Betta aggression

	Project title: Betta aggression
Difficulty level:	High school
Main link:	None

Hypothesis:

When male bettas are moved from the same sized homes to larger homes, the betta that is moved to the larger of the two homes will exhibit a greater loss in aggression in comparison to the other betta.

Materials:

1. Three uniform sized tanks fish tanks. (1 or ½ gallons preferably.)
2. One ten gallon, one fifteen gallon, and one twenty gallon tanks.
3. Three male bettas (close in size and color)
4. One mirror (about five inches by five inches)
5. Six low powered pumps to keep water from becoming stagnate.
6. Fish food
7. A pitcher for water changes
8. A pen and notebook

The Procedure:

1. Place each betta into an individual ½ gallon tank.
2. Allow the betta one week to be fully acclimated to the tank.
3. Place a mirror on the short side of the tank
4. Time the fish from the first act of aggression toward the mirror (swimming at it, fins fanning at it, fins on neck puffed up, etc) to the first time he swims to the far side of the tank.
5. Take the mirror away and time how long his fins under his neck remain frilled upward.
6. Add the two times together
7. Repeat steps 3-6 every four days for three more tests.
8. Average the final times for each fish individually.
9. Place each fish in one of the other tanks, and then repeat steps 2-8.
10. Average the times for those tests together, then divide the average from the second set of tests by the Average from the first set of tests. That will show the amount of changed aggression between each fish.
11. Then subtract that number from 1. Multiply that number by 100 and round off to the nearest half percent.

Possible Problems/ Ways to Further results
1. Make sure the fish are healthy and from a respectable looking store.
2. Try to keep outside forces away from any specimens. (People walking by, animals, children)
3. Keep lighting the same for all tanks. Heat should not be a problem as long as it is in a room at a temperature 65-80 degrees the water temperature will level out to around the same.
4. Multiple fish might be purchased to formulate more accurate results with the same size tanks or others of varying sizes.

Changes
One of the major fault was the small testing group. When I first started I bought 5 fish planning to also test a five gallon and a 30 gallon aquarium out. About three weeks in two had died. If I did the project again, I would have gotten a few extra as backup. That way I could also test them in the first set of test and if one died later I would have plenty of time to do the second set of tests with one of the other fish.

Results:

Experiments for ½ gallon tanks-

Test 1 Test 2 Test 3 Average
Fish 1 120 sec. 116 sec. 126 sec. 120.66
Fish 2 111 sec. 116 sec. 105 sec. 110.66
Fish 3 130 sec. 127 sec. 129 sec. 128.66

Experiments for larger tanks-

Test 1 Test 2 Test 3 Average % Lost
Fish 1 105 96 89 96.66 20%
Fish 2 81 86 79 82 26%
Fish 3 96 91 79 88.66 32%