Healthy Galloway Creek Lab Report

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Introduction: The purpose of this experiment is to determine how healthy Galloway creek is/ is not. The factors we are going to use to determine the health of the stream include nitrate, dissolved oxygen, % saturation, temp, phosphate, pH, macroinvertebrates. Some of the macroinvertebrates that can be found in creeks help determine weather or not a stream is healthy or not. For example if Stonefly Nymph is present in the stream it should be considered healthy. The reason for this is because they are pollution sensitive and are used as bio indicators. The dragonfly nymph is somewhat sensitive to pollution so if they are not present then the stream has a moderate amount of pollution. The leech is tolerant to pollution. If there are no leeches in the stream then it has some serious pollution.
The pH level of a stream can greatly diverse to species that lives in it. An excellent pH level for a stream is 7. One above or one below that on the pH scale is considered still to be good. If the pH of the stream is anything but 6,7,8 the stream is considered to have a poor pH level. Adult fish start dying around the 3 range on the pH scale. Acidic water reduces the amount of oxygen and sodium are found in fishes. The pH of a stream …show more content…

Since that fish and other macroinvertebrates depend on oxygen in the water to live… they will not be living much longer after that. Some of the ways that nitrites get into the water is; septic tanks, animal wastes, exhaust fumes and industrial wastewater. Nitrates in the water can cause “brown blood disease” which basically turns the blood of a fish brown and literally stops the blood from carrying oxygen through the body. Algae and other aquatic plants use nitrate as a source of food. Although algae is good, extreme amounts of it can be harmful to a body of water. Extreme amounts of algae can cause fluctuations in the amount of dissolved oxygen in the