Starting facility set-up

Writing this notebook post to keep track of the various facility set-up tasks I’ve started:

• Julia arrived! We had her help refurbish five HOBO loggers to see if battery replacement would make them work again. Battery replacement worked! Carolyn is going to order more parts, but at least we’ll have some back-up HOBO loggers for the summer
• Counted the number of tanks needed in the shed. I have enough tanks, but not lids. Julia and I (painstakingly) assembled the number of lids we needed
• Started testing the heater. Dave and Ed (plumber at ESL) set up the equipment and taught me how to operate it. Annoyingly, all the devices operate in ºF. Julia and I placed some tanks in the 25ºC water bath. I think we may have a problem with evaporation where the level of the water bath changes. I’ll need to figure out if I need to constantly run water in the tank, or if a refill in the morning should suffice.
• Put one tank in the 10ºC cold room and one in a 5ºC water bath. For the chiller, I took a Costco storage tub from my house and used it as a water bath for the chiller. It only holds one tank at a time, so I’ll need to get a few more next time I’m at Costco. Dave said he can find some fittings and we can drill holes in the tanks to connect them so the same water will circulate through each tank.
• Created a 14ºC water bath in the lower tiered tank. Julia set up two tanks with HOBO loggers on opposite sides of the tanks so we could see 1) what temperature the tanks are held at and 2) if there are any discrepancies between tanks. If I remember correctly, there were some slight temperature variations the farther away the tanks were from the water input.
• Dave had three extra LED lights he said I could use for the lower tiered tank. Julia and I used a system of string and zip ties to hang one in the lower tiered tank. Instead of setting up the other three, I thought we could see how well the knots and string held up. I’ll also bring some bungee cords I have to see if that provides extra security since I don’t trust the string as much.

Some other things…

• Ordered Pyrex lids for respirometry chambers
• Ordered filter cartriges
• Ordered airstones
• Obtained respirometry chambers from Neel
• Ordered aerators

Next week I’m going to use Julia and Lauren’s help to set up the experimental facility. Here are the remaining tasks:

• Buy three more tubs from Costco
• Connect Costco tubs
• Set up LED lights with daisy chains and timers
• Add all tanks and lids
• Outfit all tanks with mesh and velcro
• Set up aerators and filters
• Add trash bags to lower tiered tanks
• Add HOBOs to tanks

Going forward

1. Test chiller and heater in ESL
2. Finish obtaining 2023 experiment materials
3. Set up ESL
4. Finalize Julia and Lauren’s projects and order necessary materials
5. Test formatting and analysis for one set of respirometry data
6. Respirometry analysis
7. Update methods
8. Update results