Please help!

[Ghxst]

Hiya RC! I am a long time lurker (almost 4 years) and new college student. I have chosen my Statistics research project to include my favorite hobby and need your help. In turn I will be able to share my findings with all of you so hopefully we can scientifically make some deductions to find a source of coral growth. I need as many people as possible to simply reply with the following information:

1) Watts Per Gallon (X-Variable)

2) Average coral growth per year in Cm or average zoa head growth, please specify (Y-Variable) or simply say high, medium or low growth if you cant put a number to it.

3) Main type of light ex. MH, T5, LED etc...(comparison)

I understand 2 is a difficult question unless you stare at your tank all the time but I figure most hobbyist have some sort of idea and average if your tank has been up and running. With many data points the data will normalize and make sense. I am open to suggestions if you see room to improve on the questions but for my first stats class out of many I think this is a good start.

I really appreciate your feed back and replies, I think it will be awesome to make a bunch of data make sense out of our findings!! If you don't want your data shown please feel free to PM it to me!

Thank you so very very much!!

-Bill

PS if a MOD can turn this into a multi choice poll that would be super excellent Once this crazy semester is over I cant wait to share my reef experiences with Pictures !!

 

[Ghxst]

Heya,

Just swinging by to say hi. I would really like to get some scientific data on reef lighting, is there another variable you would like to see? Any advice would be great!

Thank you,

Bill

 

[organism]

I really don't think #2 is gonna happen, I pay pretty close attention to my tank and that's way too vague of a statistic. There is no average coral growth since there's so many different kinds that grow at so many different rates, as far as a stats class it has no real variable that you can assign to it like you could with watts/gallon, etc... Basically the premise of your statistic is flawed, I'd run it by your professor.

 

[oceanarium]

I really don't think #2 is gonna happen, I pay pretty close attention to my tank and that's way too vague of a statistic. There is no average coral growth since there's so many different kinds that grow at so many different rates, as far as a stats class it has no real variable that you can assign to it like you could with watts/gallon, etc... Basically the premise of your statistic is flawed, I'd run it by your professor.

I have to agree it is way to loose I have acro growing side by side under the same lighting some do 2-2.5cm month and others of different species growth is not discernible over such a time frame. Similar with Zoa I have some I struggle to keep under control overgrowing plugs in no time onto the rocks whereas others just plod along.

Then there are the other variables such as water chemistry and feeding.

The only way to do this is a control experiment, same watts, same water, same food. I did lots of testing of LED in this way to come up with a mix of emitters to suit our needs best. Even then we found certain spectrum mixes suited different corals better to others for much higher outright growth rates to each other.

 

[Ghxst]

I really don't think #2 is gonna happen, I pay pretty close attention to my tank and that's way too vague of a statistic. There is no average coral growth since there's so many different kinds that grow at so many different rates, as far as a stats class it has no real variable that you can assign to it like you could with watts/gallon, etc... Basically the premise of your statistic is flawed, I'd run it by your professor.

I Agree, now I see for that to happen I would asking you guys to do a lot. LOL sorry, I see that's a bit unreasonable of a request in the 2 weeks I am looking to get it.

But I would still like to do this on the reef aquarium, it would be helping all of us out. Can you suggest some thing I can test with 2 variables and a comparison group? I was thinking maybe flow rate per gallon, polyp extension and constant flow vs waves or pulse.

Thanks so much for the info and helping me out!

 

[Ghxst]

I have to agree it is way to loose I have acro growing side by side under the same lighting some do 2-2.5cm month and others of different species growth is not discernible over such a time frame. Similar with Zoa I have some I struggle to keep under control overgrowing plugs in no time onto the rocks whereas others just plod along.

Then there are the other variables such as water chemistry and feeding.

The only way to do this is a control experiment, same watts, same water, same food. I did lots of testing of LED in this way to come up with a mix of emitters to suit our needs best. Even then we found certain spectrum mixes suited different corals better to others for much higher outright growth rates to each other.

I agree, corals do grow at lots of different rates making my testing format slippery. I have bam bams that grew 30 heads this year and rastas that grew 1. For this to work everyone would have to get the standard mean and deviation from each subclass and no one but a stats student should have to suffer that pain

As far as the other variables, I know they are just as important and would have to be measured eventually and compared. I am hoping to do this in the near future as I am serious about my hobby and my degree program. But as my stats prof explained, one test at a time, and the rest in time. I've got to start somewhere and am all ears on what you can suggest for variables. I really appreciate the feedback so far, I feel like were moving in the right direction.

 

[oceanarium]

But I would still like to do this on the reef aquarium, it would be helping all of us out. Can you suggest some thing I can test with 2 variables and a comparison group? I was thinking maybe flow rate per gallon, polyp extension and constant flow vs waves or pulse.

Still to many variables, your presuming polyp extension is only produced via flow there still remains water chemistry feeding etc etc. The stats would mean nothing of value to the reason for polyp extensions.

You need to go to something simpler with less variables, for example;

There has been a lot of controversy of recent years in sustainability of the aquarium trade and more recently collection of yellow tangs. How about some statistics that support the sustainable collection of yellow tangs ?

Conduct a poll of peoples success in keeping Hawaiian hand caught Yellow Tangs. Ask how long the success was for 1 month, 3 month, 6 month or 12 months or more.

Variables are limited as the Yellows are endemic to Hawaii and all hand caught. People may have varying abilities and systems to keep them though that is not the point for the Stat's here. The point is how sustainable are they and what is the average life span in captivity.

Simultaneously do a number of identical polls with fish like like Moorish Idol and Powder blue tangs.

We all know as aquarists that hand caught yellow tangs are very bullet proof fishes. Though telling the average Joe (or average Snorkle Bob) does not cut it with out stat's.

 

[Ghxst]

Pete\"Still to many variables", Yes I know, personally its variable crazy and crap. You could correlated it any way etc.. I would love to do a poll on 2 variables every month to keep up on material, then you guys could analytically find a pattern for all the variables and save lots of corals and fish from dying in home aquaria by having an exact recipe, a science, of reefs. BUT for now I have to start somewhere and that is comparing two variables in intro to stats. Super lame and way easy but with 17 credits and a job I was hoping to get some cool data from fellow reefers.

But thank you, I appreciate the suggestions for the future, I have environmental stats in fall of 2015 and I would love to take on some aquaculture/ reef sustainability stats project everyone can read if it fits the requirements.




If there is anyone that would like to help please pm me your info, I have a different project going on now and will find a way to integrate the data on a national vs local level, it would still be neat and I can pm back the results in Dec.

Thanks again,

Bill