You're probably wondering "why is there a map of some werid creek on this page?" Well, i'll tell you. I given as an assignment to go and find a water source somewhat near my house and collect some of it's water (a sample in a plastic container), then bring it back to school to test from...Habital water areas from Salmonids to live in! In this blog post, I'm going to be talking to you about not just one water source but two and we together will decide if it's safe for salmonids to survive in. During the test after I collected the water here is what I tested for: Ammonia Nitrogen, Cyanide, Silicon, Turbitiy, pH, Nitrate (nitrogen), Chlorine, Copper, Phosphate, and Chronium! Through testing in all these labs, to start off, I found that there was a 4 level of Phosphate meaning that it's at a normal level (normal is 2.5-4.5 mg/dL) to help fish increase in population and helps to improve the overall water quality. When there is a Phosphate level in the water that is too high it can result in the fishes to have digestive problems or choke because it takes up some much oxygen at high levels. I also found there was Silica present because the test color turned blue meaning that Silica is helping to improve the health a growth of zooplankton which is then consumed by fish whose heath then starts to improve! The last thing I found within this water sample was, that there was a pH level of 9 meaning that there is one level too high for the fish to survive in because it's 10 times the alkalinity that it should be for a fish. In all the labs I foundand come to the reasonable conculsion even though there are chemicals that are benifit the fish in this water, it's not safe for them to survive due to a too high of an pH making it that they would not be able to reproduce leading to the eventual death of the fish within the creek. I found a similar result in the Lake Hodges water sample, the only difference was that I tested it with seven other people. Some things that we all found within the sample was that we all had Silica present in our water, it had an Alkalinity of 80ppm, and our pH level ranged from 9-10 which is way to high for the Salmonids to live in. There was one experiment that had concentrations of Nitrate (color pink in test), making it toxic to any fish or zoonplankton within the water. As we all came to the conclution that this water was not safe either for the fish to live in, we wanted more information on what some of the chemicals would to the fish in the water. We found more information on Nitrate and Alkalinity to help us better understand the data we collected. Being that Nitrate, "renders the blood unable to carry oxygen" literally means that "the fish can suffocate even though there is ample oxygen present in the water" So we probalby don't want any trace of this chemical in our water! Our KH (carbonate hardness) is 80ppm which is too low for the fish because the ideal ppm you want is 120ppm, so the fish will eventually get sick and die. Alkalinity is important for fish because it "protects or buffers against pH changes" (keeps the pH fairly constant) and "makes water less vulnerable to acid rain." By finding all this information our group concluded that this water was also not a habital place for the Salmonids to survive in and the search for a new water source for these fish would have to continue!
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December 2018
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