may 24th

May 23rd

Over time i have realized that our ecosystem can gather and collect bacteria in a matter of weeks very easily. The algae on the tank glass on the side started out little and then after a while it became bigger. I also noticed that sometimes the fish can have different attitudes and act differently then they have the day before. Its almost like they might have 'clicks'. Some day they would be swimming at the top of the tank and then others they would all be grouped up in one of the corners or they even all would sometimes swim at the bottom with a few stragglers swimming at the top. The plants i also noticed over time had grow and filled up the aquarium a lot more then it was in the beginning. I remember at first the ship that is in the back of the tank was really noticeable and was in plain view. Now the front aquatic plants are covering it for being in the view just by looking straight on.

May 22nd

During this project i learned that there is a lot more work into owning an aquarium then i thought. Many things i learned by experience start off with the water quality checks. I had no idea that there were things you had to test for in an aquarium in order to keep the fish alive. The ammonia and nitrate test were something i didn't understand at first but after a while i understood the process and what it was for. I also understood the process of changing the water and having to use the cyphon. In the water change i also realized after several times of doing water changes and not seeing the nitrate go down that sometimes it is needed to pick up the rocks because the food and fish waste can get under there and never get clean. I also realized that when doing a water change in a big tank to make sure that the water level for the filter at the bottom is filled up also to a certain line so the tank is not running dry. Next year i think the students that get assigned the bigger tanks should be allowed more time to clean out the tank because i found that this year with all the amount of work that the tanks needs to be done we didn't have enough time to change the water as much as we needed to.

may 21st

Our aquarium has remained constant through out our project. At the beggining the nitrate and ammonia was high but we fixed by changing the water. Our water quality was really good for a while because we were given more time to take care of our tank while everyone was setting up. As we continued the project we became busier and class and werent able to do as many water changes so the nitrate levels were starting to rise so we tried to do more water changes.Our fishes behavior also changed i could tell, kind of like humans. Some days they would be really energetic and other days they would be more mellow and linger around the bottom of the tank. The shrimp always lingered at the bottom and always seemed to mind there own business.

May 20th

An invasive plant is a plant that is not native to area it lives in now. Usually is from another country and creates problems in the area it was accidently introduced to. An Emergent plant that was introuduced in texas is Alligator weed. Its orgin was South America and its problem for us is that it is aggresive and mat forming. It also impedes navigationa and displaces native vegitation. Its stems are thick and green and has a white flower bud at the stop of the stem.


A free floating invasive plant is Giant Salvania which also orginitated from South America. The most common description for this weed is that it looks like lettuce. Hinting from the nickname "plant from hell" Giant salvania creates a lot of problems. It reduces the oxygen level, negatively affects water quality and habitat and they are impossible to remove from the pond.


Hydrilla is a completely submersed weed that is tall and can grow under 1% light. They can also double overnight and can grown more than an inch a day. They aalso shades out desirable native vegetation and impade naviagtion.

May 17th

Water quality has been a big part of our aquarium project this semester. When we first started i had no idea what water quality test involved or what procedures to do. Then my teachers explained the steps about the nitrate and amonnia tests. Then told us to do the basics which include temperature. At the beggining the test results were horrible so we realized we had to change the water so the nitrate level would go down. Then after the water was changed the water quality continued to get better. Until after a while the nitrate level went back up and there was another need for a water changed. I realized that haveing a big tank takes a lot of water changes and a lot of work.

May 16th

In my aquarium the test results for water quality have remained constant for the past few weeks. The results have been pretty decent although our nitrate level could do better.  Our ammonia level stayed at 0 and the temperature also remained the same at 25 degree celcius and 78 degree farenheit. The fish in our tank are also doing really well. Most of the time the fish will be swimming at the top and space out. Then other days the fish will all be swimming towards the bottom of the tank. Sometimes it will look like the fish have groups because the same fish will hangout together. 

May 15th

If there is a self sustaining ecosystem it will be an ecosystem that has all features of life. There needs to be producers, decomposers and  consumers.  Also everything in this ecosystem is able to live off each other and can live commonly in one place. The best thing about a self sustaining ecosystem is having a good nitrogen cycle. Our aquariums aren't self sustaining because we have to clean the tank and we also have motorized filters that help to also clean the tank. And we also feed them with fish food unlike in the wild.

May 14th

The nitrogen cycle is when the plants photosynthesize during the day and produce oxygen that then the fish breathe producing carbon dioxide for the plants to repeat the same process. During the night the carbon dioxide levels are high because the plants aren't able to photosynthesize because the sun is not out so the fish are using up all the oxygen and leaving carbon dioxide. Then there is bacteria that helps to. If we did not have all the components to the nitrogen cycle it would not work the same and eventually the fish and plant population would decrease.

May 13th

The water quality for my tank in class compared to a lake is defiantly a lot better. In a lake there is so much more bacteria and much more organisms that. In my tank the water is from the tap which has been filtered out and most of the bacteria has all been removed. The same thing for a river although it is going to have less bacteria then the lake it still will have more then my tank. The oxygen level will defiantly be higher though because it is moving water.

May 9th

When using a dichotomous key you begin at the top of the page starting at number one. While looking at the organism you are studying you compare its characteristics to the description in the first statement with two options. For example most start out asking if it will have color or if it wont have color. Then which ever one matches it will tell you the number to go to with two more options and this pattern continues until you come to a name with the exact descriptions. When creating our own key in class we started out the way most do by color. Then we classified the bacteria into two different groups and continued to narrow them down and create specific descriptions for all until it was narrowed down to the name. The only problems we had was trying to find enough differences to separate them enough to be noticed. We solved this problem by referring back to the notes we took in class about each bacteria that way we could have more detailed descriptions narrowing each one down specifically.

May 8th

When performing a water quality test there are three different tests you must perform. The first one is the nitrate test. This is where you put the aquarium water in a test tube and with the nitrate testing kit. With the first nitrate bottle you pour 8 drops into the test tube. Then with the second bottle you also put 8 drops and then slowly mix them together by swirling the test tube. After this you will compare the results of the color of the test tube to the test results on the sheet provided. You repeat these same steps with the ammonia test but instead of 8 drops you use 10 drops and wait 5 minutes after mixing both bottles to compare the test results. Then lastly you test the temperature by placing a thermometer in the tank and recording the results.

may 7th

Dissolved oxygen comes from two sources. These two sources are from plants and also from the atmosphere. The way the cycle works is during the day the plants produce oxygen so the O2 level is high and then during the night the CO2 level is high because the fish use the oxygen that the plants produced during the day and release back CO2. And since the sun is not out the palnts are unable to turn the CO2 into oxygen.

May 6th

Dissolved oxygen is the amount of dissolved or combined oxygen in a concentrated amount of water. To perform a dissolved oxygen test there is a dissolved oxygen test kit that you can buy that contains a good amount of test. The first thing to do is fill the glass test tube up with water from your tank. Then break the end off the glass test tube in the bottom of the small beaker provided. Then wait two minutes so the water can fully process and then compare the color to the levels provided in the kit. The level should not be below 3.

May 2nd

One of the fish we have in our tank is a goldfish. The goldfish we have is very bright in color and is very active. One reason most goldfish die is because the owners are not taking care of the tank properly. Then there is the lack of nutrition most people feed there goldfish a regular flake pellet but what they are lacking is feeding them protein as well. Most goldfish only live for a year because of poor maintenance but the truth is if they are capable of living up to 5 to 12 years.





Another fish we have in our tank is the ghost shrimp. Normally they should live in a tank that has 10 or more gallons of water.  The water temperature should be around 65 to 80 degrees. The shrimp can harass each other so it is recommended that there is 1 per gallon of water in the tank. Since they are scavengers they will eat mostly anything in the tank but also can eat pellet food. They are good for tanks because they clean up leftover food and help keep the tank clean.

May 3rd

The five components of an aqua check are free chlorine, total chlorine, total hardness, total alkalinity and PH. Free chlorine is the amount of chlorine available to kill algae and bacteria. Total chlorine is the total amount of chlorine in the water, that combines free chlorine and combined chlorine. Total harness is water with a large amount of minerals in the water. Total alkalinity is measuring the amount of acid in the water. Ph balance is whether the water is acidic or alkaline. Most fish can not survive in aquariums with a ph balance below 5 and above 9.

In aqua check test results my most recent tests show that free chlorine and total chlorine level is perfect because both are at 0. This i good because chlorine is not wanted in aquariums. The total hardness of my water is 250ppm which is average and the same as everyone elses in my class because we all used water from the tap. My total alkalinity is 180ppm which is pretty average so that is alright. Then there is my ph for the tank which measured to be 7.8. This is also a good test result because it is above 5 but also below 9.

May 1st

The field trip experience that we had was a lot of fun. The aquarium was alot more rainforest and environment then i was expecting there to be but there was still a lot of fish to explore. The things i learned on the field trip were that sloths can eat upside down, also there is the fish that you cant see its body and there is a little light at the front you can see. THe largest living arthropod is the Japanese spider crab. ALso the Arrau turtles live in the main rivers of the Orinico and Amazon basins during the dry season and then move to flood plains when its rainy. Lastly the electric eel is actually powerful enough to produce electric shocks. I loved also going to the speggatti warehouse with everyone. The worst part of the field trip was that a bird pooped on my head. But my over all experience was a lot of fun.

April 30th

Our aquarium in class is continuing to do awesome! When we checked for water quality the Nitrate did go up a little though which is because we need to clean out the dirt at the bottom of the tank again. We noticed that algae is starting to grow again at the bottom of the tank. The water is still very clear and  the ammonia is still at 0 ppm but we need to clean the tank so the nitrate will go down. The fish are also doing very well they eat regularly and are still very active in the tank. We will need to clean out the tank soon in order to get the nitrate level down and that will make the tank clean and perfect again.

April 29th

The purpose of the pollution index chart is to know the quality of the water we have in our lakes and other water sources. By knowing what type of pollution is in our water we are able to find the source and can then go and try to stop it to make our water better. If we dont test the organic pollution we could have alot of algae in our water that will make us sick.

April 26th

This week i learned that there is a lot more algae then i thought there was and that they have a lot more interesting characteristics then i thought they did. By having different types of algae in your tank some can be bad and some can be good so determining on which one is in the tank nitrate could either be good or bad.


This the Navicula algae. You can tell the water quality with them because if there are low populations with high diversity the water quality is good but if the population is high with low diversity then the water is polluted.The main problem Navicula causes is clogging up the filters in water treatment plants.

Navicula

This is the Volvox algae. It can have 500 or more cells and reproduces by its daughter cells. They are the cause for algae blooms in the summer months and can cause damage to young fish by damaging there gills. They also have a very strong fishy odor that they give off.

Volvox

This is the Anabaena algae. It is a blue-green color with a strong odor even when it is small populations. They will turn nitrogen into nitrate and are very toxic. They cause death for livestock and also may cause rashes on humans.

  

Anabaena

April 25th

In order to focus in on high power you first have to start out with the scanning lens and focus in with the coarse adjustment knob, then after that works you make your way to the low power lens also focusing with the coarse adjustment knob and then lastly you can change the lens to the high power lens where here you can only use the fine adjustment knob. When looking through a microscope you may want to make a wet slide in order to study tiny organisms. In order to make a wet and stain a wet slide first you place down a tiny  bit of the object you want to study like tiny fibers from a cotton ball. Then drop 1 to 2 drops of water and place the cover slide 45 degrees on the slide and drop down. If the cover slide wont stay that is because your fibers are to big. Then once you are done looking at that without dye you can dye your white fiber by placing a paper towel on one side of the slide and a few drops of Methylene blue on the other side and eventually the paper towel will absorb the water and the dye will go through to the slide. By doing this lab i have learned the proper way to use a microscope and feel like i am better prepared to use a microscope to discover new organisms. The most useful information i learned from was the focusing in on organisms and i know that will defiantly be something i can keep growing knowledge on.

April 24th

During the video in class about Amphibians i learned a lot more than i was expecting too.
The first thing i learned was that there is a difference between toads and frogs. I have always thought there wasn't really a way to tell unless you knew a lot about them but i discovered that the difference is toads are dry and spiky and frogs are smooth.Also frogs jump where toads walk. Other facts i learned that frogs retain moisture by using a coat of wax. And the way water goes out is by a siddle. Also frogs can only see in black and white. Some frogs have bright colors on there stomach to show that they are poisonous and to scare off predators. And lastly i learned that frogs always eat there meals alive and catch them because they have a sticky tongue. If a pond has a lot of frogs you can tell that the pond has good water quality because if it didn't there wouldn't be a lot of frogs in the area because the bacteria and disease that was making the pond sick also killed the frogs.

frog

toad

  vs.

April 23rd

Our aquarium is doing really good this week. Ever since we cleaned the rocks and all the big objects from our tank it has been in almost perfect condition! The last time we checked the water quality on April 22nd our Nitrate was a lot better then we started and is now only 5 ppm still just like last week when we first tested it after we cleaned the tank. And the ammonia is still at 0ppm. Also by just looking at the tank it is very clean looking with clean water and plants. The sand at the bottom could be cleaned better but we will have to wait until the next time we can clean our tanks. Then there are the fish. I noticed this week they all gather at the top when i open the glass about to feed them like they know they are about to be fed. I think that is really interesting that fish can do that. Other things i noticed is some days they all group together and then other days they swim independently. Just like humans i feel like all the fish have there same personality and different traits and that is something i am really noticing during this project.

April 22nd

Watersheds are very important to us. Watersheds catch the rainfall and other precipitation such as snow and carries it back down into our rivers, streams and lakes. Watersheds help our lake levels stay up and help prevent rivers from drying out. In my area i live in the Trinity watershed and if i were to go into deep detail it would be the Lewisville watershed. An important reason to to monitor the quality of our watershed is for incidents that would pollute the water that we will eventually be drinking. A great example of this is a farmer fertilizing his land with an excessive amount of fertilizer and then there being a massive rainstorm that runs through. The water will wash away the fertilizer through our watershed and end up in our drinking water. Another example is dumping old medication in the toilet and that getting into our drinking water as well and causing birth defects or other reactions. By keeping an eye on the quality of our watersheds we are on our way to having cleaner water to drink.

April 19th

Commonly known as the snapping turtle but scientifically known as the Chelydra serpentina are found all the way from southeastern Canada to edge of Rocky mountains and as far east as Florida and southwest into the northeast of Mexico. Snapping turtles are extremely strong with there jaw and can cause some damage. When out of water they are very active and have very fast movements. They are hunted for there meat where in some areas turtle is a popular meal. I chose this organism because when i was little i remember at a family reunion my uncle caught a snapping turtle and i thought it was the coolest thing so i thought by researching it i would be able to learn more interesting things about it.

April 18th

So over the past week Montana, Kendal and I all have been observing our tank regularly. We have cleaned the tank out and did a water change hoping the our high nitrate level would go down but when we did the second test we noticed no change. Our fish were still swimming very rapidly and were still full of life but we were not satisfied with our nitrate level. After discussing why this was happening with Ms.Wind we decided that it could be because of the rocks and the big ship in our aquarium were holding bacteria and left over food under them so we decided to take them out to clean and do another water change. When we took the rocks out we noticed tons of bacteria and left over food swarm through the tank and started to clean the sand to remove everything. After we did that once we tested our nitrate for the 4th time instead of our nitrate level being at 40PPm it was now down to only 5PPm. Cleaning the rocks is something very important when taking care of a big tank like that we discovered. Now our tank it cleaner then ever. The fish act the same most of the time. Sometimes they will all be swimming in the right hand corner then sometimes we will find they all will be swimming individually. The best thing about our tank is that we have so many fish that its always interesting to discover one that i have not noticed before.

April 17th ABSENT

 Phylum Ciliophora: They fuse together in order to connect and gather food together.


Phylum Saracodina: They move by motion with there rods.

Multicellular Animals: Made up of many cells and have organs like animals.

April 16th

The first career is a wildlife biologist. These biologists study the animals in lakes and ponds and rivers and look at there behavior. They watch how they interact with other wildlife animals and learn about there adaptations and interactions. Then there are the wildlife ecologists that look at how the animals adapt and fit  into there environments conditions. Then lastly there are the Entomologist that study the insects.

April 16th

The first career is a wildlife biologist. These biologists study the animals in lakes and ponds and rivers and look at there behavior. They watch how they interact with other wildlife animals and learn about there adaptations and interactions. Then there are the wildlife ecologists that look at how the animals adapt and fit  into there environments conditions. Then lastly there are the Entomologist that study the insects.

April 15th

Oligotrophic, mesotrophic and eutrophic are all related to ecological succession because over time the lakes gradually can become more shallow from droughts or the opposite can also occur when there are floods. For example a lake could start off being huge and be considered oligotrophic then the area could experience no rain for a while and become mesotrophic then after experiencing a drought for a while there could be spots in the lake that become eutrophic where the water will start to become muddy. This can also occur in the tanks we are taking care of in class if we let the bacteria take over the tank the water will become cloudy and look like a eutrophic lake would.

April 12th

Freshwater ecology is important in many ways. One big reason is we catch fish from the ponds and rivers that we eat. Then there is the fact that a lot of recreational such as boating, canoing, and water skiing. The difference between a pond and a river is that rivers normally flow into a lake where as ponds are an isolated small body of water.

April 11th

During the water issue presentations i learned alot more then i thought i was going to learn. The presentation was about the waste treatment plants where i learned that there are 6 different steps to purify the water and that we drink water from sewage that has just been filtered. Then there was global warming which didnt really teach me much because its always the basics. Then there were the damns where i learned they use dams for irrigation, flood control and navigation. Then lastly and the most interesting presentation i learned about was Highland village Pollution. They did a really good job by showing the damage done and investigating. The bathroom are cleaned with chemicals where it is then drained to the pond and ruins the pond. If i were to redo my presentation i would have thought some more clever and attention grabbing presentation material.

April 10th

Our aquarium is honestly much harder then i thought it was going to be to keep up with. When we performed the water quality tests the tanks ammonia was okay but when we did the nitrate test it was a lot worse then it should have been. This means that we need to intensely clean the sand and rocks at the bottom of our tank in order to get better water quality. Other changes that have occurred was the fish were very slow moving at first and now they are becoming more active.

April 9th

Part of the responsibility of owning a tank is that you have to perform ammonia and nitrate tests. This is  so your tank is healthy for this fish and that there are not that many toxins. First you have to perform an ammonia test which you first get a test tube with 5ML of your tank water the first drop 8 drops of bottle 1 ammonia and then 8 drops of bottle 2. Then you mix it up and wait 5 min and compare to the colors on the card to see if your tank is okay. Then you repeat the same exact steps with the nitrate except with the nitrate bottles and instead of 8 drops its 10 drops.

April 8th

This aquarium is the actual aquarium my partners and i will be taking care of for this semester. In this picture i can tell that the tank has been pretty well taken care of because the water looks clear and the fish are swimming around. When we make observations we aren't only to be looking at the fish but also the plants and sand in order to tell if the tank quality is okay. And inferences do have opinions in science because thats what an inference is, predicting what will happen with an opinion.

April 4th

In our water property demo me and Kendal had to show what solvent and solution was. So in order to do this we combined salt and water in a water bottle to show that by being a solvent, water will dissolve the salt which is the Solute. In the other presentations i learned about buoyancy which is why fish don't sink to the bottom. Then there is suspension  which is when substances do not mix. And then there is cohesion and adhesion which has to do with water hardness. And lastly i learned about conductivity which has do with electric movements. And also that saltwater is conductive.

April 5th

For my water issue we have to relate our water issues to marcus students. The topics we have are adhesion, cohesion, capillary action, and specific heat. To be honest we chose this topic this topic because we thought it was going to be something completely different but once we started to research on it we still are enjoying learning about this topic. The main one we have researched so far is adhesion which is water being attracted to other substances. Where we learned by putting on lotion after a shower it moisturizers your skin more because it is locking in the water into your skin. Our topic is not really an issue but it is still important to learn about it because it is important to know these topics.

April 3

Since we took a tank that already was set up we did not have to do anything with setting up the tank. We did have to do a lot of cleaning of the tank though. First we cleaned the glass to remove all the scum so the glass was clean. Then we cleaned the sand with a tube and filtered out the dirt into a bucket. After that we used the dechlorinator to clean the water.

April 2

For my aquarium i hope over this whole experience i will be able to learn enough so i am able to own and keep up with my own aquarium. Me kendal and montana are going to be using Ms.Woods big black tank that is already set up. So the first step we are planning to do is getting comfortable with cleaning the tank and knowing how much to feed our fish and how much dechlorinater to put into the tank. In this tank we already have fish provided for us such as shrimp, goldfish, catfish, a snail and a few other fish. In order to make sure we keep up with this tank since it is bigger than the normal 10 gallon tank we are going to have to really focus and stay on track with keeping up with our tank.

April 1st

I learned that there are alot of uses for water that we take for grantit. In the first group we had to list the things that float in the water. Sadly the majority of the things we listed to float were litter. Then we wen to a different stations that other students in my class had  where i learned and realized other things. A big one that is very common was water conservation. This is where i realized how wasteful we all really are. The amount of clean water we waste is ridiculous when we  could be saving the resources we have by not watering our lawns as much or not taking baths as often. Lastly i went to a station where we discussed the pros and cons of living by a body of water. There were a  lot of benefits living by a water such as fishing, recreational activities, and transportation. Then there were pros such as weather problems causing flooding and and mosquitos.