IDEAS FOR EXPERIMENTS

• Temperature - lower and higher than the ideal for each species.
• Salinity - higher and lower than sea water ( 1/2 to 2x)
• Oils and fuels - salad oil to diesel oils. Is the oil itself toxic or does it need to cover the container to cut off oxygen?
• Detergents - again start with a "typical" use level for a household activity and use serial dilutions to a non-toxic level. (as most of our wastes are diluted when going down the drain)
• Oxygen levels - place a known number of eggs in a determined width container (like a test tube). vary the height of the water level. The embryos will settle to the bottom. Oxygen levels at depths greater than 1 cm will be less than optimum.
• pH - us a pH meter or test paper to vary pH from 4-10. Small amounts of dilute hydrochloric acid and sodium hydroxide can be used to vary the pH. Does the pH of the solution change over time?
• Carbon dioxide - make your artificial sea water with sodium free seltzer water (keep stirring to a minimum as this removes the carbon dioxide from the water). Using varying proportions of the regular sea water and the seltzer sea water. What is the pH of the resulting solutions? How does this relate to the "green house" effect of higher carbon dioxide levels world wide?
• Other pollutants such as copper sulfate (used as a fungicide), wood pulp (boil some sawdust in water and save the liquid) and insecticides. NOTE: SMALL QUANTITIES SHOULD BE USED!
• Two or more species. Would one have an advantage over another under proposed conditions?