Monday morning and we had been away from the fish over the weekend. When we checked this morning we saw the trout have had a big growth spurt. they are changing so much each day! We estimate they have approximately doubled in size since they first hatched from their eggs. Robert stopped by today and suggested we release them from the hatching basket into the general space of the aquarium. I carefully picked up the basket from its location, hanging on the side of the aquarium, and keeping it in the water, turned it sideways to allow the alevin to swim out. Most of them swam out right away. I had to dip and rinse the basket a few times to make sure there were none left in the basket. The students and I had a collective gasp when most of the trout sunk straight to the bottom, but Robert assured us that this was perfectly normal and reminded us that this was where they would be in their natural habitat also until they were developed enough to swim more freely around the tank. Robert also brought us a gallon size zip-lock bag of fish food. It has a very fine texture, almost like dark brown powder. As the fish get bigger their food size will change, but for now...specks for the specks. Jaime G. and Shirley P. were the first to feed the fish today. Starting tomorrow we will have a weekly team of students that feeds and records other information about the trout. Everyone in the class will get to do this job before we release the trout in May. It is amazing how quickly they are growing! If you look carefully at some of the alevin in the video, you can still see the orange on their belly. that is the remaining egg yolk they are still consuming as they grow.
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