3rd grade science project - Need books on livebearer breeding

[jarrodaden]

My son has to pick a subject for a 3rd grade science project.

I thought it would be really fun to do a study on the breeding of livebearers. In the interest of keeping this project on a third grade level, I thought that we could setup a simple 10 gallon tank with a mated pair of livebearers like mollies.

The project could be to study how one variable (temperature or food type) would affect the quantity of fry.

As an example, we could keep the tank at 75 degrees for a month and count the fry, then we could change it to 80 degrees and count for another month.

Alternatively, we could feed flakes one month and then frozen brine shrimp the next month.

I would really appreciate any input. What I am really looking for is a KNOWN variable that will result in a significant change in fry numbers. It would be a shame to do the project and not get any meaningful results.

Thanks.

[Nickintex]

If you had a second tank, you could test to see if salinity affected brood size, since mollies can live in fresh, brackish, and full seawater.

[myjohnson]

I would do two tanks at once to save on time.

I bet food don't mean such to these guys as long as you feed them something.

The temp would play a bigger role. Good variable to test.

[imagirlgeek]

I'll go ahead and post this, you can take it or leave it because I have nothing scientific to back it up. It was pretty much just an accident. But here's some experience I have had with plain jane guppies.

We bought some feeder guppies thinking we could breed them to feed to our big fish. Put them in a 10 gallon, bare bottom, floating plants, with a heater. Fed them tropical fish flakes. No breeding. It was confusing because guppies are supposed to breed just by adding water, right? :) Not for us.

So a couple of months later, we gave up and moved them all into a tank that housed 2 of our puffers thinking the puffers would go ahead and snack on them. This tank was a 29g, planted, no heater, and the guppies ate the excess bloodworms we fed to the puffers. They immediately started breeding. And I mean BREEDING. It is so out of control in that tank I had to upgrade the filtration to accommodate all the extra fish.

Now to add to this, and possibly narrow down the cause of the crazy breeding, we put some guppies in another 29g (with another puffer), heater, no bloodworms (this puffer eats krill so I feed the guppies in this tank flake food), plants, and the breeding is minimal.

Take what you want from all this, but I think maybe bloodworms have something to do with it, and possibly heat vs. no heat.

[Mzungu]

Hmm, interesting!

When is this project due? Many livebearers can hold sperm from males for consecutive births after the first. If you have enough time, I would isolate whichever females you plan to participate so the variable you choose won't be skewed by the fact that they were already knocked up prior to introducing that variable.

[lilmissruffcountry]

75 and flake food will have less fry then 80 and brine(known fact)....(brine, or other "high" protien food). Another variable you could do is brine verses flake food, being fed to males affecting their color, along with the temps too...works best in yellow or red toned guppies. This way their would be no "BABY" questions....like "OH, thats where babies come from"

Using males only with color test would prolly be better suited for 3rd grade, but your the one that will get the ?'s....) not me.

Hope this helps.

My son has to pick a subject for a 3rd grade science project.

I thought it would be really fun to do a study on the breeding of livebearers. In the interest of keeping this project on a third grade level, I thought that we could setup a simple 10 gallon tank with a mated pair of livebearers like mollies.

The project could be to study how one variable (temperature or food type) would affect the quantity of fry.

As an example, we could keep the tank at 75 degrees for a month and count the fry, then we could change it to 80 degrees and count for another month.

Alternatively, we could feed flakes one month and then frozen brine shrimp the next month.

I would really appreciate any input. What I am really looking for is a KNOWN variable that will result in a significant change in fry numbers. It would be a shame to do the project and not get any meaningful results.

Thanks.

[jarrodaden]

I'll go ahead and post this, you can take it or leave it because I have nothing scientific to back it up. It was pretty much just an accident. But here's some experience I have had with plain jane guppies.

We bought some feeder guppies thinking we could breed them to feed to our big fish. Put them in a 10 gallon, bare bottom, floating plants, with a heater. Fed them tropical fish flakes. No breeding. It was confusing because guppies are supposed to breed just by adding water, right? :) Not for us.

So a couple of months later, we gave up and moved them all into a tank that housed 2 of our puffers thinking the puffers would go ahead and snack on them. This tank was a 29g, planted, no heater, and the guppies ate the excess bloodworms we fed to the puffers. They immediately started breeding. And I mean BREEDING. It is so out of control in that tank I had to upgrade the filtration to accommodate all the extra fish.

Now to add to this, and possibly narrow down the cause of the crazy breeding, we put some guppies in another 29g (with another puffer), heater, no bloodworms (this puffer eats krill so I feed the guppies in this tank flake food), plants, and the breeding is minimal.

Take what you want from all this, but I think maybe bloodworms have something to do with it, and possibly heat vs. no heat.

Frozen bloodworms, right? I don't want to have to fool with live food.

[imagirlgeek]

Yes, frozen. :)

[lachupacabra]

At a zoological camp I went to this summer, they taught us that breeding is a sign of optimum conditions. That means they have plenty of food, mental and physical stimulation, Good health, safety from predators, and shelter.

Thenagain that was for marine mammals, fish might be different.

[PhishPhreek]

I'll go ahead and post this, you can take it or leave it because I have nothing scientific to back it up. It was pretty much just an accident. But here's some experience I have had with plain jane guppies.

We bought some feeder guppies thinking we could breed them to feed to our big fish. Put them in a 10 gallon, bare bottom, floating plants, with a heater. Fed them tropical fish flakes. No breeding. It was confusing because guppies are supposed to breed just by adding water, right? :) Not for us.

So a couple of months later, we gave up and moved them all into a tank that housed 2 of our puffers thinking the puffers would go ahead and snack on them. This tank was a 29g, planted, no heater, and the guppies ate the excess bloodworms we fed to the puffers. They immediately started breeding. And I mean BREEDING. It is so out of control in that tank I had to upgrade the filtration to accommodate all the extra fish.

Now to add to this, and possibly narrow down the cause of the crazy breeding, we put some guppies in another 29g (with another puffer), heater, no bloodworms (this puffer eats krill so I feed the guppies in this tank flake food), plants, and the breeding is minimal.

Take what you want from all this, but I think maybe bloodworms have something to do with it, and possibly heat vs. no heat.

I'll second that - when I'm raising bettas, I hatch lots of baby brine shrimp to feed them and when they get larger I usually have an excess of BBS so I feed them to my livebearers and there is usually a population explosion.

You may want to try variables like pH, or Hardness as well as temp and lighting.
may be fun to see how they affect the sex or your fry. 10g tanks are cheap and you can set quite a few of them on on a rack or shelving system so that it can be done in a coulple of months rather than 6 to 12. Plastic sweater boxes from WallyWorld are even cheaper........

[jarrodaden]

bump for somefishguy.

In the interest of keeping it simple, I think we will test temperature and food type. Fairly easy for my third grader to manage.

Lots of great ideas from all of you. Maybe I will get my son hooked and he can tinker more after the project is finished.

[PhishPhreek]

it may help to hook him if you let him make the choice.

[jarrodaden]

He is definitely interested in this science fair topic. I just hope he sticks with it after the project is over.

BTW, if anyone has any breed ready guppies they don't want in the Meyerland area I am interested.

[jarrodaden]

Update - Just read the fine print on the science project form and he has to find three printed sources (books) to reference in his report.

I am looking for cheap informative books that I can buy locally. Alternatively, if someone can lend us books long enough to get the information that we need that would be excellent. We are in Meyerland.

Thanks.

[Roujin]

Have tried doing a PubMed (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PubMed) for sources? You can see most abstracts for some scientific papers and some full text articles are free.