Question: Have anything bad ever happened to the zebrafish i.e. the temperature or acidity not being right? What did you have to do in response to this/ What would you have to do in response to this?

Lucy McGowan answered on 20 May 2020: last edited 20 May 2020 7:37 am

Hi Mahek. In my lab we are very fortunate to have dedicated animal technicians who care for the zebrafish 7 days a week. Part of their job, as well as feeding and health checks, is to check the water quality. The aquarium which houses all our zebrafish tanks is very sophisticated; it has a built-in computer which constantly monitors the water temperature to make sure it is 28 degrees C and that the salt content and pH in the water is just right. If the computer detects a problem it will sound an alarm to tell the staff so they can respond and make adjustments. All the water going in and out of the aquarium is constantly cleaned and filtered to prevent any infections or water contaminations. On top of all this the staff take a sample of water from the aquarium every day and manually check the pH and water quality. With such great equipment which is subject to regular maintenance, we’ve never had any big problems.
External issues are more of a problem. For example, few months ago there was a burst pipe in the local mains water supply. This meant all water in the area was shut off for a day. The aquarium uses hundreds of litres of water per day so this was a problem. The technicians had to slow the water cycling in the aquarium to a minimum to preserve water. They then drove a few miles out of the city to collect lots of 30 L bottles of water to supply the system. Sometimes there are power cuts but we have our own backup generators which will keep things running if so.