Question

Im doing an experiment with Brine shrimp and I am confused how to set up the experiment and the data table. The experiment is to see what fish food they like best. I am having 30 shrimp into 2 containers and am gonna measure this by counting how many shrimps got attracted to the food every 30 seconds for 5 minutes. So with the experiment I am wondering if I put 10 food A into one container and 10 food B into another container. Or do I put 10 food A and B into a container and 10 food A and B into a separate container.

Answer 1

Assuming you have identified controlled, dependent, and independent variables, I suggest you use different containers for each type of food. Container A for food A, and container B for food B.

First of all, we should identify variables in your experiment.

What are the independent, dependent, and controlled variables?

• Independent variables are those modified or changed by the researcher to study how this change affects another variable and hence the results.

This variable is not affected by any other one but influences or causes a reaction in other variables.

In your experiment, the independent variable is the type of food. And you, as the researcher, are changing this variable to observe the animals response.

• The dependent variable is the one influenced by the independent variable, and is affected by any change on this last one.

Its response might be either directly proportional or inversely proportional to the change in the independent variable.

In your experiment, the dependent variable is the response of shrimps when exposed to the two types of food. Their preference for one food or the other, both, or neither of them.

• The controlled variables all the other variables that are kept constant in the control groups and the experimental groups.

Unlike the independent variable, the controlled variables do not influence the results.

These variables do not affect the response of the dependent variable.

In your experiment, controlled variables could be for instance the shrimp species or population, number of individuals per container, water temperature, pH, or salinity, among others.

In conclusion, the independent variable changes and influences the dependent variable, which depends on the first one. Controlled variables are all the remaining variables that are kept constant.

Now let us analyze your question,

You want to know what fish food they like best.

• I will assume you want to feed the animals only with fish food, meaning no other food source is present at the experiment moment.

• I will also assume animals are not hungry, which means that if they eat the fish food is because they like it and not because they are so hungry they would eat anything. You should feed them correctly before the experiment.

• Finally, I will assume all these animals come from the same population, which means they were bred under the exact same conditions.

If these assumptions are correct, I would suggest you use each container for each type of food. This is container A for food type A and container B for food type B.

If all the other variables are kept constant and equal, I believe it would be easier to count how many shrimps consume each type of food if they are separated.

In this way, you will also avoid competition, which would be another variable that you can not control.

You should also consider that

• containers should be under the same environmental conditions,
• containers should equally sized,  
• the number of animals in each container should be the same,
• Animals should be in the same maturity stage.

My advice is to use different containers for each type of food.

You will learn more about variables at

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