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.