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Reginald Tayaben STRESS EFFECTS ON GUPPY LIFESPANS INTRODUCTION Guppies are peaceful, social fish, in the same family as mollies and mosquitofish. Our team was given 4 specimens to observe: 1 male (colorful, longer fins, and and a pointed anal fin), 1 female (larger, olive color) which didn’t appear pregnant, and 2 fry. We didn’t have a magnifying glass to differentiate the sexes of the fry (the female would have the gravid spot). All were surprisingly active and healthy-looking. HYPOTHESIS I have observed guppies to have an average lifespan of 1.5 to 3 years, but stressful changes shorten that considerably. I expect they should be dead before the semester is over. MATERIALS AND METHODS Our guppies arrived in a 100mL beaker. Moving guppies to different containers is very stressful, and changing water is bad for their immune system, but I assume the same water from the tank was used, so there was little change in temperature, pH, or salinity. Guppies are very active, and our fish probably needed a 5-gallon bowl to swim around. They are social creatures, but keeping 4 by themselves like ours is a sufficient number. Too bad we didn’t have food. The male would’ve been less able to compete for food because they swim slower due to their bigger fins. In the short while they were in the beaker, they produced a lot of feces, but not enough to be polluting. Fish waste is rich in ammonia, which oxidizes and if left uncleaned would starve the fish of oxygen. We took several steps to increase their stress levels: putting our fingers to their faces, tapping the glass, swirling the beaker. I thought about using distilled water, but it probably wouldn’t have affected them in such a short time, although in the long run, distilled water, being pure, would lack the necessary biological trace elements. CONCLUSION We missed a lot of opportunities to further weaken our fish, but a 3-hr lab just doesn’t give enough time. By the end of the period, our guppies were still moving about normally. |
