How to know when your trout are ready to start feeding?

If you are uncertain whether it is time to begin feeding starter food to your trout, watch for these behaviors below to determine if its feeding time:

WHEN TO KNOW TO FEED? When trout have absorbed their yolk sac, they no longer have a source of nutrition and will start to need food. They also are developing their swim bladders, as you may notice the trout have been hanging out at the bottom of the net, not swimming. When their swim bladders are developed, they will become buoyant and will start swimming around. Once these two things have happened (yolk sac gone, swimming behaviors) then your trout will be ready to start feeding.

HOW TO TEST IF YOUR TROUT ARE READY TO FEED: Sprinkle a tiny pinch of starter food in the basket, if they are not reacting, they are not ready. If they get more active but do not eat, they are reacting to smell (getting close.) Can you observe them feeding? Great! When it seems like all or most are feeding successfully, you can keep them in the basket for a few more days or drop the basket from the side of the tank and let them swim out.

HOW MUCH DO I FEED THE TROUT? Feed a few pinches at a time, multiple times a day.

Overview of Trout in the Classroom Program 2023-24

Overview of Trout in the Classroom Program 2023-24

Fall 2023 TIC Teacher Workshop

Discover Cayuga Lake coordinates over 20 schools throughout Tompkins County and surrounding counties participating in the Finger Lakes Trout in the Classroom Program. The program enables students to raise trout in tanks in their classrooms from October- May. Students learn to care for their trout and learn about streams through science, art and language. Just as they learn to take care of their trout, we hope students will continue to care for their newly adopted streams.

• October/November: Eggs arrive 

• November-April: Care for your trout, observe and experiment

• Trout Stages:

• Eggs

• Alevin

• Fry

• Fingerling (when released)

• Adults

• April/May: Trout release field trip

Discover Cayuga Lake provides 5 presentations throughout the Trout in the Classroom Program. Mentors are assigned to schools in order to educate classes on their trout and stream ecology while supporting classes as they help keep trout healthy and thriving. Katie Barnhill will oversee the FLX TIC Program, alongside other class mentors including Bill Foster, April Taylor and Astrid Jirka. You can schedule your presentations with us through our 2023-24 scheduling spreadsheet.

 

The 5 presentations include:

• Visit #1: November: Kick-Off Program (Browns)/ Brooks: Overview of trout life cycle, understanding the parallel connection between hatchery egg retrieval and natural spawning process happening outside right now. 
• Main Objective: Help students feel confident in raising trout by answering questions about life cycle, caring for trout and what to expect throughout the year.
• Activity: Could view eggs up-close under microscope/in petri dish at table if time allows. 
• Further Activity: 
• From Jen Wilke’s class at Caroline Elementary- Use scientific illustration to track the trout’s growth across the year 
• From Lauren Hamilton’s class at Newfield Middle School- Trout Life Cycle Webquest using Wild Trout Trust website
• From Lauren Hamilton’s class at Newfield Middle School- Elements of an Aquarium Ecosystem

 

• Visit #2: December: Color & Adaptations: Trout are equipped to survive in the wild through adaptation. Trout can change their appearance in order to camouflage within their stream habitat. Learn the different types of camouflage including: Concealing, Disruptive & Countershading.
• Main Objective: We can tell a lot about fish by observing their habitat, also we can learn a lot about habitat by observing fish.
• Activity: Students imagine a place and a stream and then illustrate a trout using elements of camouflage to blend in with its habitat. Students share their trout illustrations with class. The class can try to guess the features of the trout’s habitat based on the camouflage features illustrated on the trout.
• Further Activity: Trout Survival Game

 

• Visit #3: January: Live Food Experiment with Daphnia: Students use the scientific method to answer the question, “Do you think your trout will be able to catch and eat live food when they are released into the stream?” Students will learn about the live food used in the experiment, daphnia, by first learning about the aquatic food web and the important role of zooplankton. Then students will test how many daphnia their trout eat in a given amount of time. They will discuss results of their experiment, revisit research questions and draw conclusions about whether their trout will eat live food and survive in streams.
• Main Objective: Use the scientific method to draw conclusions about the trout’s ability to survive when released into a wild stream.
• Activity: Live food experiment. Students will be given a research question, “Will my trout eat live food,” and go through the scientific method to conduct hypotheses, test with an experiment, analyze results and draw conclusions. The experiment includes feeding daphnia to the trout with a beaker on their desk. Groups of students will record how many trout are eaten every minute for a 4 or 5-minute span of time.
• Further Activity: Students can plot data from their live food experiment, classes could add all of their data together with a sum of all team results, and analyze/draw conclusions about research questions from class data. This could also be compared/shared with other classes/schools.

 

• Visit #4: February: Pollution Prevention and Watershed Awareness: Students identify watershed pollution problems by learning about the water cycle and how pollutants can move through and impact aquatic plants, animals and humans in a watershed.
• Main Objective: Understand how water moves through a watershed and learn how pollutants can enter a watershed and harm aquatic life, the environment and humans.
• Activity: Students being school pollutant detectives, by selecting a pollutant topic of interest and conducting a survey around their school. Student groups will collect data about potential pollutant problems in their school, research how the pollutant can make its way into a watershed and how it can harm aquatic life, the environment and humans. Students will begin seeing themselves as a part of the solution as the group brainstorms ways they can educate classmates through projects that serve to persuade, entertain or inform their audience.
• Further Activity: Follow through with enacting a solution in their school, based on student group’s pollution solution project

• Visit # 5: March/April: Stream Ecology: Students brainstorm about indicators of a healthy stream and learn about insect life cycles and the stream energy web before conducting a live macroinvertebrate experiment. In the experiment, students will assess the health of a stream using a stream sample brought into the class containing live macroinvertebrate samples. Student groups will collect and identify insects and then score the stream based on the diversity of macroinvertebrates found. 
• Main Objective: Learn about food webs and sensitive creatures. Use stream invertebrates indicators to determine the health of a stream.
• Activity: Student groups will be given a container with a fresh stream sample. They will collect a diverse sample of macroinvertebrates in an ice cube tray and work together to identify the insects they collected. The class will come together with their data to score the stream's health based on biodiversity and identified insect’s sensitivity to pollution. This will prepare students to use insects as indicators to assess the health of the stream when they release their trout. 

• May: Trout Release Field Trip: Students will take a field trip to a nearby selected stream to release their trout. They will first participate in activities to assess the health of the stream before the release, including collecting a macroinvertebrate sample, taking an intentional and observational stream hike, and conducting a trash clean-up around the stream. A journal or illustration activity could also take the place of a trash clean-up if not applicable. 
• Main Objective: Students will have made a connection with their trout and learned about the conditions needed for the trout to survive in a stream. The hope is students will walk away wanting to continue to care for their trout by caring for the stream it now lives in and its surrounding environment and watershed.
• Activity: Stream hike, macroinvertebrate sampling, trash clean-up, journal or illustration activity, group trout release.

Discussion Questions:

• How can we make these core presentations more relevant to your classes?
• How can we maximize the value of each presentation?
• Any questions or ideas about ways to further engage with these presentations? Any obstacles?
• Experienced TIC teachers- What do you wish you knew when you first started the TIC program?

Further Curriculum Dive:

• FLX Trout in the Classroom Blog
• Trout Unlimited Trout in the Classroom National Website: Lessons for STEM Learning, Visual and Language Arts, Field Days and Activities
• TIC Partner Resources

How Can Climate Change Effect Our Trout?

With the help of our pals at the US Fish & Wildlife Office in Cortland, NY (Big thanks Justin and Gian!), we delivered BROOK TROUT eggs to nine aquariums at Dryden High School, Dryden Elementary School, Northeast & Caroline Elementary Schools (Ithaca, NY), Lehman Alternative School and Elizabeth Ann Clune Montessori school on Thursday, November 16.

The eggs in your aquariums are (or were) less than 1/4 inch in diameter, but even so, it was easy to make out two black dots in each- the eyes of the tiny fish inside!   These eggs were "eyed up", as the shells had already begun to thin and soften in preparation for hatching.  The big question on everyone's mind was, "how long will that take?" 

Suzanne Scheuring's students at Dryden High School wondered if there was a scientific way to predict when the eggs would hatch.  So, we put the question to Ryan Diehl, the hatchery manager at SUNY Morrisville's hatchery who provided our brook trout eggs.  He confirmed that, yes, you can predict the time between egg spawning (when the eggs are released and fertilized) and egg hatch.  

It is almost entirely dependent on the temperature of the water!

Ryan shared this table, from the US Fish & Wildlife Service's Fish Hatchery Management Handbook (1982), that provides information for both brook trout and brown trout.

We can see that for BROOK TROUT, the period from spawning (egg fertilization) to hatch is 144 days if the water averages 35 degrees F, but only 44 days if the water averages 50 degrees F.   Ryan shared that our eggs were spawned on October 12.  So, if we keep our aquarium temperatures close to 50 degrees, they should hatch about 44 days later - Nov. 25 or 26, just in time for Thanksgiving Break unfortunately!   Let's find out if they have hatched when classes return after the break!

Of course, in the "real world" outside, stream temperatures are much colder, as winter approaches, and are likely to be closer to 35 degrees than 50 degrees.  So brook trout eggs in a natural stream might not hatch for another 100 days under "typical" winter conditions.  That could be mid-February, which is actually perfect timing.

Our trout are born with a built-in energy supply, called a "yolk sack", that can nourish them for quite some time.  This is a perfect adaptation for being born in the middle of winter, when food is scarce.   If all goes according to nature's plan, by the time the yolk sack is used up, spring will have arrived and food will be plentiful for our hungry young trout.

Now that we know a bit about what effects the development of our trout eggs, what would happen if climate change caused our streams to become warmer throughout the year?   

Here's an example:  If average winter stream temperatures rise just a few degrees, to an average of  40F, for instance, our trout could be born in December, rather than February.  The yolk sack is not a bottomless buffet, however, and only will last so long.  What could happen to our trout? 

You can do a little of your sleuthing, to find out if climate change is already impacting our local trout habitat, or your favorite stream, by heading over to the Community Science Institute's amazing Water Quality Dataset that shows data collected by volunteers over the past ten or more years.  Just select your favorite stream and have a look!  

A Trip to the Hatchery!

We recently kicked off the 2023-2024 Eastern Finger Lakes Trout in the Classroom program with field trips to collect brown trout eggs at the NY Dept. of Environmental Conservation (DEC) state hatchery in Bath NY. Students from South Seneca Elementary visited the hatchery on Friday, Nov. 3 and students from Beverly J. Martin Elementary in Ithaca visited on Monday, Nov. 6.

Chuck, one of our super-knowledgeable hatchery guides starts off the hatchery tour....

Bill and Astrid help students get ready to collect trout eggs in the hatch-house!

Students collected sets of about 120 eggs (transferred to mason jars for transport) for 16 schools that will be raising brown trout this year!  All together, they collected nearly 2000 eggs!

It was a busy day for our brown trout, as many actually hatched on the way  to their new classroom environments.  Just imagine popping out of your egg, moving to a new home, and having your first class, all in just a couple hours! 

Of course, not all the fish at the hatchery are quite so small.  Students got to feed these hungry yearlings that will soon be releases to local streams.

Stay tuned to learn what happens next!

Creating Campus Watershed Pollution Solutions at Lansing Elementary

 

In our pilot Pollution Prevention program, students in participating classes conducted surveys around their school campuses to investigate potential pollution hazards that could enter the watershed and ultimately harm trout.

After identifying problems on campus, whether it had to do with chemicals, pesticides, litter or landscape features, students worked in groups to come up with solutions to these potential pollution problems. Students at Lansing Elementary decided to create signs around campus to bring awareness to the problems they identified.

One group discovered cracks in the walls which could lead to ants or other insects crawling in and eventually lead to the need for pesticide. They learned that pesticides are harmful to aquatic life when they enter waterways, so they posted signs to encourage students and staff to stop using pesticides, while presenting facts about it's harm.

Another group discovered a wide use of paper staple litter around campus, recognizing the harm of these staples entering a drain and making their way into streams where trout could ingest the staples. They created a sign to illustrate the harm of this kind of litter.

Finally, another group at Lansing Elementary identified a large amount of chemicals being used around campus, for hand cleaning, sanitizing as well as bathroom and multi-use cleaning products. They created a poster to post on campus that  shows before and after visuals of chemical use, displaying how these chemicals when entering waterways can be harmful to trout as well as for human drinking water.

The students decided their goal was to bring awareness to these issues on campus. In the pollution prevention program, they learned that they can "Be a Voice" for their trout, since they have taken care of them in classroom tanks all year and have grown to understand the trout's needs. 

Soon, classes will release their trout into the stream and the best way to keep caring for them is to take of their stream. What are other ways we can care for our local streams in our every day life?

Spring is here!

For our Trout in the Classroom crew, the start of Spring means a chance to get back into the water!  It's not time to get the Teal out on Cayuga Lake, but classes are signing up for "Stream Ecology" studies, and that means we get to go out and collect samples from local streams to take into the schools!

I got the honor of collecting our first macroinvertebrate sample of 2023 at Lower Enfield Creek on the very first day or spring this year.  Water temperature a balmy.... 42 degrees!

Students at EA Clune Montessori School got to investigate this stream sample and found an incredible diversity of insect larvae and other invertebrates, along with a salamander, two black nosed dace and a fantail darter.    Their consensus?  This is a healthy stream, and a suitable habitat for growing trout!

Stay tuned for more posts from classes, and from Katie and Astrid who will soon be joining me in waders out here.  And, not to worry- all creatures were returned safely to their chilly but healthy home in Enfield Creek at the end of the day!

Bill F.

Ithaca Fishing & Conservation Day 2023

 We had a blast at Ithaca Fishing & Conservation Day this past Saturday!

Boynton Middle School 's cafeteria was filled to the gills with activities, gear, displays from local conservation orgs, fly tying lessons and old friends. Additionally, the always incredible raffle of fishing gear and outdoors paraphernalia raised nearly $2000 in support of Trout in the Classroom and local outdoor education activities for kids!!

SPECIAL THANKS to Phil, Rick, Mike, Liz and all our friends at the Leon Chandler Chapter of Trout Unlimited for reviving this great tradition! Our advise? If you couldn't be one of the several hundred to attend this year, mark you calendars for Fishing & Conservation Day 2024!

Osprey On Their Way Back to Cayuga Lake

Around Cayuga Lake, we know Spring has arrived when Osprey return to their nests in late March. The birds return to the same nest with the same mate each year. Since last August, Cayuga Lake's Osprey population has spent their winter season in South America, typically as far South as Argentina where it the climate is warm enough. 

There are around 150 pairs of Osprey around Cayuga Lake, and last year most pairs had about 2-3 chicks in their nest. So that means there could be up to 450 Osprey flying around Cayuga Lake in the near future.

Osprey are tertiary consumers in the aquatic food chain around Cayuga Lake. They prey on bigger fish swimming in the lake, while those big fish hunt for small fish, and the small fish searches for bite-sized zooplankton (floating animals). Phytoplankton (floating plants) makes up the very bottom of the food chain. They are the primary consumers that use the sun's energy to create food, otherwise known as photosynthesis. 

From the phytoplankton all the way to the Osprey, every aspect of the aquatic food web is essential to a healthy ecosystem. This includes the trout that are swimming in all of our tanks, soon to make their way into the streams in a couple of months. 

When you observe your trout and consider what all you have learned about their habitats, consider what your trout needs in its future habitat in the wild in order to survive and be a healthy member of the aquatic food web. 

Your Yard is a Giant Sponge

Did you know your yard can act as a giant sponge and can help keep pollutants from entering waterways and harming living aquatic creatures like trout swimming in the streams?

It's true. Grass in your yard absorbs excess nutrients and contaminants. Plant roots and soil microbes can filter out contaminants like excess phosphorous, nitrogen, pet waste, toxic chemicals, motor fluids and trash before it runs off into the streams, rivers, and eventually in the lake. Aquatic plants and animals, like the trout we will soon be releasing into local streams, are dependent on clean water to survive. So anything we can do to protect what goes into the water system is important!

You can help your yard better support a safer, healthy watershed with these few at-home practices:

• Maximize your yards ability to catch and hold water- making sure roof gutters and dripping water make their way into the grass and not on concrete driveways or sidewalks

• Pick up pet waste from the yard and dispose of it in the trash

• Plant trees and shrubs around the yard! This will help hold soil in your yard better and increase the nutrients the soil needs to filter out pollutants.

• Pick up trash out of your yard that could enter the storm drain and contaminate waterways

As we think about our trout eventually swimming around in local streams, it's important to start thinking about how we can be a part of protecting their habitat by ensuring they have healthy water to live in!

Cannibals lurking!

Our trout (and students) are beginning to discover, it's survival of the fittest out there!  

This hungry brookie has been dubbed "Chicken Nugget" by Mrs. Tilsen's class at Northeast Elementary.   

 

Water Testing is Key!

At this point in the year, our classroom trout have successfully graduated from eggs to alevin to the fry stage, or 'Parr' stage of their lives.  Can you see the Parr Marks on these Lansing Elementary brook trout?

Over the past month, we've seen that our trout can hunt and eat other small creatures, like Daphnia... or smaller trout.  They are always hungry, and ready to do some serious growing, but it is important to stick to a careful feeding plan.  You'll know if you are being a little too generous with the trout food when you conduct regular water testing.  If those Nitrogen levels (ammonia, nitrite, nitrate) are creeping up, you need to cut back.

This is a great time to engage your students is regular water testing, and growth charting, if you haven't already done so.  We have a complete set of instructional videos on water testing procedures for teachers and students!  Each is 3 minutes long.  All are available on the "Tech Support" page. 

 

"Will Trout Eat Live Food?" Experiment and Conclusions

 

Throughout January, Trout in the Classroom Visit # 3 has looked like students following the Scientific Method to answer the question- "Will trout eat live food?"

After asking the question, students assessed background information about the trout in order to inform their hypothesis on whether or not trout will eat live food. They examined the food the trout are already eating, recognizing the fish flakes contain fish particles and learned that trout are in fact carnivores. This at least indicated that daphnia, a type of zooplankton, was within the realm of what a trout would eat.

But since this was the first time introducing trout to zooplankton, there was uncertainty on how the trout would react. Would they eat the daphnia? If so, how many? And how much or little time would it take for the trout to eat the daphnia?

Students developed their hypothesis by completing the sentence, "If I add daphnia, then my trout will...." Across many classrooms visited in the past few weeks, the range of hypothesis' created were: "eat all of the daphnia right away," "be scared of the daphnia and run away," "take a bite of the daphnia and see if they like it first," "wait a few minutes to get used to the daphnia and then eat them."

In the beakers, the daphnia was added and the experiment started. Students watched diligently, as one student took on the role of "master recorder," and would make sure within every 20-second interval, the number of daphnia eaten was recorded until the end of the time period (anywhere from 3-5 minutes, depending on the class.)

After the experiment was over, table groups came to a consensus on the tally of daphnia eaten. Afterwards, groups presented what they expected to happen vs. what actually happened. Some predictions were somewhat close to the outcomes, some nowhere near. The students came up with theories to draw conclusions as to why their trout ate more or less daphnia than expected. 

In the case where trout ate more daphnia than expected, conclusions drawn were that maybe the trout was hungry, or it was scared of the daphnia so ate them up, or it instinctually knew to eat live food, or that the trout had learned the behavior of eating food that was dropped from up above. 

For students who experienced less daphnia eaten than expected, conclusions drawn were that maybe the trout was already full from previous feeding that day, or had already been selected in prior classes to eat daphnia. Students also theorized that the trout was uncertain of this new animal and didn't want to engage. Or in some cases, the trout ate one daphnia but perhaps realized they didn't like it.  

At the end, the classes were brought back to the original question- "Will trout eat live food?" or more specifically, "Will trout eat live food when they are released in the streams in the spring time? Will they survive?" 

Students gave thumbs up for "yes" and thumbs down for "no." Results were mostly positive. But most opinions were based on the data collected at each independent table. Students were less likely to believe their trout would survive if it did not eat the daphnia during the experiment, and more likely to believe the trout would survive if the trout did eat some or a most of the daphnia. In the end, it all came down to the data!