School is back in session, and Ellen is safely back on the shores of Lake Mendota, but before we wrap up our summer series on her adventures researching Lake Tanganyika for Pete McIntyre’s lab, here’s a final dispatch from Africa…
The Final Push
We’re trying to get sponsorship from Ziploc! After 30 minutes in the bag, the water will be analyzed for nutrients and ammonium.
It’s my last week on Lake Tanganyika for the year, and Ben and I have One Last Big Project component to finish up before I head home – fish excretion or, more aptly, making tiny fish toilets out of Ziploc bags.
Ben “Benja” Kramer sorts samples of “fishy” water. Ben will be staying in Tanzania throughout the year to keep working on the project.
For the few of us that remain, it’s all hands on deck, as each of us has a part to play in the endeavor. I won’t even attempt an explanation of the various components, but here’s an Extremely Brief Overview of what the others are doing:
why are you putting them into small bags? surely you know that leaving them in confined spaces will not only stress the fish but cause pollution to increase as per this article:
Lake Tanganyika cichlids
Hi Steven,
Fish were only kept in the bags for a half hour, so hopefully all stress was minimized! They were released after a urine sample was collected. Thanks for reading, though. And for the referral to the cool websites.