Salmon 2017-2018

        We are raising Chinook Salmon. They are the biggest type of salmon. The salmon have really been making progress. All of the salmon have hatched and they have been swimming around every witch way. Since the salmon have got here eleven have died. And we had one-hundred fifty to start out with. And so far I have learned that when they are born they have this little pouch that carries food up to fifty days. It is called a yolk sack. I am really glad I get to spend the year with these salmon.

Release the Beasts! (Or...bye bye salmon)

 Last Monday, we released our salmon! The entire 4th grade went to the Ada Covered Bridge. When we got there, we ate lunch and then released our salmon. We went by classes down to the water. Our class went first. We received a cup with one salmon in it. First, some of us took the cup and placed it in the water, letting the water from the cup mix with the river water so the salmon could get used to the temperature. Then we poured the cup gently into the river, well MOST of us did. Some of the salmon went easily down the river, and others? Not so much. Anneke's kept jumping into her elbow as she was holding the cup! Some went the wrong way or tried to swim back to person releasing it! 

 

 Once we were done releasing the salmon, we went to different stations. The first station we went to was fly fishing. Mr. Miller brought rods and taught us how to fly fish. The next station was playing Sharks and Minnows. The third station was Salmon Survival, a Life Cycle of Salmon game, but it was extremely impossible to win! Adrianne, Anneke and Marylee all made it to the third stage (smolt) and Gibson made it to the 2nd stage, but Thomas never made it past the first stage. Henry S. made it to spawn!

 The last station was looking for insects and other microorganisms on rocks, sticks and wood from the river. We found two parasites, lots of blood suckers, and a couple bigger insects. We found the most from the rotting wood. We had to scratch, scrape, look in the muck and pull apart the rotting wood to find what we were looking for.

It was an awesome day! We are happy for our salmon, hopeful they don't die, and sad that they are gone from our science lab. :( 

Our advice for next year's bloggers: Assign roles, such as Title Maker. (That was Thomas this year!)

Adrianne, Anneke, Gibson, Marylee, and Thomas 

2017

Just A Foggy Day

 +

When its 50 degrees inside and 77 degrees outside
the glass fogs up. That equals condensation!



                                                                                  =

Salmon release day!

More pictures coming soon. 

Please stay tuned!

Dumping Water

The caretakers dump water in the tank every day. Why? First, they suck out their food and poop that are on the floor of the tank. They siphon the dirty water into a bucket and then dump it into a sink. Next, they take a big jug filled with water that has been sitting out overnight. They dump that water it into the tank. It takes about two jugs to fill it back up. Now the water level is back where it was when they started! They refill the jugs back up and set them on the counter so they can be ready for the next day. This is so the chemicals in the water evaporate, which makes it safer for the fish!

Salmon Adventure!

Our little salmon that we raised from eggs are almost ready to be released.

They started out as eggs about a centimeter big from the Wolf Lake State Fish Hatchery. Our class came along and picked them up. That is where our journey started!

At school, in the science lab, we got a tank for the salmon eggs. Mrs. Miller put the eggs in the tank, after school hours. Gibson witnessed it all. This is what he had to say about it:
"My mom told me that they were in this big bucket. Mrs. Miller filled the tank up with a bunch of water. She then delicately placed them in the tank. I was really excited that they were putting them in, so my mom told me all about it."

The next day we came to school and they were floating around in a little container. They were starting to fall out of the container to the bottom of the tank. There they sat until they hatched. After a few weeks, they started to poke their little heads and tails out of the eggs. The little egg shells floated around in the tank and stuck to the big filter foam.

Over the next few weeks, we saw their yolk sacs start to disappear as they "buttoned up". Then they needed to be fed! The caretakers fed them the first food size. Over the course of the next two weeks, they started getting bigger, their bellies started to shrink, and their yolk sacs completely disappeared!
 We watched as they started to swim around! It was amazing.

Now they are about a few months old, they are about two inches long, about an inch fat, and they are ready to be released on Monday, May 22nd! Please check back because we'll post pictures!

Growing Up!

      Our salmon that  we raised from little eggs are now 3 inches long! 

They have finally leveled up to the last food size! The food size is 2.5 mm. 

The salmon caretakers feed them a pinch a day but before that they suck up water. They do this to clean the water. The cute thing is the fish recognise that they are changing the water and they swim up to the top, ready to be fed. 

The Fish at their current size 

Caretakers

 They pump out some water so the food can come out also their poop. Their  have to suck it out with there mouths and the fish are scared of the sucker. Because

 it can kill them they suck out the stuff into a bucket then dump it into the sink so they don't have to do it with there hands. After they do that they have to feed them but first they dump more water in because they sucked all of that water out. They need to big buckets because they suck  all that water along with the poop. They dip an ammonia test strip in the water to test the level. They have a sheet of paper to write if something happened to the fish, like if one died or if the ammonia levels are wrong.

The salmon caretakers are 

refilling the water in this picture.

In this picture, they are testing the ammonia. 

It was safe.

She is sucking out the water the get the suction going.

 They are sucking out the dirty water but a fish got stuck!
They had to lift it up, let the fish go, and go to another spot.

Anatomy of salmon

External Anatomy - the features outside of a salmon, like the tail fin, also known as the caudal fin. The caudal fin helps them steer like a steering wheel, it helps them swim by propelling them through the water.

 Internal Anatomy - features on the inside of a salmon, like the swim bladder. The swim bladder helps the salmon float in the water.

Salmon Update

Here is  another update on the salmon last week on our salmon were were barely exceeding 1 1/2 inches

and now they are about 1 3/4 inches (The top pic is from last week the bottom is this week) they are swimming more toward the top of the tank because they are bigger and stronger.    

April 19, 2017                                                                                       

                                                                                              April 12, 2017 

The Salmon's Natal Stream

A natal stream is their stream where they are born. It´s important because when fish are in their natal stream  they leave to the sea water. But then they go back to their natal stream to lay eggs, where hungry bears are sometimes waiting to eat them!

We're Making an ABC Book

Our whole class is making a book about our salmon. We are making an ABC Book About Salmon. An ABC book is where you have information about the topic for each letter. For example, I am letter G. I can either do Great Lakes or Gravel. I think I want to do great lakes. Anneke is letter I, Marylee is letter M and she is doing migration, Thomas is letter T.

Our class is making a Salmon ABC book!
First, before we were assigned our letters, we looked at examples from the library, and all my classmates got a different book. While we were looking for examples for our ABC salmon book,
and we were using sticking sticky notes in the books for text features. Here are two books we looked at:

How we picked how to do our ABCs book -
(1) Previewed books.
(2) Picked a format.
(3) Picked what letter each student is going to do. After every kid got a letter, we started to research.
(4) Researching: We all got a Chromebook and started to research our letter. We went to Google to get information. We also looked in books.
(5)When we got all our information we made a slide on it on our Google drive and shared it with our teachers.
(6) We made a rubric for everyone to follow so the book pages will all look the same.
(7) We had to revise some pages, change some font and add some things to some pages.


We're still working on it but we're getting close to being done! 

The Blackout

The blackout was creepy for the fish and us! On the dreadful day of March 15, 2017... The wind was so strong... it knocked out the power... The fish were at serious risk...First the lights were flickering...Then at exactly 1:36 pm the power shut down completely everything stopped even the fish equipment. Then a giant tree mercilessly crashed to the ground almost crushing the school. The fish were at serious risk of so many things if the power was out for longer. For example, the oxygen level could of dropped or the water could get too dirty because the filter would not be working.
Over spring break there will be an automatic feeder so people won't have to come from where ever they are to come back and feed the fish. The automatic feeder it is battery powered so if there's a blackout it won't shut down.



By: Thomas Paplawsky and Marylee Wisner

No more Auggie?

Do you remember Auggie Jr.?  He is the deformed fish.
We have a suspicion about him.
Once upon a time on March 13, 2017, one innocent, deformed,
salmon turned black and died.
The salmon caretakers were suprised, confused and scared.
They contacted a teacher immediately.

I recently interviewed caretaker Zach Ruffer about this fish.
Our suspicion has been confirmed!
Auggie Jr. was the unfortunate fish who has been flushed.

What does anadromous mean?

The word anadromous means migrating up fresh water rivers from the sea, to breed. Salmon are anadromous. Anadromous fish born in fish water spends most of its life in the sea returns to freshwater to spawn. Smolt, shad, striped bass and sturgeon are common examples. Castration's fish dose the opposite - lives in fresh water and enters salt water to spawn.  Most of the eels are catanadromous.

Who Lives Who Dies Who Tells Your Story

We got the fish from the Wolf Lake Fish Hatchery in October. We brought the little pea sized eggs on the bus from the fish hatchery to our science lab and put the eggs in the tank immediately. Lots of classes have been taking care of the fish and we call those people the care takers. Since we got the fish they have been growing and now they are 2 inches long! And Only 22 fish died I know that sounds like a lot but there were like 150 fish. We will have to let the fish go soon and they will start their own story.

Auggie Junior

Deformations are caused by birth defects. Birth defects are when the fish are still in their eggs and a part of them doesn't' form right

 

We got the name Auggie Junior from last years bloggers.  They had a fish with a deformation, Auggie.  We named the fish Auggie junior because he has a deformation. A deformation means they have something wrong with him. Here is a picture of him.

One of are bloggers spotted him and said ''Hey, he looks deformed!'' "I think you are right," said the rest of the bloggers. Update: 3/22/17. Two weeks ago aggie junior was spotted but we learned that one fish then turned black and died. We are afraid that fish was Auggie.     

LEVEL UP!

Our little Chinook salmon have graduated to food size 2!

They are growing up!

Aren't you proud?

WE sure are.

This is the label:

-----------------------------------------------------

Food Size = #2

Fish Length = 1.5 - 2.0 inches

Duration on Food = 2 weeks

Week 1 = 3/4 tsp

Week 2 = 1 tsp

Amount of food is spread over several feedings

---------------------------------------------------------  

Is The Water OK?

You might have heard of a "pH level" in water,

but do you even really know what that means?

If not, I'm here to tell you what it is and how to test it.

pH is pretty much just the acidity level in the water, 

But it has to be tested.

That is critical to the salmons' survival.

The caretakers also test the nitrate, nitrite, hardness,

chlorine, and alkalinity of the water. (see "The Helpful Maintenance Chart")  
This is the diagram for the water:

Before & After

    

Can you tell how good the condition of the water is in the after photo?

(answer in comments)

                                         

Growing Fish

When we got the eggs, they were way less than a 1/2 an inch. Now they are about an inch long! They are swimming and it looks like they are playing with each other. They no longer have their yolk sacs. They eat the fish food that we feed them. They get fed three times a day.
Here's how big they are today:

The problem

OH NO! The problem was the top of the tank shattered on the ground. It happened this morning. A 4th grader broke it on accident, and Mrs. Miller is going to buy a new one. She says it´s not cheap.




Without a lid, lots of problems could be created, such as:

• The water could evaporate! Here's a picture of how much water has evaporated so far:

• The salmon could jump out and they could die.
• Kids can get too tempted to touch the water. This is bad for the fish!
• The temperature is 55 and that's bad, too. The lid helps the tank stay at the temperature that you want. 

• They might die out before we release them!

Hopefully, we get a new lid soon.

By Adrianne and Gibson

The Helpful Maintenance Chart

Yeah I know, BORING Maintenance Chart but I'm gonna spice it up a little bit. The maintenance chart is how we keep track of everything that goes on in the tank. The caretakers are in charge of the chart. Their job is to take care of the salmon and write down their growth, water percentages, deaths and when to feed the fish.
Here are some of the things they keep track of:

• From the 16th of November to December 5th there have been 12 deaths and the pH average is 6.8. 
• The nitrate average was 20 and the nitrite average was 10  
• The Alkalinity average was 120 
• The chlorine was 0 as you probably guessed and the average hardness was 150. 
• Finally the thing you've all been waiting for, the deaths. There was 12 deaths. 

P.S That was the most bloody month : )

The caretakers of the salmon do lots of stuff, like cleaning out old water and putting in new water. They are the ones who take care of the maintenance chart too. They have to turn off everything when they do tests on the water and it takes about 10 minutes each day. 

FAQ About Salmon

1.  What kinds of salmon are there?

      Chinook, chum, pink, sockeye, coho, masu.

2. What is the largest type of salmon?
     Chinook/King salmon

3.  Do all salmon survive from hatching?
     No

4.  Do salmon have bones?
     Yes

5.  Why are there so few salmon left?
     There are many reasons such as logging, dams, fishing, and weather.

6.   What is the smallest salmon?
       Pink salmon

7.    are salmon cold blooded
        Yes

Flashy Outfit

Salmon change colors to attract a spawning mate. Some pacific salmon use a lot of their energy for returning home! For making eggs and digging a nest, most of them stop eating when they return to freshwater and have no energy left for a returning trip after spawning.
When they return for spawning, they stop feeding. They have a shape change, especially the males. In some species, they form a hump on their back and their mouths change. The males and females both have color changes.

DNR

The DNR in Michigan was founded in the 1800s by the University of Michigan Board of Regents. It was formed when lots of people thought they could have as much natural resources such as iron copper and wood as they wanted.

The DNR is short for Department of Natural Resources. They take care of the fish for awhile then they give them to Hatcheries. Hatcheries are big places that take care of and breed the fish. We took a field trip to a hatchery, and that's were we got our fish.