Oxygen + Tarantula experiment

[Kuba]

For an experiment i am trying to test if the amount of oxygen affects the growth of a tarantula. and i was wondering a 2 things...

1) How could I measure the amount of oxygen in the container.

I am making a airtight container so ensuring contamination won't be a problem

2) How could i supply the higher level of oxygen in the tank, and keeping it at that level.

I dont have that much so good but not costly ways would be best.

Thanks

[Mr Skeptic]

Well, you do have to make sure that if you make an airtight oxygen tank your control tank is also airtight, or you could find an airtight oxygenated spider getting sick from its own waste.

 

I suppose you could get an oxygen tank and have it leak slowly into one of the tanks.

[Mokele]

The problem is that getting ahold of compressed oxygen will be next to impossible, due to safety laws. Also, the instruments used to measure oxygen consumption are fairly expensive, several thousand dollars.

[Kuba]

thanks for the help, but i figured out how to do it, and it wont be so expensive, i will be making my own oxygen through the electricity through water trick

[Mr Skeptic]

OK, make sure you use the oxygen feed and not the hydrogen, and that you don't get chlorine.

[Seadragons]

It's good that it doesn't cost much because your going to need to have a lot of time for that experiment.

Edited January 30, 2010 by Seadragons

[rogerxd45]

The problem is that getting ahold of compressed oxygen will be next to impossible, due to safety laws. Also, the instruments used to measure oxygen consumption are fairly expensive, several thousand dollars.

 

they sell compressed oxygen at home depot in small bottles. also you can easily get the large tanks of oxy-gas cutting without any problem.

 

but for this case i would use the small tanks from home depot since you wont need much gas

[Zolar V]

The problem is that getting ahold of compressed oxygen will be next to impossible, due to safety laws. Also, the instruments used to measure oxygen consumption are fairly expensive, several thousand dollars.

 

i would disagree.

1.) the purpose is not to view oxygen consumption in a quantity, but to replace the other elements in air into oxygen to view its affects on growth.

2.) thus being said you dont need to measure the consumption but rather just the pressure which you could do easily with a pressure gauge.

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i think a simple apparatus could easily be set up without a great need to verify the air tightness of any of the tanks.

1. for the control you could have positive pressure from regular air (through a fan probably) being pushed into your mostly airtight control. thus making the control be constantly filled with regular air, removing pollutants caused by the fecal waste of the creature.

2. for the experiment you could use the positive pressure concept to keep 100% oxygen in the system, and remove pollutants caused by the fecal waste and respiration of the creature.

[insane_alien]

i would disagree.

1.) the purpose is not to view oxygen consumption in a quantity, but to replace the other elements in air into oxygen to view its affects on growth.

2.) thus being said you dont need to measure the consumption but rather just the pressure which you could do easily with a pressure gauge.

 

the only way that holds true if the environment is 100% oxygen, which it won't be even if you are feeding oxygen from a cylinder into the enclosure unless the flowrate is much larger than it needs to be which is going to waste oxygen, and then the only way you can get a low concentration of oxygen is to use a vacuum pump. even a normal concentration of oxygen would require the use of one.

[Seadragons]

Can you guys look at my thread because I go to the same school and I need some help with my science experiment question. My topic is on plants. http://www.scienceforums.net/forum/showthread.php?p=541335#post541335

[Zolar V]

the only way that holds true if the environment is 100% oxygen, which it won't be even if you are feeding oxygen from a cylinder into the enclosure unless the flowrate is much larger than it needs to be which is going to waste oxygen, and then the only way you can get a low concentration of oxygen is to use a vacuum pump. even a normal concentration of oxygen would require the use of one.

 

I see what you are saying, but if you were to have a small enclosure, something along the lines of 10"W x 10"L x 4"H the volume of positive pressure wont need to be all that big and would extend the longevity of the bottle.

 

Of course my example assumes we are comparing a 100% oxygen environment to a normal oxygen(plain air) environment. i think air is 72% nitrogen 17% oxygen and 1 %other.. i may be wrong on that but it should be pretty close.

 

I also see that in the OP one of the questions is measure oxygen content in the container and keeping a level of oxygen above normal and measuring its affects.

 

I believe my example of 100% oxygen compared to normal (air) oxygen should be sufficient. the large gap between air concentrations of oxygen and 100% oxygen exaggerate any affects oxygen has on growth.

[insane_alien]

21% oxygen in air, 17% and you'd be having quite a bit of trouble

[Seadragons]

So how are you going to emit the oxygen into the tarantula's cage? It must be complicated. I heard you are making your own oxygen by separating the oxygen from the two parts hydrogen in H2O. Good Luck!

[Zolar V]

21% oxygen in air, 17% and you'd be having quite a bit of trouble

 

wow my math there sucked horribly, that was supposed to addup to 100 lol:doh:

if you say 21% then nitrogen should be 78% and 1% other.

[John Cuthber]

Pure oxygen is toxic to humans and I guess it would be for spiders too. At the least it will affect their metabolism.

It would be easier to use something like an aquarium pump to drive air through soda lime into the tank and then let the air flow out of the tank through lime-water.

 

You could titrate the carbonate formed if you wanted to make it quantitative.

I suspect the problem will be that a tarantula simply doesn't make much CO2 so it will be difficult to measure. There's also a problem that if you have anything else alive (like the spider's food) in the tank then it will mess up the measurement.

[Seadragons]

So if pure oxygen is harmful then the tarantulas will die and that will be the result of your experiment. That wouldn't be very good because you would need to do this in eleven weeks time. Our teacher is really strict and probably would mark you down for that, or maybe not.

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Merged post follows:

Consecutive posts merged

so... uh... yeah i really don't know what quark means so if someone could tel me that would be great.

Edited February 5, 2010 by Seadragons
Consecutive posts merged.