 Qubit systems fish respirometry package is a wonderful piece of equipment
Added: 10/17/2005 |
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There are many sorts of respirometers these days. At qubit systems you can find high quality aquatic respirometers. A wonderful example of this equipment is qubit systems fish respirometry package that can be used for learning purposes. It contains all that is necessary for measurements, including a respiratory chamber, probe for measuring concentration of oxygen and data acquisition equipment.
There are many great achievements in the respirometry these days. New sorts of sensors have been built and new designs have been elaborated, which allows making measurements faster and easier.
Respirometer is a device that is meant for measuring metabolism characteristics in living beings, respiration, or how organisms consume oxygen. Many different schemes of the device are possible. All living organisms breathe consuming oxygen and producing carbon dioxide. And, in fact, the amount of oxygen organism consumes equals the amount of carbon dioxide it produces. So, there is no difference which parameter is being measured.
The simplest principle is to remove one of the gases and measure the difference in volume of the remaining gases. So, this simple respirometer needs a chamber, in which an organism is placed. Along with the organism some substance that absorbs carbon dioxide (potassium hydroxide or soda lime) is also placed there. So, all the carbon dioxide organism exhales is absorbed by the potassium hydroxide and the pressure in chamber changes (as long as the volume of the chamber stays unchanged). So, all you need to do is to measure this pressure change and you will be able to calculate the amount of oxygen living organism consumes.
These days several respirometer manufacturers are represented on the market. Qubit systems are one of such producers, which offer a great number of respirometer models. They have all kinds of devices based on different principles. For teaching purposes they offer a qubit systems fish respirometry package. This qubit systems fish respirometry set consists of a respirometry chamber, two pumps, probe for dissolved oxygen and data acquisition equipment that connects the plug-ins a computer. Oxygen and data acquisition equipment package is an intermittent respirometry device that allows measuring oxygen consumption of small fish or any other aquatic (water breathing) organisms.
The qubit systems fish respirometry package allows using different chambers from a set for different living organisms. To perform measurements, an organism is placed into the chamber and one of the pumps starts to pump fresh water (which is saturated with oxygen) into a system. Then this pump stops. Another pump is working during the whole measurements session to provide a water flow through the closed cycle. As the fish (or another organism) breathes the amount of oxygen dissolved in water is changing. That amount can be measured with a special dissolved oxygen probe, which can be placed into the chamber through the special port in it. All the data is transferred to a computer for further analysis.
Such design is pretty easy to operate and allows seeing the basic principle of respirometry. That is why, qubit systems fish respirometry package is wonderful for learning the basics of respirometry. This system was not originally designed for a test with flow, but changing the rate of second pump you can increase the flow in the chamber and, thus, make fish to swim (that will change the metabolism).
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