A few swimming to the top!

When students were doing water quality tests today, they noticed a few alevin swimming to the top. So, we seized the moment and put a pinch of size zero food in. Sure enough, four fish swam to the top and started to feed!

1 week

Our eggs started to hatch on Thursday! We have pulled 11 white, cloudy eggs from the plastic hatching basket, and none from the mesh basket. The students are wondering why... This is a picture of the alevin at 1 day. Most have hatched.

The Eggs Are HERE!

What an exciting day! Today, a little before noon, Mr. Dinkel arrived with the eggs. They were slowly tempered, then poured into the hatching baskets. Our job now is to continue to test water quality and wait for them to hatch. Check out this video of the eggs in the two hatching baskets!

The Eggs Are Coming!

Next week, on January 7, the eggs will arrive! Mr. Dinkel, one of our TIC volunteers, will be arriving at around 11:00 with 150 Rainbow Trout Eggs. The eggs are making quite a journey. They will be air shipped from Washington State (and will be at just above freezing at this time). Once they arrive at Monocacy MS, we will temper the eggs (gradually raise their temperature) until they reach 52 degrees (the same temperature as the water in our tank). Then the work begins! These eggs will spend four months in our tank before we release them into a local stream. Our job is to raise them well...clean, cold, running water, plenty of food and delicate water chemistry. We can do it!

Trout Release Movie!

The movie is complete...thanks to the hard work of a team of 6th graders! Click below to watch their movie.

Release Day Is HERE!!!

What a day! 25 students, 4 parents, and 6 volunteers later...our trout are swimming free in Carroll Creek! It was great to see the little guys swimming free in a healthy stream. With the help of our PVFF volunteers, students released the trout, learned about watershed/wetland issues, invasive species, and the stream buffer work, searched for aquatic macroinvertebrates, tested pH of the stream, learned casting techniques and saw beautiful examples of some of the flies Dr. Fine tied. Students are working on a MovieMaker project to highlight the release. Look for the movie on the blog next week!

Success

The trout are continuing to grow very rapidly. The biggest are 7.5 cm while the smallest are 2.5 cm. This picture shows that well. Look at the trout near the gravel and the ones swimming above it.