Thankful at Thanksgiving!

     Counting my Trout in the Classroom blessings this Thanksgiving...Some of our trout  have "buttoned-up" (lost their yolk sacs) and are beginning to swim searching for food!  The students have been patiently waiting to feed the trout. Yesterday  at 2:45 p.m. as we were feeding the trout for the first time, I accidentally dipped my finger in the tank as I was attempting to keep the food from floating on the surface of the water. I quickly looked at the thermometer because one touch and I knew something was not right. I couldn't believe my eyes when the thermometer read 61 degrees. Yikes!The chiller had stopped working! I had checked the temperature twice that day and it read 51 degrees.  At a  TIC training we learned a 1 degree temperature change can stress the trout- wonder what a  ten degree change in temperature so quickly will do- stress a first grade teacher!
     Last year our original chiller had stopped working and we replaced it with this used one and now it also has stopped working. In every cloud there is a silver lining, today I am thankful for the support of Penns Creek TU's Larry Winey who brought us a new chiller yesterday afternoon when we noticed the water temperature was slowly rising in spite of being set at 49 degrees. It  reached a scary 64.5 degrees before we changed chillers. Thankfully he had a replacement chiller to bring us before we lost any trout!
     We slowly lowered the temperature making sure the new chiller was working before leaving last evening planning to continue to lower the temperature today to avoid shocking the trout with another severe temperature change. And then a school closing...hi, ho, hi, ho, its off to school I go! The temperature this morning read 57 degrees which was where I had set the thermostat to avoid a severe temperature change ---so far so good! I lowered the temperature to my normal setting as I feed the fish that were searching for food.
     On a sad note,  I did remove two fry this morning that did not survive the ordeal.  But amazingly three deformed fry continue to survive, we have placed them in a separate basket to help protect them. I have named them Larry, Curly, and Moe.  Below is a picture of them and the other trout as well as  a video of the trout today as a  gentle reminder of all our  Trout in the Classroom blessings this Thanksgiving!

    

Eggcitement!

                                                                                            One of the things I love about teaching is the excitement the students share so freely! The students have been patiently waiting for our trout eggs to come since the first day of school. We wanted to share with the whole school that the day had finally arrived so we created a sign to place on our trout tank in the lobby.

 

 

    Our trout were shipped via UPS from Bellefonte and arrived on  November 5, 2014 around 2:30 p.m. This only added to the anticipation because the acclimation process takes several hours so that meant the students would have to wait yet another day to see our trout! While we waited for the trout to acclimate, we tested the water quality of our tank before we added our trout to make sure it would enable the trout to thrive. We also talked about how trout need cold, clean water to survive just like we do!

     After the students were dismissed for home, I began  counting and separating living and dead eggs. I placed 205 viable eggs in the tank. I counted 42 dead eggs and 2 dead alevin. Three eggs hatched immediately which I have witnessed many times over the past seven years, but it continues to excite and amaze me!

     In the morning when I came in the majority of the eggs had hatched into alevin (sac fry). This process usually occurs over a week after our eggs arrive leaving me plenty of time to show the students this stage of the lifecycle.  Not this year! I have never had the majority hatch over night. I took the students to the tank to catch a glimpse of the egg stage so we did not miss it. The students giggled when they witnessed the sac fry wiggle out of the eggs.  It was neat to have them actually witness this. It is not something you get to see everyday. By the end of the day only a handful of eggs remained from the 205 placed in the tank the day before.  We now have mostly alevin (sac fry).  Before I left on Friday,  12 eggs  had turned white which means they  died so I removed them from the tank. Some of the alevin died as well. I removed 4 from the tank. The hardest part for me is witnessing the struggle to survive. Hoping to have another successful year, but some of the alevin do not look healthy to me which has me a little worried. Stay tuned... now the fun begins!