Goldfish Experiment

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Average Metabolic Rate Difference of Goldfish in Dark vs. Ambient Light
Metabolism is an interesting field of study to better understand what is happening inside of the body of different organisms that keep them alive. Goldfish (Carassius auratus) were used for this experiment since these small animals metabolism can be easily influenced by different variables. This is due to the fact that goldfish are poikilothermic whose internal temperature is influenced by their surroundings. Oxygen consumption was used to measure the metabolic rate when goldfish are in ambient light as the control and dark as the experimental variable. These goldfish were put into a closed chamber connected to a computer that sensed the oxygen level within
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The null hypothesis is that the average metabolic rate of goldfish when examining their oxygen consumption will not be significantly different when goldfish are placed in ambient light versus in the dark.
Materials and Methods
For this experiment, average metabolic rate was measured through oxygen consumption of goldfish when placed in the dark and when in ambient light. First prepare a simplified flowchart of procedure before beginning (Figure 1). To perform this experiment, one needs to obtain two cups of 200 ml of fish water that has sodium bicarbonate, alphatic amine salts and a sodium thiosulfate pentahydrate each and weigh them. Then obtain two goldfish in each cup and then weigh them. After receiving this data, find the weight of the fishes (in grams) which effects metabolism of the fish and so when the database calculates the data, it can take in to account the mass of the fishes. Next get a chamber that is connected to the computer with the LoggerLite program. The chamber has a probe that measures the amount of oxygen in the
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ambient light is significant. However, there are only 8 trials for these results so these results are not as accurate as the data that comes from the all trials from all the classes put together, which were 197. From these results the null hypothesis is rejected the experimental hypothesis is supported since the p-value was 0.314, which is much more that 0.05. This proves that the difference in average metabolic rate of goldfish in dark versus ambient light is not significant. The whole class results from all trials gives a better idea about whether metabolism of goldfish is effected when in normal light or in the dark. Based on these results in all trials of the experiment, the metabolic rate of the goldfish was higher in ambient light that in the dark since average change in oxygen concentration was bigger that of the average change in oxygen consumption in the dark. The difference in average change in oxygen consumption in ambient light versus in the dark was about 16 mgO2 /(L*hr*kg). These results appear to support the findings in the experiment by Borniger, where they found that in a little bit of light, there was decrease in metabolic rate of mice (Borniger et al., 2014). Also 16 mgO2 /(L*hr*kg) is not a big difference of change in mean metabolic rate by the

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