This is the shell of a baby abalone. This is the subject of one of our main projects at SPAWAR Systems Center. We are part of the initiative to repopulate Abalone due to their endangered status. We watch over their growth in two different locations. One is on SPAWAR Bayside campus situated near the front of the actual campus itself. This is called the wet lab due to the amount of work we do with water in that lab. The other is located about a mile further on Rosecrans Ave. We call this location the "Abalone Farm" or "Ab Farm" for the reason that we grow Abalone there. This particular Abalone shell came from an Abalone that died during the first few weeks of the tests that our mentor has us do. This one died before our internship program began.
The wet lab is where I spend most of my time during the internship program. This lab is located on the actual SPAWAR campus. We do many tests in this lab, most of which consist of measuring something whether it be height, weight, or some amount of an element in a sample of water. When you walk into the lab, you feel as if you walked into a mad scientist's lab from a movie scene. The cabinet directly across from the entrance is filled with beakers and other glass containers. There are many different machines and tools strewn across the countertops as well. Then when you turn the corner there are more cabinets filled with many different chemicals, most of which are toxic. On the other side of the room, you will find many aquariums filled with a certain eerie looking red algae.
This is one of the inventions of my mentor, Dr. Dave Lapota, the QwikLite. We use it to test for bioluminescence in water samples that are given to us every month from ravines, rivers, reservoirs, and other small, mostly man made bodies of water from all around San Diego. We use this machine by mixing a miniscule amount of a site-sample with bioluminescent dino flagellates which light up when invigorated. This machine disturbs the set up sample to read the amount of light produced in a given sample and then gives us a numerical representations in parts per million. Although this is one of the projects us interns must do during our internship, this is not the main project.
Hot, dry and dirty. That is how you’d feel after a visit to the Abalone Farm. This makeshift lab/research center is located next to a US Navy ship deperming or demagnetizing bay and shares a plot of land with the US Navy. This is the back end of the Ab Farm, which is where we keep the larger of the very many Abalones. In this location, we are growing two different species of Abalone: Green Abalone and Red Abalone, both of which are named after their shells’ interiors that are extravagantly colored green and red, respectively. In total, we have 26 tanks in this farm, all of which contain anywhere from 6 to 15 Abalone.
Intern Josh Puentespina is shown here changing the water pump in one of the tanks holding a species of red algae that we are studying. “This algae is very interesting; it never stays alive!” exclaims Josh. “No matter what we try changing, it just doesn’t want to stay alive. It’s almost as if it can’t grow in a lab… Whatever the case, I enjoy learning about it because it teaches me about patience and how to actually use what I learn in biology in the workplace.” We started this project on our own without the help of our mentor for the purpose of teaching us how to set up a project and run experiments throughout the duration of the project. The only guidance we were given by our mentor was a joking, “Keep it alive,” with a small chuckle.
Gracillaria Robustus, better known by us as Fat Gracillaria, is one of the two species of Gracillaria that we are studying. This was taken at the very beginning of our experiments. This is a good representation of the starting point of our Gracillaria project. This actual Gracillaria is quite healthy, as can be seen by it’s deep, saturated red color. We test and attempt to grow this species of Gracillaria to feed the baby Abalone in the lab, for this alga represents five percent of a healthy Abalone’s diet. This is what we are striving for due to their being an endangered species. As our project with this alga has progressed, we have tried numerous different changes to keep a steady survival of this plant. So far, we have seen an overall increase in size and weight, but not without a scary, sometimes seemingly deathly drop in both. Overall, we have found a way to overcome these problems to achieve an overall satisfying final product.
This is the shell of a baby abalone. This is the subject of one of our main projects at SPAWAR Systems Center. We are part of the initiative to repopulate Abalone due to their endangered status. We watch over their growth in two different locations. One is on SPAWAR Bayside campus situated near the front of the actual campus itself. This is called the wet lab due to the amount of work we do with water in that lab. The other is located about a mile further on Rosecrans Ave. We call this location the "Abalone Farm" or "Ab Farm" for the reason that we grow Abalone there. This particular Abalone shell came from an Abalone that died during the first few weeks of the tests that our mentor has us do. This one died before our internship program began.
The wet lab is where I spend most of my time during the internship program. This lab is located on the actual SPAWAR campus. We do many tests in this lab, most of which consist of measuring something whether it be height, weight, or some amount of an element in a sample of water. When you walk into the lab, you feel as if you walked into a mad scientist's lab from a movie scene. The cabinet directly across from the entrance is filled with beakers and other glass containers. There are many different machines and tools strewn across the countertops as well. Then when you turn the corner there are more cabinets filled with many different chemicals, most of which are toxic. On the other side of the room, you will find many aquariums filled with a certain eerie looking red algae.
This is one of the inventions of my mentor, Dr. Dave Lapota, the QwikLite. We use it to test for bioluminescence in water samples that are given to us every month from ravines, rivers, reservoirs, and other small, mostly man made bodies of water from all around San Diego. We use this machine by mixing a miniscule amount of a site-sample with bioluminescent dino flagellates which light up when invigorated. This machine disturbs the set up sample to read the amount of light produced in a given sample and then gives us a numerical representations in parts per million. Although this is one of the projects us interns must do during our internship, this is not the main project.
Hot, dry and dirty. That is how you’d feel after a visit to the Abalone Farm. This makeshift lab/research center is located next to a US Navy ship deperming or demagnetizing bay and shares a plot of land with the US Navy. This is the back end of the Ab Farm, which is where we keep the larger of the very many Abalones. In this location, we are growing two different species of Abalone: Green Abalone and Red Abalone, both of which are named after their shells’ interiors that are extravagantly colored green and red, respectively. In total, we have 26 tanks in this farm, all of which contain anywhere from 6 to 15 Abalone.
Intern Josh Puentespina is shown here changing the water pump in one of the tanks holding a species of red algae that we are studying. “This algae is very interesting; it never stays alive!” exclaims Josh. “No matter what we try changing, it just doesn’t want to stay alive. It’s almost as if it can’t grow in a lab… Whatever the case, I enjoy learning about it because it teaches me about patience and how to actually use what I learn in biology in the workplace.” We started this project on our own without the help of our mentor for the purpose of teaching us how to set up a project and run experiments throughout the duration of the project. The only guidance we were given by our mentor was a joking, “Keep it alive,” with a small chuckle.
Gracillaria Robustus, better known by us as Fat Gracillaria, is one of the two species of Gracillaria that we are studying. This was taken at the very beginning of our experiments. This is a good representation of the starting point of our Gracillaria project. This actual Gracillaria is quite healthy, as can be seen by it’s deep, saturated red color. We test and attempt to grow this species of Gracillaria to feed the baby Abalone in the lab, for this alga represents five percent of a healthy Abalone’s diet. This is what we are striving for due to their being an endangered species. As our project with this alga has progressed, we have tried numerous different changes to keep a steady survival of this plant. So far, we have seen an overall increase in size and weight, but not without a scary, sometimes seemingly deathly drop in both. Overall, we have found a way to overcome these problems to achieve an overall satisfying final product.
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