Patrick Huebner Email & Phone Number

Fort Collins, Colorado, United States

Guide customers in caring for corals and saltwater fish. Help maintain clients saltwater and freshwater aquariums up to and exceeding 500 gallons. The largest of which was a 2000 gallon, shark, eel and ray tank.Chemical titrations were used to analyze water parameters for critical elements, such as calcium, magnesium and iodine. As well as carbonate hardness, general hardness and salinity. It was critical to monitor the waste chemicals - ammonia, nitrite and nitrate to maintain a happy and healthy environment. We applied appropriate mitigation measures to provide an environment in which the critters (fish, crustaceans, jellyfish, coral and mollusks) could not only survive, but thrive.

My role as a researcher was to separate benthic invertebrates from gravel and sand collected from the stream bed of the Poudre river. This was don in lab, under a microscope. Next, I collected tissue samples approximately the size of the smallest individual specimen (picked apart bugs under a microscope). Cryogriding with liquid nitrogen and a grinding jar filled with a steel ball and tissue samples was used to break the nuclei. This process allows us to extract DNA, preform PCR and DNA metabarcoding. Thereby gaining insight on a mixed species collection. This data was used to compare and contrast rates of speciation for benthic invertebrates in temperate and tropical regions across a range of elevations. elevations.