Ocean acidification (OA) occurs when excess carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere gets absorbed by the oceans. The carbon dioxide then dissolves and reacts with the salt water to form carbonic acid, which gradually lowers the pH of the ocean, making it more acidic. This acidity obstructs many essential functions to aquatic animals, especially shelled creatures like trochus snails, by hindering growth and development of their shells. Shelled sea creatures are vital to the food web because they provide food for other sea creatures and serve as the ocean's cleaning crew. My idea for my research project was to recreate ocean acidification in a controlled environment to test the effects of ocean acidification on trochus snails, which had never been tested on before.

My hypothesis was that the snails in the lowest pH tank would grow the slowest, the snails in the medium pH tank would grow faster, and the snails in the natural tank would grow the fastest.

To do this, I had 2 experimental tanks and 1 control tank. In the experimental tanks, I bubbled carbon dioxide directly into the water via a carbon dioxide tank until I achieved the desired pH of 7.5 for the first experimental tank and 7.8 for the second experimental tank. I then measured the diameter and the height of each snail once a week and used the cone volume formula to find the average volume of the snails in each tank using the diameters and heights. I used this formula because the snails' shells are in the shape of a cone. Additionally, I calculated the mortality rate of my snails to determine if the low pH did in fact negatively impact the snails.

The results of my experiment showed that my hypothesis had been correct, and that snails are in fact negatively affected by ocean acidification because the snails in the low pk tank grew the slowest, the medium tank grew faster, and the natural control tank yielded the best growth according to the volume measurements. The normal pH tank also had the fewest snail deaths.