New stage

The salmon have reached a new stage in the life circle, they are now in there dark ages. They now have to have a laminated black piece of paper to resemble the dark river/ocean. This gets them used to what they are going to live in for the rest of their lives. All though the black screen helps them as they grow some of the fish look like they are not used to the black screen. It does look like its helping the fish though.

The Crisis

A week ago there was a crisis the fish nitrate level was of the charts and the PH level was way too low, that is very bad for fish if they live in that for too long. 1st we tried to clean the water we took a long tube and water flowed through it into the bucket on the other side sometimes the fish went through the tube for a joy ride, it doesn't harm them at all! Sadly that didn't help the water much. So then the teachers  put a substance in the water. 2 hours later it was still bad! Then the teachers put in some more chemicals, putting in more chemicals helped the PH level but, not the nitrate level so still while we are writing this the nitrate is still crazy and working through the problem.

Losing fish

                                                                Losing Fish

A lot of the coho salmon have died mostly because they were small. Some have also died because of the filter. When we first came in we saw a fish that got stuck in the filter and sadly the fish died. All thanks to the filter we are losing fish, we can't take it anymore. All the small fish are dying because they are not big enough to live from the changes we are making with the food and the tank. It's hard taking care of the coho salmon but it's also fun.

Filters Are No Fun

Breaking news! Today we made an amazing discovery that four tiny fish got stuck in the filter! Unfortunately none survived. These fish were curious and were just wondering what the filter was. It brings a tears to my eyes when I think about these poor little fish.When we came back we saw one fish on the ground and we found out that he died. Some fish family members have been caught! But now they are swimming up to fishy heaven. Lots of the fish have died and we are very sad about that but we still have a lot of coho salmon.

                                                                       Swim Away


                    Although the salmon have hatched and grown to be able to swim they still bunch up in the corners. Their acting like elevators swimming up to the highest level of water and then shoot back down. All of them attempt to clump together, but they don't want to bump into each other. We tested it out and when we stood near the side of the tank they were on, then the salmon would swim away to the other side because we are so much bigger and louder to them so we have to be extremely calm and quiet or else they'll go crazy.

Jelly Bellys

Our salmon have gotten bigger and have eaten more in the past few weeks. They also look as though they are squishy. The salmon are stronger since they have been darting around the tank and when they hit the
walls of the tank they bounce right back off. When this happens we call them "Jelly Bellies" they are like little bouncy balls that can swim. Some of our salmon are bigger than others and our hypothesis is that they fight over the food so the ones that don't get food get small and some might even starve.

Lunch Time!

The salmon used to feed off their egg sacks, but now they are eating off the food we give them. Since they are eating they have grown to be about 1 inch long, with parr marks all over them. Their food has also made them stronger so that they can swim to the top of the water to retrieve their lunch. Their  stomach is getting bigger and they have a thin glossy layer over their scales.        

Tiny the Salmon

Tiny the Salmon

Tiny is the smallest of all the salmon. Tiny is just the same as any other salmon, the only difference is that... well his name describes it! He is the tiniest! Possibly he is a runt so that is why he is so small. He must not have many friends because every time we look at him he is swimming alone. Tiny seems to swim the slowest, maybe he has no friends because they don't see him because he is so small. I hope that Tiny has a better life when he's older, we know that we will not see him then. 

Interesting Hand Movments

The Waving Of the Hand 

  The salmon are growing by the second, it's awesome to see them progress so fast. One really cool thing that we noticed is that when you walk up to the tank and you start waving your hands around the salmon scatter. This does not usually surprise people but what surprised us was how you do it. If you do it crazily and you run up to the tank and jump around like a monkey waving your hands around they speed away like rockets. If you do it calmly and wave slowly they react the same way swimming away slowly. The different things that we learn about the salmon is intriguing and we can't wait to learn more.    

Way too Much Food

Way too Much Food

    Today in the morning there was a horrible tragedy that there was way too much food in the salmon's tank. Imagine, a huge light brown  blob of food in the middle of the tank with fish swimming all around it, which killed one of the poor little salmon.  We think it was a mixture of dirty water and eating too much food that killed the salmon. For some reason, someone put too much food in their tank. Luckily the kids were able to clean the tank before it harmed any other salmon.