Mosquitofish Research Questions

[Cadevan]

So, this may sound a little strange, and even awful to some, but at my college we have a start-up research project on fish and how the fracking industry and how untreated mine drainage effect their growth, development, and breeding. We're looking into using mosquitofish, as they are easy to breed and much much easier to get than local fish. But the issue is that mosquitofish have a tendency to eat their young. Is there any way to prevent this? And just how much are mosquitofish effected by water quality, we want to effect the fish's growth, development, and reproduction without killing them. We were considering using local water heated to their preference, but I don't know whether this could be deadly to them, or if we should try to mix it with "better" water. And if mosquitofish are super tough, what is a better, more delicate livebearer to use? 


No fish will hopefully be killed in this, simply studied, and many could be saved if our research gets anywhere, we want to have waterways all over the world better protected and taken care of. We have the research permits. I just need more information before we set up tanks to cycle and acquire starting fish. 

 

[dave840f1]

I don't believe in that kind of thing it's inhuman. It's better to study the fauna in there natural habitat not in a lab. I personally would not recommend anything to you.
I keep these fish and they are a charming little fish and very easy to breed and I raise lots of fry without separating them.

 

[dave840f1]

This Forum is for keeping our fish in good health not torture them.

 

[Cadevan]

Don't you see the potential favour this could do for wild fish though? And I'm asking questions to keep from harming the fish, our goal is not to hurt fish, but to bring about a change. We want to prove that it's doing something to the water that is harmful to get safer measures put in place, our department wanted to test on mice and we got it down to fish. We want to save wildlife for future generations, because they are rapidly dying out at human hands, and there is very, very little research being done to try and stop it. Would you rather I test the potentially harmful water on human children or potentially endangered wild fish? Because that's what's happening at the moment, I'd rather test on common fish than watch an entire wild ecosystem die off from one failure.  I love fish, and I'd rather have them healthy and happy, but in the wild this isn't happening. 

 

[dave840f1]

Not on children but I don't object to use the scientists who use animals.

 

[Cadevan]

Then why yell at me for trying to get info to keep our fish alive and as happy as we can for a sanctioned college research project with proper government research permits if you aren't against scientists research?
 
We're pre-medical and pre-veterinary students, and our research professor is a biologist/ichthyologist, but he really only knows NA lake fish, we just need some more info that we haven't really been able to find, info on how mosquitofish breeding is effected by water quality isn't really a common subject out there. We're trying to avoid causing too much harm to the fish, the last thing we want to do is hurt the fish when our experiment is to try and save others, which is why we want to find the details that we can. And it's not even like we are adding anything to the water to make it toxic, we literally intend to drag water from running stream systems in the area suffering from untreated acid mine damage *in the habitable zone* and that run through gas drilling sites, these water sources are harming fish in nature, and we want it to stop, we just need to prove it to the government and companies that it's actually causing damage to try to start a movement, what effect fish also effects every vertebrate, including humans. We wanted to use local fish, but they don't breed often enough or at all in captivity to properly study.

 

[dave840f1]

I meant use the scientists to experiment on not the fish.