To help ease the idea of losing fish as we experience survival of the fittest first-hand, we place our nonliving trout on our classroom plants as fertilizer. We are hoping to have enough trout alive for each student to release one during our school-wide release scheduled for May 19, 2018 at Lost Creek Golf Course. Above on the left is a container of the trout that died during the shipping process. On the right, two students are fertilizing our plant.
Literally overnight our Brook Trout eggs hatched into alevin. The students really enjoy this stage of the life cycle because it is something most have never experienced. Some refer to this stage as sacfry because the trout have a yolk sac that sustains life during this phase, but the official name is alevin. It takes some convincing for the students to believe that the trout are alive during this phase because mostly they simply lay there contently... as I like to say...fat and happy. Unless there is movement or light near the tank, then they scurry to hide. The students love to see this. Below is a short video of the alevin attempting to hide. As they grow, their bodies will become larger and the yolk sac will absorb. This is referred to as buttoning up. Once it is gone, we will begin to feed them 2-3 times a day at first. It will be a long few weeks waiting until we can feed them. The students are so eager.
