Before and After

TEST DATE	10/15 (Before)	11/24 (After)
pH	6.5	7
Temp. (ºC)	n/a	20
D.O. (ppm)	2	9
Phosphates(ppm)	5	11
Nitrates(ppm)	20	80
Chlorine (ppm)	0.1	0.5
Turbidity	0.04	0.076
Odor	1 (no smell)	5
Color	1	4
Aquatic Flora	2 elodea	1 elodea
Aquatic Fauna	3 guppies alive,1 snail alive	Only 1 guppie alive

 

Before:

Terrestrial Level

Decomposing chamber

Aquatic Level

After:

Terrestrial Level

Decomposition Level

Aquatic Level

As seen from our pictures, our Ecocolumn underwent massive changes throughout our experiment. Our biggest challenge was probably maintaining the ecocolumn till we were able to add our human impact. On average, we would water our ecocolumn 30mL every three to four days to aid the cycle of nutrients. We stopped after we encountered a higher concentration of phosphorus in our aquatic ecosystem. To prevent premature eutrophication of our ecocolumn, we chose not to water it from then on in order to lessen the phosphorus concentration. Four our human impact, we decided to add ammonium nitrate which is used for fertilizer. This induced astronomical changes in our plants, significantly increasing all of our mineral content. Our plants quickly died, the rate of decomposition rose, and one of our guppies died. Surprisingly, at the end of our project, we still had one fish alive.