Determining the Impact of Caffeine Concentrations on Betta splendens

Caffeine, a naturally occurring chemical stimulant called trimethylxanthine, is commonly consumed by humans through various products and is becoming more widespread, and consequently, caffeine has appeared in aquatic environments around the world. However, their safety to the health of humans and wildlife remains inconclusive. In this study, using Siamese fighting fish (Betta splendens), a fish known for its aggressiveness, we investigated the impact of varying caffeine concentrations on the aggressive behavior of the Betta splendens after seeing an intruder. There were four experimental caffeine used in the experiment: the control group without any caffeine added, another is the low dose (120 µg/L of caffeine), the medium dose (200 µg/L of caffeine), and the high dose (280 µg/L caffeine of caffeine). A T-test (using a significance level of 0.05) was used to determine the differences in behavior between the control fishes and the fishes with varying caffeine doses, which will allow us to evaluate the effects of caffeine on Betta splendens. The results showed that there is not much evidence to support the correlation between caffeine concentrations on male territory-holding Betta splendens and their increasingly aggressive behavior exhibited when an intruder is introduced. A better quantitative understanding of the anatomy of Betta splendens, such as the correlation between the biological systems of the fish responsible for aggressive behavior and caffeine, is needed to clarify the urgency of the issue of caffeine concentrations found in bodies of water worldwide.