After that Joe, Lori and I spent most of the day working with Jennifer to improve our soldering skills. We started out making a very simple circuit with an LED and a resistor.
After that we moved on and mapped out a noise maker circuit and put that together. Lori opted to make hers on a bread board and it turned out very well.
I went with the soldering option. Took a little longer but I am proud of the results. I just wish it was louder...
Lori and Joe have spearheaded accumulating some data from the sensors in the artificial stream. Here is what we have collected:
On Tuesday we managed to get our prototype stream system going with 15 minnows in tank 1 and 20 in tank 4. Zac added an equal distribution of plants to each of the tanks. Our gravel throughout spout created riffles large enough to increase oxygen levels. Fish migrated from tanks 4 to tank 3 and 2 but migration was limited in tank 1. We observed that tanks 2, 3, and 4 riffles have a higher volume of water allowing fish to travel upstream. In order to increase fish mobility between each of the tanks we created small channels in gravel.
Tuesday’s results- 2:30pm:
After setting up our stream we turned on the tank pump and bubbler and took probe readings after 1 hr. (allowing fish to acclimate to environment).
***note, Dr. Hoeinghaus brought his fancy YSI 600 to help us compare Spark to something professional grade. We measured our stream system and both pH and Temperature were spot on but DO measured higher- 10.
| pH | DO (mg/L) | Temperature (C) | |
| Tank 1 | 8.27 | 8.4 | 25.4 |
| Tank 2 | 8.21 | 8.3 | 25.43 |
| Tank 3 | 8.15 | 8.2 | 25.48 |
| Tank 4 | 8.23 | 8 | 23.32 |
Fish Behavior:
When we initially added fish to tanks we observed very little to no movement. After about 5-10 min fish began to move around. After 30 min we saw fish in groups of 3-4 move very slowly through riffles in tanks 4 to 3. Four would move halfway across, 3 would retreat, and only one would make it all the way through. Sharron predicted that the bigger minnows were pregnant females and interestingly enough we observed that they would stay closer to the floor of the tanks.
As we suspected, tank number 1, which has the bubbler hose, has the highest DO concentration decreasing in tanks 2, 3, then 4. pH was all over the place- no consistency. Tank 4, which has the pump motor seemed to have the lowest temperature. We turned off pump over our 4th of July break (a total of 36 hrs.) and took the following readings:
Thursday- 9:30am
| pH | DO (mg/L) | Temperature (C) | |
| Tank 1 | 8 | 7 | 20.32 |
| Tank 2 | 8 | 7.4 | 20.31 |
| Tank 3 | 8 | 7.6 | 20.31 |
| Tank 4 | 8 | 7.4 | 20.3 |
We observed that tank 3 has the highest concentration of plant matter and also higher DO. We suspect these are directly linked. Lori noted that lights were off during this period so photosynthesis would have decreased (although experiments show room lights have little influence on photosynthesis; the greatest contributor to photosynthesis is our sun) but cell respiration would have increased. We also observed tank 4 has the highest number of minnows. This again would yield a lower DO although minnows can gulp up air from the surface when exposed to harsh conditions.
Our next step will be to measure again once the pump and bubbler have been on for two hours to compare data.
11:30am
| pH | DO (mg/L) | Temperature (C) | |
| Tank 1 | 7.86 | 7.8 | 20.1 |
| Tank 2 | 7.9 | 7.2 | 20.14 |
| Tank 3 | 7.9 | 7.7 | 20.09 |
| Tank 4 | 7.9 | 7.3 | 20.05 |
As expected after running the pump for 2 hrs. DO levels rose in a couple of the tanks. Tank 1, which has bubbler, rose significantly +.8. Tank 2, -.2. Tank 3, +.1. And Tank 4, -.1. No consistency here. I think what’s happening is that fish are migrating from tank to tank which fluctuates DO levels. Also, Spark probes might not be giving accurate data.
2:30pm
| pH | DO (mg/L) | Temperature (C) | |
| Tank 1 | 8.07 | 7.5 | 20.12 |
| Tank 2 | 8.03 | 7.4 | 20.07 |
| Tank 3 | 8.03 | 7.1 | 20.07 |
| Tank 4 | 8 | 7.7 | 20.08 |
Another set of data with varying numbers- no consistency. My next thought is volume of water affecting concentration of DO.
No comments:
Post a Comment