Big Brother Goldfish

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Big Brother Goldfish

• By Team LaLa

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Introduction

• Our project is about goldfish which were first
  bred by the Chinese over 4500 years ago and
  introducing in Britain in the early eighteenth
  century.
• The types of fish we are working with are common
  species of goldfish for example the comet and
  veiltale. Their ages vary between 14-16 years of
  age and they eat specialist goldfish food. These
  type of fish are bottom feeders therefore have to
  have a filter in their tank.

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Introduction

• Goldfish do not get pregnant. The female releases
  thousands of eggs into the water for the male to
  fertilise. He will chase her around the tank
  whilst this is happening which could last up to
  three to four hours.
• When the eggs are laid and fertilised they must
  be removed to prevent the parents from eating
  them.

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Aim

• Our aim for this project was to find out if
  goldfish prefer to spend more time in an enriched
  or a featureless environment.
• In this experiment the enriched environment
  contained plenty of artificial weed to provide
  cover, whereas the featureless environment
  contained none.

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Hypothesis

• variables
• The water temperature
• The food given to the fish
• The light
• Us, i.e. our presence, and we will make a bit of
  noise
• invariables
• The types of fish in the tank
• The different ages of the fish
• The different abilities of the fish (e.g. one
  fish could be blind and not notice the plastic
  predator
• Some fish may be slower swimmers and want to stay
  in the weed

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Materials and methods

• Materials
• Fish, tank (inc. filter, oxygen, lights etc),
  scary stimuli (inc. plastic fish),
  grid, 2 cameras- link up, artificial plants,
  stopwatch
• Method
• First we had a bare tank leaving the fish to
  adjust.
• Then we added in some artificial plants in
  different sections having an enriched area
  (filled with artificial plants) then a bare area,
  enriched area and then bare area.
• We set up the cameras, one at a side view and one
  above the tank, to help us to see the fish to
  count them.
• We filmed the fish for 10 minutes
• Every 30 seconds we recorded how many fish were
  in each section
• We repeated this process to get repeat results
• We presented a scary stimuli into the water of
  each of the 4 sections in turn for 5 minutes
• Every 30 seconds we recorded how many fish were
  in each area
• We then repeated this to get repeat results.

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Our Scarer!
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Fish Scaring..
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Results first experiment
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• The first results indicate
• That the fish preferred the non-weeded sections
  of the tank, in particular one end of the tank.
  This may be due to recently disturbed food debris
  in these areas, or a preferred temperature.

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Results scaring experiment
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• Although the fish still seemed to prefer the
  non-weeded areas when exposed to the scarer,
  there was an increase in mean number of fish in
  the weeded areas. This may be because
• They prefer weed for security, cover and
  protection

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Discussion

• After doing our experiment we discovered that the
  fish didnt respond very well to the stimuli.
• Reasons for this may be The fish may have been
  used in this or similar tests before
• All of the fish were quite old and used to being
  handled, meaning that they may be more difficult
  to scare.

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Summary

• We split the tank into four different sections.
  Two of the sections were enriched whilst the
  other two were left plain.
• We counted how many fish where in each section
  during 10 minutes to see which they preferred.
• We then placed plastic predators in each section
  for five minutes to see what the fish did.
• We found from the first experiment that our fish
  prefer non-weeded areas.
• In the second experiment the fish also preferred
  the non-weeded areas, however more fish moved to
  the weeded areas than before. This may be because
  they prefer weed for security, cover and
  protection.

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Evaluation

• We decided that if we were to do it again we
  would change a few things to make our it more
  accurate.
• Next time we would.
• Use nets as scarers. This is because the fish
  are scared of these which would make our results
  clearer.
• Use younger and more timid fish because they are
  more easily scared.
• Check temperature of different ends of the tanks
  and any other environmental changes in the
  different ends. This will help us understand why
  fish may prefer different ends of the tank and
  help make our experiment fairer.

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Thanks To Team LaLa
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• Jessica Crofts
• Faye England
• Holly Granville
• Micheala Hare
• Rachael OSullivan
• Amita Rana
• Hayley Smith
• Leanne Thrower
• Stacey Weeks-Pearson