My parents have a house in Deltona but currently live overseas,
so my dad and I converted their pool into a pond full of different kinds of
fish, water lilies, and elodea. I
retrieved my water sample from said pool-pond, and what I found interesting is
that looking down on the water (as you will see in the video) the water looks
green and murky, but in the clear bottle I used, to ensure no fish were harmed,
the water was almost colorless. If I understood/remember correctly, the
difference in color has to do with how light hits the water column in the pond
versus the water in the bottle.  |
| Rinsing the Millipore funnel |
I will be unable to attend lab on Friday, thus Dr. Woodall
was so kind to take the time and teach me how to use a 2100N Turbidimeter, which according to The Free Dictionary measures
" the loss in intensity of a light beam through a solution that contains
suspended particulate matter", and a Fisher
Scientific MaximaDry, which creates suction and pulls down the water from
the Millipore funnel through the
filter into a flask. In addition to learning about lab procedures and a desiccator, an apparatus that sucks the
moisture out of the air inside the unit, I also made quite a few mistakes that
hopefully some of you can learn from before tomorrow's lab:
- Lab is going to be really exciting so try to do what you
are told, like PUTTING ON GLOVES, before you get distracted by all the cool
stuff you get to use.
- DO NOT TOUCH the aluminum pan, use tweezers to move it.
- Don't forget to resuspend, resuspend, resuspend...I'm
probably going to have dreams about resuspending.
- If your filter is clogging up, don't put too much
distilled water into your brown water container, which you will be doing in
order to get particles off of the inside, because the additional liquid may not
end up getting through the filter
- When cleaning your brown bottles, take your label off before
you put it in the acid bath.
 |
| Wonder if I'll win the "Darkest Filter Contest"? |
Haha--I'm looking at your pond water and now I see why your water sample clogged so quickly!! Excellent job in the lab today, Angela!!
ReplyDeleteI was wondering how quickly it would've clogged if I had managed to scoop a sample from the very bottom! Maybe I can tape a bottle to a skimmer and manage to get it down there upside down, then turn it around to fill up, just to see if there is a visible difference....or bring the sample to lab to repeat the super cool experiment. :)
DeleteOh keeper of the fish pond, is that water clean enough to sustain life or shall it kill all who enter?? Not asking you to drink it!!! Just keep the fish n' frogs wet..then again is it more water or fish pee??
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Hey Dad, I didn't think you were hip enough to figure out how to comment on a blog. :) Thank you for reading it! Based on how green the filter turned out, I think YOU should never swim in it. It's probably more fish sewage than water; since this is a scientific blog you should use the term "urine". :) Plus, the more difficult the words we use the more mom is forced to use a dictionary and learn ;)
Deletehahaaaaa...thanks for the lessons...nimm die Stange mit dem Reinigungsnetz am Ende..dreh sie rum..stocher am Grund rum und du hast genug samples fuer dein Labor..weil das Zeug vom Beckenboden bleibt im Rohr stecken...:-)
ReplyDeleteTs, ts, ts, Mama! Dr. Woodall said you have to write in English. :) Basically my mom said if I wanted to get an actual sample of the muck on the bottom I could detach the skimmer from the skimmer pole and use the opening in the pole to scrape/scoop up stuff, however, mama, for the purpose of this lab I would want to get a sample of the water right above the muck to the see if it contains more particles in the water column towards the bottom of the pool-pond versus the top of it.
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