An Efficient Way To Feed Crayfish For An Extended Period Of Time

Autumn Larocque

SNHU Bio 2 & Lab

May 15, 2019

Introduction

What is a successful method for feeding crayfish over the course of five days without

affecting the water chemistry in the tank, while also minimizing the amount of wasted food? In a

SNHU Bio 2 and Lab class, an experiment was conducted that experimented with the feeding of

crayfish. The purpose of this experiment was to create a method that works efficiently to feed

the crayfish. The student conducting the experiment hypothesized if the feeder uses a skewer to

hold celery at an accessible height, than the crayfish will be able to consume the celery over a

period of five days without producing mass amounts of waste.

Materials

● 16 gallon tank

● 12 inch, stainless steel skewer

● 25 grams of celery

● Water Chemistry Test Kit

● Scale

● Pen

● Paper

Method

In this investigation, the student used a stainless steel skewer to hold celery in a place

that the crayfish could reach it.

1. Weight the celery in grams to calculate the initial food weight

2. Calculate baseline water chemistry levels and record them on a data sheet

3. Put the celery on the skewer and place into the tank at a height the crayfish can reach.
 4. Calculate food waste in grams every day, for five days.

5. Calculate water chemistry every day, for five days

6. Remove celery at end of the week

7. Weigh remaining celery in grams.

8. Use celery weight data to calculate total amount of celery consumed

a. Initial weight- waste weight sum= consumed celery

Results
Analysis

As part of this experiment, the water chemistry was tested each day along with the

amount of food waste. The water chemistry was tested at the same time each day from the

same tank, using the same water chemistry testing kit. The water chemistry was tested because

it is a factor in determining if using celery to feed crayfish is efficient and healthy. If the water

chemistry levels changed during the course of this experiment, then using celery would not be a

safe food product for the crayfish. But, in this experiment, the results showed little to no change

in the water chemistry levels, the dependant variable, which concludes that the celery, the

independent variable, is safe to be placed in water for an extended period of time.

The second part of this experiment was to calculate the amount of celery the crayfish

actually consumed. This was done by taking the initial weight of the celery, 25 grams, and

subtracting the total amount of waste accumulated from the week, 4 grams. These calculations
lead to 21 grams of celery being unaccounted for; most likely consumed by the crayfish. The

error in this experiment relates to the fact that there is no proven evidence that the crayfish

actually ate the celery, although there is no other reasonable explanation that would account for

the 21 grams. This error could be corrected in future experiments by setting up a mechanism to

record the crayfish throughout the week. If one abides by this error, using a skewer to feed a

crayfish for an extended period of time was successful.

Conclusion

An experiment was conducted to test a mechanism that worked to feed a crayfish. This

design consisted of a medium sized tank, a 12 inch stainless steel skewer, 25 grams of celery

and of course, a crayfish. The purpose of this experiment was to test the effectiveness and

efficiency of feeding a crayfish while using a skewer to hold the celery in an accessible place.

The results showed that leaving celery in the tank over a period of time did not affect the water

chemistry; this was a positive piece of information that supported the hypothesis. The graphs

previously shown also included results on the amount of celery actually consumed. Starting with

25 grams, finding 4 grams of waste and ending with 21 grams of potentially eaten celery were

successful results that also support the hypothesis. These findings can be used to feed tanked

organisms all over the world, when trying to find an efficient way to create an accessible food

source.