish waste and excess food; extremely toxic to fish; important to check because if not monitored high levels can lead to fish death.

Nitrite: comes from Nitrosomonas bacteria in an aquarium; not as toxic as ammonia but still toxic; important to check because if not monitored high levels can lead to fish death.

Nitrate: comes from Nitrobactor bacteria in an aquarium; not very toxic in an aquarium and good for plants; important to check because if not monitored high levels can lead to fish death.

Temperature: is important because some fish can only live in certain temperatures 

pH: The acidity or baseness of a liquid where 7 is neutral. From 6.8 to 7.8 is the ideal pH for fish. 4= fish reproduction is affected and 3= fish death

Conductivity:  a measure of how well a liquid conducts electricity, its important because it measures nutrients in the water(?).

Dissolved Oxygen: Measures how much oxygen is in the water; its important to check because if you're fish don't get enough oxygen they can die.

Hardness: a measure of dissolved minerals in water

Alkalinity: the buffering capacity of water; it's important because it tells how well a liquid can resist changes

Chlorine: Chlorine is a disinfectant in tap water that is very harmful to fish gills.

2. The nitrogen cycle starts when you feed the fish. The fish's waste turns to ammonia which can and will kill it if the level gets to high. It's as poisonous to your fish as carbon monoxide is to humans. Luckily, after a few days ammonia eating bacteria starts to form eating away at the ammonia. This bacteria is called nitrosomonous bacteria and produces Nitrite as a result of "eating" the ammonia. Then another bacteria starts to form called Nitrobacter. It gets rid of  the Nitrite which is less poisonous than ammonia, but still bad for your fish. Nitrate is formed as a result of the Nirtobacter. Nitrate can be absorbed by the live plants in your aquarium as a fertilizer. Over time, the live plant can improve water quality.

3. My water quality has changed many times over the course of the aquarium project. Specifically the nitrite and ammonia levels. I have a small aquarium so it requires more maintenance than I have time for. So what I'm having problems keeping under control are the ammonia and nitrite. Some days it will be fine and not have a problem, but on days like 10-1-13, I have a large problem with these levels.

4. The oxygen/ carbon dioxide cycle is important because it is what helps regulate the amount of oxygen and carbon dioxide in an aquatic ecosystem. During the day, plants and some plankton photosynthesize to make oxygen in the water. Fish and other organisms breathe in the O2 produced by the plants and breathe out the CO2. The CO2 is then absorbed by the plants and plankton and the cycle starts again. However at night, plants can't photosynthesize without light so CO2 levels rise until morning when the sun starts to provide light.

5. The problems I had with this project were keeping the ammonia and nitrites down and getting them both to 0 mg/L. To solve these problems you just have to be patient. Let the cycle happen while keeping up with routine water changes and the aquarium will stabilize itself.

6. What I learned was, how to take care of fish, keeping a journal of observations and data, making, watching and caring for an aquarium, there are different cycles that affect the stability of the aquarium, and how to test for water quality.

7. The most interesting thing that happened was watching my fishes' behavior. There were 4 male guppies, and they just kept around the top of the aquarium between the plants. The worst thing was having spikes in ammonia and nitrite. It really scared me because the levels got really high sometimes and I wouldn't have enough time to do a water change, I thought I would loose all of them. However, they proved to be real hardy fish and made it through. The weirdest thing that happened was when I'd be looking through my tank and I couldn't find one guppy for about 3 days. I looked in the filter and I found him in a pocket of flowing, filtered water (he was still alive).

8. My favorite part of the project was just having the aquarium itself. It gave me something to look forward to everyday.

9. Advice I'd give to next year's students would be to not use a small aquarium. I'd be best for you and your fish to have a larger aquarium. To make this project better, I'd say have more time with the aquariums.

Water Quality Analysis Chart

Date		Ammonia		Nitrite		Temperature
9/4/2013		1.0 mg/L		0 mg/L		22⁰C/ 77⁰F
9/5/2013		.25 mg/L		.50 mg/L		25⁰C/ 76⁰F
9/9/2013		.50 mg/L		0 mg/L		26⁰C/ 80⁰F
9/10/2013		.25 mg/L		0 mg/L		26⁰C/ 80⁰F
9/11/2013		1.0 mg/L		0 mg/L		26⁰C/ 80⁰F
9/12/2013		.50 mg/L		0 mg/L		26⁰C/ 80⁰F
9/17/2013		1.0 mg/L		0 mg/L		26⁰C/ 80⁰F
9/18/2013		.25 mg/L		0 mg/L		26⁰C/ 80⁰F
9/19/2013		2.0 mg/L		0 mg/L		27⁰C/ 81⁰F
9/23/2013		.50 mg/L		0 mg/L		27⁰C/ 81⁰F
9/24/2013		.50 mg/L		0 mg/L		26⁰C/ 80⁰F
9/30/2013		1.0 mg/L		1.0 mg/L		27⁰C/ 81⁰F
10/1/2013		.50 mg/L		5.0 mg/L		30⁰C/ 82⁰F
10/7/2013		0 mg/L		5.0 mg/L		26⁰C/ 80⁰F
10/9/2013		0 mg/L		1.0 mg/L		27⁰C/ 81⁰F
10/10/2013		.25 mg/L		5.0 mg/L		27⁰C/ 81⁰F
10/15/2013		0 mg/L		5.0 mg/L		28⁰C/ 81⁰F
10/16/2013		0 mg/L		0 mg/L		27⁰C/ 81⁰F

Chart A: Aqua Check

Chart B: Water Quality

Chart C: Nitrogen Cycle

Watersheds

Discuss the following information:
Define
What watershed do you live in? What is your watershed address?
What are the benefits of watershed?
What are some of the problems caused by people that affect the watershed.

A watershed is an area of land where water drains from high altitudes into a single body such as a lake and flows to a larger body of water like an ocean.

- The watershed we live closest to is the Elm Fork of the Trinity River.

-The specific address or HUC is 12030103

-Benefits of Watersheds are they are great spots for recreation, agriculture and water consumption.

-Some problems are pollution, zebra mussels, trash, and algae blooms from fertilizer run-off.

Fish Day

Pick a freshwater fish and discuss the following:

• Scientific name
• Reproduction
• Habitat
• Food
• Predator prey relationship
• 3 interesting facts

My fish is the Celestial Pearl Danio

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7213/7123055399_0edcdda82f_z.jpg

Scientific Name: Danio margaritatus
Reproduction: Females produce small batches of around 30 eggs every spawning. The period between breeding is unknown . The eggs are hidden away in plants as a loose batch. Courting males will seek out and try to defend a patch of dense vegetation. The eggs hatch after 3–4 days.
Habitat: These guys are found in a series of groundwater or spring-fed ponds. The area is mostly grassland and rice paddies, so the ponds are open to the sun and filled with a variety of aquatic plants.
Food: They are mostly omnivores
Predator/Prey Relationship: Eats small animals like, shrimp every once in a while
3 Interesting facts:
-they have very,very small teeth
-discovered in 2006, and were thought to be a "computer generated picture" when first found
-another name for them is "galaxy rasbora"

Algae Search Lab

Students will observe organisms found in algae. These organisms are a good food source for your fish. Students will identify, take a picture using a microscope, collect and add to aquariums. Record you observations as you add organisms to aquarium water. What did your fish do when you added them? How many survived being eaten?

Observations: Fish tried to eat the snails I added. I put them in at the bottom of the tank. They're alive, they stick to the back. And with the black background, you probably cant see them.

Here's a leech Ms. Wood found in one of the samples of the water.

My camera doesn't take very good pictures but I did see some seed shrimp and scuds.

Nitrogen Cycle

Post a picture of you aquarium nitrogen cycle illustration. Then give a detailed explanation of how the nitrogen cycle works

The nitrogen cycle can happen in an aquarium. 

My Illustration:

It all starts when you feed the fish. The fish's waste turns to ammonia which can and will kill it if the level gets to high. It's as poisonous to your fish as carbon monoxide is to humans. Luckily, after a few days ammonia eating bacteria starts to form eating away at the ammonia. This bacteria is called nitrosomonous bacteria and produces Nitrite as a result of "eating" the ammonia. Then another bacteria starts to form called Nitrobacter. It gets rid of  the Nitrite which is less poisonous than ammonia, but still bad for your fish. Nitrate is formed as a result of the Nirtobacter. Nitrate can be absorbed by the live plants in your aquarium as a fertilizer. Over time, the live plant can improve water quality.

Simplified:

food-->fish-->ammonia-->nitrosomonous bacteria-->Nitrite-->nitrobacter bacteria-->Nitrate-->Live plants-->improved water quality

Video: Freshwater Careers

Pick three careers you found most interesting and discuss why you chose them. Use pictures to illustrate.

The careers I found the most interesting were the Water Chemists, Entomologists, and Wildlife Biologists. 
I chose Water Chemist because I find studying water chemistry interesting and finding out what can and can't live there.

http://nick.wyershosting.com/img/Water%20Chemistry%20tw2011.png

I like Entomology because it's a great chance to look at nature and Insects. It's also "hands on" and I like that.

http://www.exposureguide.com/images/photographing-insects/photographing-insects1-e.jpg

Finally, I chose Wildlife Biology because I love animals and would love to learn more about them. Like where the live and how they behave.

http://vetnetlln.ac.uk/cave/careers/a_z/cat/1.html

River Model

Wednesday, 9/4 Observations on River Model Each class will have a different set of observations to make on the river model.

Period 2: Will take pictures of each fish with the following observations - length, color, type. Data will be recorded in the data log book

Observations pool 1

Length: 1-1.5 in.

Color: Orange and brown

Type: Minos

Amount: 28, lost 2 brown Minos to the pump

Temperature and Density Demonstration

before

What Happened: the blue and red water (left) mixed and the red and blue water (right) sat on top of each other.
Why it happened: (the left example) the cold water is more dense than the hot, so they mixed. (The Right example) The red water is less dense than the blue and so they sat on top of each other.

after

Connection: When fishing, you need to know where the Thermal Cline is so that you know where the fish are. they could either be above or below it depending on what you're fishing for.

Water Property

My group's water properties were temperature and density. Temperature is a measure of how hot or cold a substance is. Density is how compact a substance is. For our demonstration, we used hot and cold water to show how temperature can affect the water's density. We poured cold water into hot water and they separated because of their different temps. and densities. The connection found was when you go fishing, fish gravitate to different temperatures of water and this is important to know when you fish. I didn't know that before.