Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

I have been working with the Rio Grande Chub Gila Pandora for the past year. The rio Grande chub is a native fish speices of the San Luis Valley and Surrounding areas. They are what the Colorado Divison of Wldlife calls a "species of concern" becuase the fish's population is decreasing. I fist got interested in the working with the chubs when my school signed up a program called Chub's in the Classroom. I got a in touch with a local fish hatchery, becuase I wanted to my Science Fair project on the chubs. This past summer I worked at the hatchery about twice a week for about two mounths. What my project is about is basically I, along with workers at the hatchery, wanted to find if we could find a new way to spawn Rio Grande Chub's eggs, and what is the best temperature of water to hatch the eggs. We injected the males with a hermone called HCG and three days later we injected the females with another hermone called Carp Pituitary. Carp Pituitary is a new drug when it comes to fish spawning. The hatchery I worked with has an INAD, investigation of new animal drug, which allows them the test the drug in order to see if it works. After we injected the fish, the day after we injected the females, we stripped the eggs from them and placed the eggs in jars. The jars are cone shaped contaners that keep the eggs rotating to prevent the eggs from growing a fungus on them that kills the egg, so we thought. It turns out fungus still grew on the eggs. We placed around 10,000 eggs into each jar. We had three jars. The jar were set at different temperatures of water. They were set at 60, 70 and 80 degrees. The eggs in the 80 degree water hatched fist but only 50% of them survived. The eggs in the 70 water hatched second and 75% of the eggs hatched. The 60 degree water hatched in 3 days and about 90% of the eggs hatched. So we figured that the 60 degree water is the best temperature to hatch the eggs out. What I could use help on is I am currently trying to write my introduction and I am having trouble. I can use anything you can give my. Thanks.

nlobato2,
This sounds like a very interesting project, with many significant implications. A good rule of thumb with introductions is to start out general and get more specific as you go towards the end of the introduction. Therefore, I would suggest starting with a discussion of fish reproduction and the role of fish hatcheries. You can then focus more on the specific type of fish you were working with and then discuss issues with it reproducing without assistance. That will lead right into your problem and hypothesis, and then your methods. Good luck!

Matt Badtke

Matt,

Thanks for your help! I really appreciate your help. I was wondering what you thought about my project. Is there anything worng with it? What could make it better?

Thanks,
Nick