help Science fair

[Mark]

I would like to do a high school science fair project that has something to do with aquariums(fish plants ext.). Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

In the past I have done "how fish food effects platy growth" and "hybridizing sailfin and lyrtail mollies". And one a couple medals: this year I am stumped and can’t think of any ideas. I have about two months to test (three if done quickly).

There has to be something to test and a way to test it for example, how fish food effects platy growth. I tested 4 different foods on 4 sets of 10 platys and recorded the growth than looked at the food cans to see what helped them grow the fastest.

please help with ideas  :bsty:

Mark

[wvgdiscus]

Re: help Science fair

You can do a test of how the hardness of the water affects the platys.
If you have a RO unit.

[PhishPhreek]

Re: help Science fair

1) You can test how temperature affects growth rate by setting up multiple tanks with heaters in them - 60, 70. 80 & 90 degrees.  You would need to regulate their food supply and water quality.   And you will need a spawn of 100+ fry to stock the tanks.  Can you say convicts ?

2) You can test how pH affects the ratio of male to female offspring in live bearors.   You would need to regulate pH in multiple spawn tanks with at least 1 male & 4 adult females in each test group and you would need some method for protecting the fry from their parents.  And you would need to start with enough time to grow out the fry to a adults so you can sex them.

[Ellen]

Re: help Science fair

If you want to go a scarier route, you could test the effect of certain pollutants on the fish, but you have to be ok with the fact you might lose them. You can see what some major plants (chemical, paper, etc) are putting back into the water, etc.

Ellen

[Ellen]

Re: help Science fair

Or you could go the pollutant route and use plants instead of fish.

Ellen

[Sissy]

Re: help Science fair

For plants, you could perform tests with varing degrees of CO2 and growth rate.  Growth rate using different media.  Growth rate due to varying the number of hours lights are on.  

Or have an end objective in mind and vary the inputs.  Most people would prefer thicker plant growth verus long and thin.  Does a lot of light produce fuller growth or just tall growth?  Typically low light should give slow growing thin plants.

Testing the color spectrum on plant growth.  The colored plastic wraps could be used and or colored tissue paper.

Whatever you do decide on, let us know what supplies you need.  Some of us may have some items you could use.

[Sissy]

Re: help Science fair

Here's another idea.  Who is the better alge eater?  Have a few tanks sent up with a lot light, maybe out doors for consistancey of light with your tanks.  Use the same planting medium and the same amount of plants.  

You might have a hard time keeping the tanks equal with filters if using old filters.

Other variables will include the waste the "eater" create which could influence the amount of "food" for the algee to grow with.

[Mzungu]

Re: help Science fair

OOh, I like the spectrum idea. I'm thinking you might want to do something that can be both interesting and informative to those who don't have the chance to experiment. From what I've seen, the different spectrums of plant lights can really spark discussion on these types of boards. Also, the male/female ratio is an interesting idea, but it might be pushing it a bit (time-wise)...and there are a lot of factors and variables to control that could take a while (i.e. "never-been-pregnant" female livebearers, or else the data would be compromised, etc..)

Let us know what you decide to do! Or, like Sissy said, if you need any supplies.  

[PhishPhreek]

Re: help Science fair

Water Changes / water quality effects on growth rate.

set up equal tanks and do different water changes on them
none, 10%, 20% 30%, 40% & 50%
measure amonia, nitrites & nitrates each week before the change
and record the growth of fry raised in each tank.

Might want to put some plants in each tank and measure their growth also

[Mark]

Re: help Science fair

All the ideas are wonderfull and thanks for the suggestions. My brother might do the one on lights and plants. Ellen I like your idea but if I purposely hurt of kill a fish I will get disqualified. I might try the temperature effecting growth. I would like to do the ph effecting the sex of the fish but I don’t think I have enough time this year. I heard it will work on kribensis so I might try those I have a couple right now but they are not breeding yet I might try this next year. If I don’t do temperature I might do the ph on platies. I would need help on testing the water I don’t know how to and the test kits that came with a box of fish stuff at a garage sale look ancient. If you have more ideas don’t hesitate to post.
mark
p.s. what is a RO unit

[PhishPhreek]

Re: help Science fair

Call me and we can talk about RO = reverse osmosis units.
I just bought one and I haven't installed it yet, so we can sit down and talk about all the parts & pieces and what they do to the water.

[Ellen]

Re: help Science fair

I kind of figured that might be the case. (I wouldn't really want to do that test either, but it might be interesting considering some mutated fish that show up in polluted waters.) If you (or somebody you know) wants to do a plant experiment, you could try to create a polluted environment with  nitrogen or phospohrus to test the plants reaction... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eutrophication

Ellen

[Smokin_Cache]

Re: help Science fair

I have some light fixtures that I would loan someone for the project

2 ea 36" 96w PC with 10,000K Bulbs in them. I bet if you ask around someone would let you borrow a spare bulb of another k value.

I also have a 36" 192w PC (2x96w) we could pull the ballast out of it and I have a ballast box and end caps so this could be two more k value bulbs.