Field Reports

The trout in both classrooms are doing well. I added Ammonia Chips to my filter to kick start the nitrogen cycle and they have been working great. There is a large size variation between the fish at this point. The large ones are extremely large, and the small ones are still quite small in comparison. Many of them have their full coloration and the students are in awe at how much they change week to week.

I just read Brian’s email about releasing the trout at the end of the year.

Last year was the first year I participated in TIC. In June, I had a big picnic in conjunction with the release of our fish. I emailed all my parents and, especially for high school, got a great response from them! Everyone brough food and we released our fish with the newspaper there, and then had an end of the year picnic. The kids loved it! If you have the means and time to do it, I think this is a great way to reward the students for their hard work throughout the year.

Sixth grade students at St. Thomas the Apostle School in Bloomfield, New Jersey are swimming with excitement about our trout. Eager volunteers take their weekly responsibility of testing water quality and monitoring the trout very seriously. In addition to practicing their science skills they are also working on their writing skills. During Catholic School’s Week, students will display their "fish tales" and fish shape poems highlighting our Trout In The Classroom experience.

Could cannibalism contribute to a loss of about 10 fish in a 5 week period? We are down to 40 trout, and my students and I are concerned (and, admittedly, disappointed!) that the numbers dropped quicker that what we expected. It seemed drastic, but I guess that’s really only an average of two fish per week. We’ve only removed 5 dead fish since the beginning of Christmas break, which were small, the ones that remain look quite healthy and range in length from more than 3 cm ("Big Daddy") to about 2 cm. Still, I’d like some reassurance!

We perform weekly water changes of 20%, test the water daily, and feed them twice daily, we’ve also seen macroinvertebrates and new plant growth, leading me to believe that water chemistry is good. Yes? However, there is some agal growth; is it time to use the UV sterilizer?

Brian has been bugging us to add posts to the web site so here goes. This is my first year doing TIC and the kids love it.
Questions: about when should we switch to #1 food and about how much to feed?
Should we turn the UV light on now?
Any input is greatly appreciated, Marty

After a long wait, our fry have all started swimming! My students are far more interested in the defects of some of the trout though. Watching the mutant trout get selected out of the population has been interesting for all of the kids, and really ties in to our natural selection, and evolution chapter.