Help me pick an experiment

[Gregg @ ADP]

My IB bio students are starting their Internal Assessments after spring break, and will be spending a month working on their investigations. In the spirit of the thing, I’ve decided to use that time to do my own, rather than spend a month sitting there staring at them and drinking coffee.

So, pick one for me.

My two RQs right now:

1) Can reef aquarium Ostreopsis dinoflagellate populations be controlled through natural consumption and interspecific competition?

2) Can reef aquarium matter inputs be managed through growth of reef micro and macro fauna?

3) Write-in idea?

The second one needs some work to become a little more targeted, but you get the idea.

I would anticipate whatever investigation I do taking the rest of the school year (~90 days) to get any kind of meaningful data, so I want to get going soon. I have a culture of Ostreopsis going, as well as some other types of algae, and will be utilizing a fresh shipment of Tampa Bay Live rock for at least the 1st RQ.

If there is something along those lines that you would like to see, or another question that can be explored through the same set-up, write it in. Or I guess write anything in…you all might come up with a better idea than i came up with. Once I determine the investigation, I will start a new thread.

Thanks!

 

[doubleshot00]

In for number 1. That would be awesome.

Q the guy that says he did it “the natural way”.

 

[Gregg @ ADP]

In for number 1. That would be awesome.

Q the guy that says he did it “the natural way”.

Yeah, I like that one, b/c I definitely want to see if there is actually some significant data and determine if there is truly a correlation.

It will be a little harder to set up, but also might not take as long. Seems like #2 would be best if it went at least 180 days (although I’m sure 90 days would reveal decent data)

 

[Garf]

My IB bio students are starting their Internal Assessments after spring break, and will be spending a month working on their investigations. In the spirit of the thing, I’ve decided to use that time to do my own, rather than spend a month sitting there staring at them and drinking coffee.

So, pick one for me.

My two RQs right now:

1) Can reef aquarium Ostreopsis dinoflagellate populations be controlled through natural consumption and interspecific competition?

2) Can reef aquarium matter inputs be managed through growth of reef micro and macro fauna?

3) Write-in idea?

The second one needs some work to become a little more targeted, but you get the idea.

I would anticipate whatever investigation I do taking the rest of the school year (~90 days) to get any kind of meaningful data, so I want to get going soon. I have a culture of Ostreopsis going, as well as some other types of algae, and will be utilizing a fresh shipment of Tampa Bay Live rock for at least the 1st RQ.

If there is something along those lines that you would like to see, or another question that can be explored through the same set-up, write it in. Or I guess write anything in…you all might come up with a better idea than i came up with. Once I determine the investigation, I will start a new thread.

Thanks!

I voted 1. Back when I grew what looked like dinos on an algae scrubber screen, asterina stars loved it. Would be nice to find out for sure.

 

[Gregg @ ADP]

I have a feeling #1 will run away with this.

The only thing here is that, given the constraints I have, the data might be a little on the sloppy side. Not saying it would have a hard * by it, but the controls are going to be tricky to manage.

I think one of the systems will have just dinos, and we can test effectiveness of whatever dino treatment people here recommend.

The design possibilities of # 1 is definitely much more interesting for me, though.

 

[MnFish1]

My IB bio students are starting their Internal Assessments after spring break, and will be spending a month working on their investigations. In the spirit of the thing, I’ve decided to use that time to do my own, rather than spend a month sitting there staring at them and drinking coffee.

So, pick one for me.

My two RQs right now:

1) Can reef aquarium Ostreopsis dinoflagellate populations be controlled through natural consumption and interspecific competition?

2) Can reef aquarium matter inputs be managed through growth of reef micro and macro fauna?

3) Write-in idea?

The second one needs some work to become a little more targeted, but you get the idea.

I would anticipate whatever investigation I do taking the rest of the school year (~90 days) to get any kind of meaningful data, so I want to get going soon. I have a culture of Ostreopsis going, as well as some other types of algae, and will be utilizing a fresh shipment of Tampa Bay Live rock for at least the 1st RQ.

If there is something along those lines that you would like to see, or another question that can be explored through the same set-up, write it in. Or I guess write anything in…you all might come up with a better idea than i came up with. Once I determine the investigation, I will start a new thread.

Thanks!

Curious - how will you plan to document whether Ostreopsis is 'in control'? I think #1 would be interesting! Great that you're doing this

 

[Gregg @ ADP]

Curious - how will you plan to document whether Ostreopsis is 'in control'? I think #1 would be interesting! Great that you're doing this

Not really sure yet.

It’s already a multi-variate investigation from the jump, so I have to decide how I want to account for that in the design. Maybe I turn this into 2 or 3 separate investigations. Not really sure.

To begin, I will at least be looking at this as an interspecific competitive exclusion investigation. I can set that up as a single experiment where the consumption factor is used as part of the multi-variate. Or, I could do investigation 1 as an ICE, and then do a 2nd investigation with consumers introduced. At a minimum, I will probably do a quadrat study for abundance, and also use quadrats for a Chi-square test for association. Association with what? That’s where it gets complicated.

I currently have far more questions for answers on the experimental design and how exactly I’m going analyze the data, but I’ve got some ideas working.

 

[Johnd651]

Another vote for #1

 

[MnFish1]

if you want to talk about it - and I think here is best. All good

 

[Armt350]

I voted #1 but I have a write in...
Absorption/desorption of minerals or common levels by typically found aquascape materials (Decorative, live rock, artificial rock, cement)

 

[Gumbies R Us]

Voted #1 as well!

 

[taricha]

here's an angle you can take on number 1.
There is a particular type of ciliate that looks like a really effective predator of toxic dinos.
It has appeared in multiple different systems, and can be seen with multiple toxic dino cells having been ingested in each individual.
I once, years ago expended a decent amount of effort trying to figure out:
1. what they were - failure, I can find no genus that looks like a good match.
2. how to culture them - failure, I tried to culture them using foods meant for other ciliates. But that isn't their thing.
3. if they could seed another system and end a dino bloom if the majority of dinos were siphoned out first - failure, never got past 1 or 2 so...

anyway here they are from my system - eating ostreopsis:
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/worms-are-eating-my-dinoflagellates.311927/post-12269394

here they are in Cloudreefer's (looks like eating ostropsis there too)
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/worms-are-eating-my-dinoflagellates.311927/post-12268819

and here they are (eating coolia dinos) in a video by a spanish-language youtuber who shoots lots of videos of aquatic protists.
TRACHELOCERCA CILIADO MARINO-MARINE CILIATE

 

[Gregg @ ADP]

Update:

Obviously, I never got around to running this experiment. Things got crazy with the student experiments, and I never had time to even think about it.

However…

Starting this upcoming school year, I am no longer teaching the IB biology classes. My admin asked if I wanted to teach a science elective (our school basically has no sci electives), and I told them I would love to teach ecology. So I will now have 2 sections of ecology that I get to design however I want.

The ecology class will be a 1 year class, which is kinda crazy. Hard to teach it for a year without it becoming really rigorous, so I’ve decided that much of the 2nd semester will be centered around self-designed experiments to come up with ecological solutions to human issues. Not sure exactly what that will look like, but I’ve got a few months to figure it out.

Anyway, teaching this class will give me not only the time, but also an excuse to set up and run this competition experiment. I’ve got some new racks and tanks coming in, so I will hopefully start this up in August.

Stay tuned.