We are getting somewhere! So this week we are finishing up our building of our ocean acidification tanks. We started Monday with renovating our crab condos. We equipped them with the finest flow holes that anyone could find… then had to renovate them because they were a bit small. BUT! The reason that we make holes for the boxes we’ll be holding them in, is because they need a flow of water to carry away any fecal matter and bring fresh oxygen to them so they can breathe. We are keeping all of the crabs in separate compartments because the crabs will eat each other if they are not separated. This past weekend we went back to the beach with a tunnel and had a little beach day. We went tide pooling and we found little pools, just filled with shore crabs. We stayed and watch yet another beautiful Charleston sunset. We went down to the beach Thursday night, because there were some bioluminescent organisms in the water and sand. When you would swish the sand around they would flicker for a quick sand. Then we stayed a little later and named constellations. I even saw a shooting star! Back to the tanks. I cannot express how close we are to being done. Yesterday we put in some work! We connected all of the water lines and air lines. We ran into problem after problem, but we did not let it knock us down!! We are so close to being finished and then we just have to figure out a way to control the pH and we are ready to submerge our little crabs and begin our experiment. So in this set up. We have an experiential tank, where the crabs will be held for our experiment. Then we have a mixing tank, where it will create the acidified water with by adding in , this causes a chemical reaction with the water created an excess of ions which make the water more acidic. To balance out these ions the ocean has a natural buffer system that pulls out of the water. The only problem is that many organisms such as crustacean use to build their shells, and when there are way too many H+ ions, from the shells will be pulled out to buffer and even out the pH.
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AuthorHannah is an undergraduate student at UCLA studying Marine Biology and minoring in theater. She's just a gal who wants to be an adventurer both in the outdoors and her research. Check out her blog! Archives
August 2019
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