School of Chemical, Biological and Materials Engineering and Sciences

1st Quarter S.Y. 2020-2021

Experiment No.5

Eutrophication

Submitted by:

Lalin, Ceazar Ian V.

Jaspeo, Francine Reinald C.
Javier, John Gabriel A.
 School of Chemical, Biological and Materials Engineering and Sciences
1st Quarter S.Y. 2020-2021

1. INTRODUCTION

A. Brief Background (1 Paragraph or 5 sentences)

Solving the mass killing of fish is something that shouldn’t be taken lightly. Many

causes could attribute to their deaths, like oxygen-related or trauma-related causes.

Oxygen related causes are things like algal blooms, anoxia, and hypoxia, while trauma-

related causes are things that can be caused by either humans or nature. Fishermen

are an example of caused by humans, where they can destroy the ecosystem of water

inhabitants. Another example is overpopulation, which is a natural cause, because of

the population pressure that occurs underwater. Our objective is to solve the mystery of

this mass killing of fish and find the cause of it if it is the oxygen-related or trauma-

related cause. The scope and limitation of our experiment are only for fishes; therefore,

we can scope on nearby livelihoods that can be a part of the cause for its mass killing

but limited to only a specific area where most of the events occur for an accurate

conclusion.

2. ANALYSIS

Through the simulation lab. We were task to solve, analyze, and hypothesize

water samples to determine the cause of the death of many fishes that suffocated. First,

we examine a water sample that we got on the water that the fish suffocated on through

the microscope and we then try another water sample with the fish parts to the mix and

tested to see in the microscope if there is something different. We then discovered that

it was caused by the low oxygen in the water in which causing the many fishes around

there to die. We later tried another farm and factory to differentiate or see which has

more contaminated or clean water than the others. With provided spectrophotometry to
 School of Chemical, Biological and Materials Engineering and Sciences
1st Quarter S.Y. 2020-2021

see the dissolved nitrogen levels and a microscope to analyze the biological matter. In

this Eutrophication lab, we are tasked to analyze content in the water sample and find

out if algae could be involved with how the low oxygen levels happening that lets the

fishes suffocate. Using many provided states of the art tool we then learned and

discovered many reasons as to what has caused this state for the fishes with many

samples and trials not only by the lake but from the cycles that helped us navigate

through the experiment and the provided factory and farm samples. We then concluded

that the algae bloom killing and lowering the oxygen levels in the water that later

suffocates the fishes was because of the excess nitrogen from natural made or even

because of the human-made in which it reacted that it rampantly grows affecting a mass

of aquatic animals to be contaminated and die out of this effect.

3. CONCLUSION

After finishing the experiment in the virtual lab simulator, the group concluded

that eutrophication might be a good situation but it is not. Eutrophication is the abnormal

increase of nutrients in the body of water that causes algae to bloom drastically. These

algae suffocate the fishes and lead them to death. The samples of water and fish

lesions that were gathered in the experiment simply state that the abnormal growth of

nitrogen in the water is not naturally caused. The abnormal rise of nitrogen was brought

by the neighboring factory of the fish farm. This specific factory caused too much

nitrogen that it even entered the soil and spread into the water. This is the reason why

the nitrogen count in the water has drastically increased and killed many fishes.

Moreover, the eutrophication was caused by a factory that releases too much nitrogen

and contaminated the water that leads to the mass death of fishes in the water.