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Young Macdonald's Farm
Water Quality
Remote management of system-water quality
Primary investigators will work with existing communications systems,
improving those systems and inventing new communication systems
to realize their goals.
You will have a partner with a fish farm and an effective communications
system at a remote location to work with you on this problem.
Issues of communication will be solved with telecommunications
scenarios such as e-mail, remote sensors, ISDN video teleconferencing,
telerobotics through videoteleconferencing and the WWW.
Primary investigators will use the WWW not only for researching
existing information , but also to contribute to that information
with their findings through publishing their multi media reports
on the WWW.
Local water quality management-
Water quality monitoring begins with observing your fish because
they will often, by their actions, tell you about many problems.
When you are inexperienced, this can be a problem. What does constitute
proper behavior for fish? The way to determine this is to write
down your observations of day to day fish behavior, along with
your daily recording of the test data on your system. So a systematic
monitoring of both the water quality and fish behavior will pay
dividends at a later time. Please note the water quality forms
have a place for such observations.
The equipment you use is a matter of preference and budget. A
kit that will allow you to test oxygen, nitrite, carbon dioxide,
alkalinity, ammonia, and chlorides is essential. Most kits contain
some version of the Wrinkle method of testing oxygen which is
good, but very time consuming and oxygen requires several tests
per day so if budgets permit an oxygen meter is a good investment.
An Imhoff cone is useful to determine the solids in your system
and a good thermometer.
In considering the individual water quality parameters please
keep in mind what effect they might have on the species and the
biofilter will be altered by other aspects of water quality occurring
at the same time. (Example: ammonia values that are lethal at
a pH of 8 are harmless at a pH of 7.2)When testing keep in mind
that you are dealing with two different living systems, the species
you are culturing and also the bacteria in the biofilter. Do not
get too excited if one or more of your parameters seem high or
low. In correcting those do so gradually giving both biofilter
and the species a chance to adapt to the new conditions. The possible
expectation to this is low D.O. if this is very low it should
be raised as quickly as possible.
Remote water quality management- will be done through several
methods.
The first will be remote sensors. Primary investigators will be
able to dial in with a modem computer and software to read pH
levels, O2 levels and tempter. Nitrite, carbon dioxide, alkalinity,
and ammonia, levels will be given by the partner at Young McDonalds
Farm and conveyed via e-mail , telephone, video teleconferencing
and fax. Observations will be achieved by the Primary investigators
dialing in and using existing tele-video-underwater robots to
see the fish for them selves. On line microscopes will also be
available via WWW and videoteleconferencing.
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