The Journey Begins!

 The eggs are shipped by UPS from Bellefonte.  When they arrive,  I take a temperature reading of the water in the shipment bag. Then I place the bag in the tank to allow the eggs to acclimate to the tank temperature.  Next, I must separate the dead eggs from the living eggs and keep a count of both. I use the turkey baster, a plastic spoon, and a pipette to remove the dead eggs. I have two containers. One is for dead eggs and one is filled with water from the tank for living eggs. Once I have twenty living eggs, I place them immediately in the tank.

 

I continue this process until all living eggs are placed peacefully in the hatching  baskets we made.

 This year we placed 202 living eggs between two hatching baskets.  I removed 42 dead eggs from the shipment. As a result of the difficulties last year, we are keeping the tank temperature a little warmer in an attempt to allow the eggs to develop more quickly to allow more time for feeding before Christmas break.

     I was concerned because  a lot of the eggs had streaks of blood and began to die over the next few days. All the eggs hatched, but  about half of the alevin also had streaks of blood and then died. We lost around 100 fish since their arrival which began to concern the students. After speaking with some of the other teachers at our in-service day, I  soon learned we were not alone. Today, I received a call from our TIC coordinator who informed me we would be receiving another shipment of eggs. They had tried a new way of sorting the eggs this year using a machine to separate the dead eggs from the living eggs. She felt it stressed the trout causing them to die because the eggs that were sorted this way were the ones with the most deaths. It is a learning process for all. She hand picked us another batch of trout eggs due to arrive either tomorrow or Thursday! Check back to see how we make out!

 

 On a positive note, we planted seeds several weeks ago that had not shown any signs of life until I began placing the dead trout eggs/alevin in the soil. Apparently the Indians had a great idea because the seeds began to sprout!  I am always trying to find the positive things to keep me going.