About a dozen trout have escaped from the basket into the interior of the tank. They are going between the top and bottom easily, and look strong! Ph remains at 8.0, ammonia, nitrate and nitrite, at 0. That's all from 4th grade at South Hill

Tank Stats in Groton

Water Temp: 42.9 F/5.9 C
pH: 7.6
Ammonia: .5 ppm
Nitrite: 0 ppm
Nitrate: 0 ppm

Questions from Cayuga Heights

Here are some pretty good questions from Mrs. Rubin's 2nd grade class at Cayuga Heights school- anybody up for tackling some of these? The answers will require a little research!
1. How do alevins get out of the basket?
2. Will they lay eggs when they get older?
3. How do they feed off the yolk?
4. Would they ever eat each other?
5. Why do they change? (from stage to stage)
6. How can we tell if it's male or female?
7. Do they have different markings in winter and summer?
8. If so, how do they change colors?
9. How do they get out of the egg?
10. Do the alevins have teeth?
11. Do the eggs sink or float?
12. Does the female mate with many males or just one?

Groton Update

We've been studying cells in class and took some killer video of red blood cells in action as they distribute oxygen to every body cell in our fish. We noticed that our fish are really starting to develop their distinct black splotches. We've also come up with a study as the fish develop. We've been running our tank around 45 degrees F to see if it slows down our fish's metabolism. We are closely monitoring the yolk sacs to see if ours lasts longer than the other schools participating.

Thursday November 13, 2008

Hello All,

Bill came out to our classroom yesterday. He showed us a PowerPoint presentation on the trout eggs we have, where they came from and what we will expect in the future. It was exciting. This morning we started working on developing stream habitat drawing to give our alevin a better scene to look at rather than a blue wall.

Tank Report: Today, the temperature on the chiller was 53 degrees and the digital thermometer read 53.4 degrees. The ammonia and ph levels were good. The pump and filter were working poperly. We haven't found any dead trout yet. We have caught a few alevin escaping the breeding net and disappearing into the gravel. One of us noticed that a small group of alevin were huddled in the corner where the outflow pipe comes out.

Hello Everyone!

I visited Mr. Brooks' 3rd Grade class at Enfield this morning, and I've got to say- these kids know about trout! I bet they are going to challenge all of us with some pretty complicated research questions and observations.

As is happening in most of our classrooms at this point, some of the alevin at Enfield are "swimming up" and getting more active- a few have even escaped the hatch basket. As our alevin begin to use up their yolk sacks, each class is going to need to determine when to begin using the powdered trout food provided for the program. If we start feeding them too soon, it could adversely effect their natural development (making them less healthy); if we wait too long, some could become undernourished.

Depending on where you look, you can find advice for beginning the feeding process anywhere from 7 - 31 days after the eggs hatch. How old are your alevin? Many factors influence how soon an egg hatches, and how soon an alevin is ready to begin hunting for food. What factors can you think of? For a pretty complete description of the brown trout life cycle, check out http://eis.bris.ac.uk/~cckhrb/physiology/lc_brown.htm. This website from the United Kingdom has a lot of useful info, and links to photos from rivers around the world!

When you decide to start feeding your trout... keep us posted!
Bill

CHES 2nd Graders Receive Their Trout Eggs

On October 30, 2008, Bill delivered our trout eggs. Some had already hatched into alevins. A week later, all the eggs had hatched. We pulled 5 dead eggs out of the hatching basket.

Monday November 10, 2008

Good Morning Bill,

Thanks for the response to our frosted tank questions We discussed it during our morning meeting today. The heat was on when we came to school today and the tank was clear. We think your theory was a good one. Today the temperature on the chiller was 53 degrees and 51.5 on the tank thermometer. The ph level is still at 7.6. The ammonia level is at .25. The water is clear and at the correct level. Both the pump and bubbler were working fine.

Some of our Observations for today; an alevin was attempting to get of the egg. When one of our group members was trying to remove an egg from the breeding net, the net tipped and released some alevin into the tank. They swim quick and fast. Once it disappeared into the gravel, we couldn't find it. We thought the were about 1.5 cms long

Friday November 7, 2008 An important question(s)

Today the tank looked like a frosted window.Can anyone tell us why and what to do? Today the temperature was 52.5 degrees.The pH level was 7.6 and the ammonia level was 0.75.The water was clear and at the correct level.The pump was working and there were no dead trout. We saw one baby stuck in the egg this morning. That was pretty cool. Avery, Bailey, Auburn, Devon

Thursday November 6, 2008

Today the water temputure 52 and was 51.4 on the thermomiter. The p.h was 7.6 .The pump and bubbler were both working good. There was only one dead egg in tank that we took out. The ammonia is 0.50. We will be making mortality predictions soon.

The Brown Trout group

Today Bill was in the give an introduction to the Groton students. Here are some images taken today of our brown trout. The top shows the alevin stage of development, which all of our trout are currently in. You can see the yolk sac, which is the the source of 100% of the fish's food supply right now for the next couple weeks. The bottom photo shows red blood cells traveling through capillaries, delivering oxygen and nutrients to all of the body cells.

Mr. Brooks' Class

Wednesday November 5,2008

Today the temputure on the chiller was 52 degrees and was 51.5 on the thermomiter.The p.h. level was 7.6.The water was clear and at the correct level.The pump and the bubbler were working good.There were no dead trout in the tank. We removed some eggs.

We are pretty excited because this is the second time I've had some type of pet in the classroom and the trout are much more exciting than mealworms- Devon

I am hoping to learn more about trout and how they live.- Auburn

I'm excited to see how big they grow.- Bailey and Avery




Brown Trout Group,

Bailey,Devon,Avery and Auburn.