Persistently high nitrite Every year, some schools experience extended periods of elevated ammonia or nitrite. Since these two toxic compounds can be very harmful to our fry, such stretches can be very worrisome, if not tragic. Recently, I've been in regular correspondence with Kathleen Backus and Brendan McKenna, of Village School of North Bennington. On April 10, Kathleen sent me this e-mail. I forwarded images Kathleen sent me to our TIC experts: Robb Cramer, Chuck Dinkel, and Tara Granke. Robb and Cramer though it looked like the fry had saprolegnia. On April 16, Kathleen wrote this: Today our healthy large fish are dying. I pulled out 7 large dead trout today and as I sat there more were dying. It is happening fast. Here are two weeks worth of VSNB data Kathleen sent me on April 16. As you can see, ammonia was slightly elevated on 4/2 and then declined, ultimately falling to zero, as nitrite began to rise. Unfortunately, nitrite stayed at 2 ppm or higher for at least the next eight days. I say "at least" because, when Kathleen rechecked the nitrite on 4/17, she found that it was still 2.0 ppm. (When I believed the 4/16 nitrite reading was 1.0, I assumed that the nitrogen cycle was finally coming to its conclusion--as Brendan McKenna put it: "The fever had broken.") Especially those 3.0 and 4.0 ppm nitrite readings were probably putting a lot of stress on the fish. Eventually (as of today), ten fish died. Here's what they looked like. Here's Robb Cramer's diagnosis: Those are high Nitrite numbers. My guess — the high Nitrite numbers led to increased susceptibility to infection and the fish acquired an infection during that time period. That is one of the consequences of poor water quality — immune suppression. So even if it is for a relatively short period of time, when the fish are stressed, they become more susceptible to disease. Chuck Dinkel, Maryland TIC coordinator, added this: A product such as Amquel Plus will detoxify ammonia and nitrites, but does not remove it. If a school is experiencing elevated nitrite readings this product will make it possible to employ larger and more frequent water changes to get the nitrites down; essentially buying time for action on the part of the students or the slow-growing bacteria. The conversion of ammonia to nitrites apparently takes place more quickly than conversion of nitrites to nitrates. You don't want to become overly dependent on a detoxifier, as something has to eventually remove the nitrites, either bacteria or water changes. But it does offer the possibility of saving some fish while either of these techniques or a combination of both are employed. So what are the take-aways from all of this?
Filter problems AquaClear filter output very low Melinda Carpenter, at Bellows Free Academy, sent this message to Bob Wible and Chuck Goller, two of her regional TIC support people. The water return seems to have slowed down to a dribble. Do either of you have any ideas about how to fix this? Thanks so much! Chuck responded with: Have you already checked to make sure the screen over the intake is clean and clear and the intake tube is intact and not clogged? (She had.) Bob sent this e-mail to Melinda and Chuck: I have seen a couple of instances where the water leaving the filter has greatly reduced. It was due to either: 1. What Chuck said: a clogged screen at the bottom of the intake tube. 2. An improperly positioned intake tube. Make sure the tube end that connects to the opening in the filter pump is aligned to the hole. Have the pump unplugged and also check that the impeller (which is on that hole) is rotating freely. It could be that something got in there and jammed it. After an intervention, Melinda reported this: I did end up taking apart some of the filter after school today and it is much better! I'm not really sure what I did as it didn't seem blocked, but a lot more water is running through, so that is a relief. Nice work everybody! That's a great example of collaborative problem solving. Fluval filter not working Two days ago Poultney Elementary School's Keith Harrington sent me the following e-mail. I came in today during vacation to check on our trout. The custodians have been feeding them and they look great, however our filter was not running. I took it out. Dumped out the water and started from scratch like it was the beginning of the year. When I put it back in the tank, the motor made a crackling noise for a few seconds and then quit. The good news is that everything else is running fine and the fish look great. I won't know until we come back on Monday after vacation whether we have funds to replace it. Any advice you have as to how to proceed will be appreciated. I have a beautiful batch and hope I can maintain them. Keith's school uses a Fluval 406 filter. Two problems that can occur with these are a dead motor or a broken impeller. Because of Keith's description of noise, I suspect the latter. My advice to Keith was to purchase an AquaClear 110 filter either locally or through the Internet. I found the filter available at Amazon for $76.99. (Since I was out of state for a few days, I wasn't able to help him.) Both the Fluval 406 and the AquaClear 110 filters seem equally effective in our TIC set-ups. The AquaClear has three advantages: It's considerably cheaper (the best price I could find on a Fluval this morning was $200); it's easier to set up; and there's almost no danger of a leak that could lead to water on the classroom floor. Once I'm back in Vermont, I'll pick up Keith's old filter and dive into the process of diagnosing and repairing it. It will either require a new impeller or that I send the motor unit back to the manufacturer. Either way, we'll eventually have a back-up filter available in this area for the next time we have one die mid-season. Adapted baster Last Saturday, Meg Ritter, of Crossett Brook Middle School, sent me this message and these photos. Since all of our alevin ended up in the gravel, I built an adaptation of the baster to shoot food to the smaller fry on the bottom. I glued (aquarium cement) a stiff tube to the end of a baster. It seems to have helped and is also helpful to check on those that are resting on the gravel. We squeeze some bubbles towards them--if they move away, they’re fine, if not, or move sluggishly, we pull them out. Great idea, Meg! I'm sure many teachers will copy you. The perfect release site Experienced TIC teachers probably know where they want to release their fish: the place where they released them last year. But new TIC teachers might still be looking for the right location, and even some experienced teachers may realize that there could be an even better site out there. For those still trying to decide where to release their fish, what should be considered? Where? Remember that Tom Jones of the Vermont Fish and Wildlife Department needs to approve your release site. Normally that is done in the fall as part of the process of requesting eggs. If for some reason you did not request his approval, you can contact him at [email protected]. Depending on where your school is located, you may have several fabulous release site options close by or you may have no good options without traveling a distance. What's the perfect release site? I often describe it as "skinny water," a small tributary brook that's just big enough to support trout and the bugs that will sustain them but small enough so that nobody, not even your most over-eager young student, can get into trouble. Here is my wish list of the ideal characteristics of a great release stream:
What you don't want is a broad, deep stream or river, where kids could get into trouble.
Have a back-up plan too Another thought: you can't count on the weather, and sometimes on your scheduled Release Day, your first-choice release site is in flood stage. If that's the case, you'll either need to reschedule or go to an alternate site. It's best to start with two dates, your primary date and a back-up "rain date." If that's what you choose to do, make sure that all your helpers have both dates on their schedules. The other approach is to move up into the watershed of your approved stream. Since water flows downhill--a water table is a great way to demonstrate this to your students--small, high-gradient streams (that means ones that drop steeply and lose altitude quickly) lose the extra water dumped by a heavy rain long before lowland streams do. Streams and rivers in the valleys might still be muddy and dangerously high for days after their tributaries have cleared up and gone back to their banks.
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Getting help for your Release Day Unless you intend a super "short and sweet" release day--and some teachers who engage their kids in fieldwork all year long do--you'll probably want to plan a number of fun and interesting activities on Release Day. I mentioned some of the options for RD activities in my April 2, 2018, blog and will be offering further options below. But the question of how ambitious your RD can be hinges on the number of people you can you get to help. Who might some of those potential helpers be? Many teachers recruit Release Day helpers both from within and without the school community. Here are some possibilities:
Regional Trout Unlimited chapter TIC liaisons If you don't know where to find the volunteers you need, contact your local TU TIC liaison. They might be able to help. Here they are:
Natural Resources Conservation Districts I mentioned above that potential volunteers/partners might be found at one of the "natural resources conservation districts" that are spread across the state. Here's a map of their distribution. These groups typically have staff with considerable expertise in environmental science, especially related to rivers and streams. The NRCDs also often own equipment that can be used at Release Days. Click the button below to get more information on each of the state's NRCDs. Watershed groups All across the state of Vermont you will find a variety of watershed groups. Here's a map of their distribution. I bet there's one near your school. (Click on the map to access the interactive watershed group Web page.) Many of those red dots represent groups that have a special interest in a local river. Some focus not so much on a specific river but rather on a watershed. Here are some of the rivers covered by these organizations:
Below I've provided a link to a Web page listing all these organizations as well as others. Here's an example of the Web site of just one of these groups. Audubon Society Members of the various Audubon Society chapters around the state have also in the past assisted schools with their Release Days. Here is some contact information on each of Vermont's seven Audubon Society chapters. I'll bet there's one in your neighborhood!
Release Day videos You can find numerous Release Day videos on YouTube, but I've also assembled a few on this Web page. If you don't know what a RD looks like, watch a few of these fairly short films. More about the WHAT of Release Day Tara Granke's reminder Tara Granke, national TIC coordinator for Trout Unlimited, (pictured right) recently reminded our state coordinators about the fieldwork and RD ideas available on the TU/TIC Web site. Click on the image below to go to that page on the national TIC Web site. RD ideas from teachers across the country Teacher Luke Rabideau asked this question of the participants on the TIC/SIC national network: Any other ideas, beside a general stream study, temps, flows, seine for bugs, and mapping. Of course releasing the trout! Any other ideas for a day at the stream? S. Hood sent this in: Our city, Tulsa, OK has a "streams" division that keeps tabs on the health of the streams that drain our city into the Arkansas River... that have "shocking" equipment and are delighted to be invited to our releases where they "shock-up" all types of aquatics... they even let the older students man the nets. It's always quite exciting to see what pops up. We also offer fly tying demos and casting lessons. JJ Prior, Grade 5, Keene, NH, submitted these ideas: Similar to the post from Tulsa, our municipal water department monitors healthy streams and watersheds and helps provide our equipment. On release day our coordinator meets us at the stream and puts on waders, catching macroinvertebrates for students to pass around in observation jars: dragonfly nymphs and caddis fly larvae, and occasionally we see other trout fry already in the stream. The kids looking into the jars at the little critters makes for great photos! Chuck Dinkel, MD TIC coordinator added: Geo-caching is becoming popular. Invite a state or federal park ranger to talk to students about protecting and preserving the environment. Fly tying demonstration by TU volunteers. Visit a local hatchery if it is within driving distance. Dave Andrews of Butler, PA, contributed this: We do a fly casting station, litter cleanup, riparian buffer planting, and electroshocking fish survey with our local biologists. Lillit Genovesi, TIC coordinator for NYC, suggested: Stewardship projects, such as invasive plant removal or native tree/shrub planting, are always great. We have also done hike, water quality and soil testing, nature journaling, and my personal favorite: Postcards from the Watershed - where students write a postcard to friends or family describing the day and mail it from local PO. Schedule your Release Day! Over the next few weeks, many schools will be scheduling their Release Days AND booking volunteers to help with those days. If you wait too long, you may find it difficult to recruit the folks you need to help with some of the more interesting field-based activities. What's with this weather? Yuck! When will this weather become more seasonally appropriate? Here's what the Castleton River looked like this afternoon when I drove back from a visit to West Rutland School. And what did I see in West Rutland? Some very big and beefy young brook trout. WRS science teacher Jennifer Jackson greeted me at the end of her school day to show off the very healthy fish she and English teacher Zach Eastman have been raising. Their bigger fry were more than two inches long! Pretty impressive for early April! (BTW, they chose the "hot and fast" temperature approach.) School reports In response to Blog #21, I heard from quite a few teachers, several of whom sent photos of their fish or students. Janis Boubol, Sharon Elementary School, wrote: At Sharon we have had several fish languishing at the bottom and looking listless. We have been losing 1-2 fish per day for the last 2 weeks. We have checked the numbers, done water changes and have been watching the strong fry feed well. We did not have this experience last year so I am wondering what else we can do. I said that I suspected those small, weak fish were pinheads that never learned to eat and would almost certainly die. As long as the healthy-appearing fish don't start looking weak too, I though the survivors would be fine. Keith Harrington, Poultney Elementary School, sent this report: Our trout have been released from the breeder basket and into the tank and seem to be doing well. We had a run where we were losing one or so a day right before we let them into the tank. It seems to be that these fish were just not eating enough and were either not learning how to eat or being outworked to get to the food by the others that were more developed. As far as fish being trapped against the filter, or going through the filter is concerned, that has not been a problem at all. One thing I did differently this year is to leave them in the breeder basket longer. They were bigger when I let them into the tank, and I think that is paying off. For release day in the past I have done several things. One year we had students write poems about their experience with TIC to read before the release. Last year each student or group of students did a Powerpoint presentation that we shared on the stage at Green Mountain College on the big screen. We also have worked with GMC professors and Poultney/ Mettowee Watershed Conservation District staff to put together a series of hands-on station activities at the Poultney River during the day. Water table work Danielle Levine, at Schoolhouse Learning Center, borrowed a "water table" from the Resource Room at the ECHO Science Museum in Burlington. This allowed her to demonstrate to her young students how precipitation moves through a watershed and its streams and rivers. Pretty cool, huh! More school reports Dan Ruddell, of White River Partnership, provided this update on a couple of schools in the eastern part of the state: There seemed to be some possible discoloration (darkened) around the gills on one that I looked at [at Sharon Elementary], but not dramatically so. As Janis mentioned they looked listless and the gills appeared to be fluttering; nothing else obvious, but the body was also not as large as many of the others. Last week the filter had stopped functioning for a bit (less than a day) due to a fine mesh over the filter intake becoming clogged. I removed and rinsed it with tap water, then rinsed well with tank water before replacing; filter worked fine at that point. The ammonia had risen temporarily to 1.0, nitrite to 3, nitrates to 80. Ammonia came back down to 0.25, but nitrite has stayed up around 3; nitrate had dropped back to 40. They had lost around 20 fish. We did a partial water change yesterday and drew another bucket. Their water is relatively hard. Braintree has also lost 20 or so in the last week or two, some similar issues with listless fish and fluttering gills on ones I saw but no signs of discoloration. They said a number of the mortalities seemed smaller/weaker; they had lowered the basket but have been placing weak ones back into it again. Filter is functioning fine, ammonia mostly 0 with one or two 0.25 readings; nitrite all less than 0.5 and nitrates mostly 20 or less. I was thinking we may be seeing some mortality of pinheads as the yolk sac reserves are now pretty depleted and some of these fish are still not really responding to feeding, but there may be more going on; not clear about what that is though. Cannibalism documented! Charlotte Central School's Tasha Grey sent this report, question, and photo: I came in this morning to discover a head hanging out of our largest fry's mouth! We popped him in the breeder basket until we can figure out what to do- another teacher dubbed it a "time out." Should we try to remove the dead fish from his mouth? Or simply let him deal (or not) with his own problem? I said don't try to remove the dead fry. Bob Wible added this: I would leave the aggressive fry in the basket for a week. Also feed him just once a day so the others can grow a little more than he does. Then a day before you before you release him back to the tank feed him as you do the others. Jen Grilly, at th Bridge School proudly sent me this video of her fish eating breakfast. Jen also pointed of the "little guy on the bottom with a crooked tail." The TIC team at Dorset School, Holly Hjelt, Brenda LoPresti, and Karli Love, had their students write trout haikus. Here's a sampling of what the students produced that I found posted on the bulletin board outside their classroom. Great job kids! Because three teachers with three different classrooms are working together on TIC at Dorset, Karli, Brenda, and Holly have had to define which students will focus on what aspects of TIC when. Some of this is laid out on a bulletin board outside Karli's classroom. Here are some pictures I took of the BB. (I also couldn't resist snapping a few photos of the tank in Karli's room.) I love this photo that Meg Ritter, Crossett Brook Middle School, sent me today. It shows the concentration her 7th graders invest in water testing. Salisbury Community School's Amy Clapp sent this report and the following photos. We did the slow and cold method, and the fish seem so little. We had about 6-7 die in the swim up phase. I think they were pinheads, but once we released into the big tank, die-off seemed to stop. Students have been comparing and contrasting life cycles of fish compared to other animals and plants....they make lots of connections. I love it when the pre-schoolers come to look at the tank.....working on release day...think we are going to tour the Salisbury Hatchery and release on the same day with Paul Urband. We also have been doing "Fish Friday" where each Friday I do a lesson for 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 6th graders about some aspect of fish and/or tank. Here are some photos. What species? As soon as Charlie Cummings, 3rd grade teacher at Fisher Elementary School, got his eggs, he thought one group of them looked very different from all the others. As those eggs hatched and grew, they continued to look unlike the rest of the fish. Over the months, we've begun to wonder whether they might be landlocked Atlantic salmon. Here are three photos of those mystery fish. What do you think? Emma Vastola sent this great information and related images on an activity she's got her 1st graders doing: The first graders are making Trout Journals this year. They are learning how to make scientific observations and exploring the Performance Standard: I can tell how parents and their children are alike and different. Attached are a few photos of the students doing their Brook Trout Observations. My next blog will return to the topic of Release Day planning.
What do our trout look like these days? On Saturday I visited Currier Memorial School in Danby and met with teacher Michael Luzader. We had scheduled a couple of hours to inspect several possible release sites near his school. That gave me the chance to see his fish. Here's what his are looking like. I love the way that fry all want to face into whatever current they detect. In this case, the current was created by a combination of the filter out-flow and the two aerators that Michael had installed. Send me photos and videos of your fry. Release Day planning Now that we've gotten past April Fool's Day--I hope someone in your life tricked you good!--it's time to get serious about planning Release Day. In this and future blogs, I'll address the four questions that have to be considered when thinking about Release Day:
Let us know what you've done in past Release Days that's worked for you and your students. We'll share those ideas with new TIC teachers or those eager to augment what they've done on Release Day in past years. For new TIC teachers and those wanting to expand or spice up their Release Days Now that we got that appeal for ideas out of the way, let's start with the question of what to do on Release Day. In Vermont, we generally conduct Release Days between the middle of May and the middle of June. (That's part of the when. More to come.) Release Days can range from simple, 20-minute long events to four-hour long ( or more) programs that include several different fieldwork activities. Schools that take the former, brief approach to Release Day are typically those that have engaged their students in fieldwork all year long. For example, Guy Merolle, science teacher at my local school, Castleton Village School, enjoys the luxury (because of the proximity of a nearby trout stream) of having his kids doing work in the Castleton River, just north of CVS, from August to June. When the end of the TIC program approaches, he doesn't need to provide additional fieldwork opportunities for his students, so he embeds the release of their fish into an annual service project that the whole school performs at Lake Bomoseen State Park. All the kids are transported to their release site. Guy and some students say a few words; they put their fry into a tributary of the Castleton River; everybody cheers; and then they get back on the buses and go on to Lake Bomoseen, where they pull water chestnuts or some other invasive species. A great Release Day for CVS! But most schools don't have the option of year-round fieldwork, so they choose to augment the release of their fish with fieldwork activities. Here's a list of activities that some Vermont schools have included in past Release Days.
You can find details on how to conduct these various activities (a) in our VTTIC Google Docs folder, (b) at the national TIC Web site, or (c) on the Internet. If I've listed above an activity you'd like to use on your Release Day and you can't find details on how to conduct it, let me know and I'll provide instructions or a description of the activity. In my next blog, I'll start to tackle the questions of WHO you can get to help you on Release Day, WHEN to schedule it, and WHERE to hold it. Crossett Brook Middle School Here's what Crossett Brook Middle School's Meg Ritter’s fish are looking like: Here are two pictures Meg's students took of their fish. Castleton Village School Here are a few photos I took while visiting Guy Merolle at Castleton Village School on March 29. By the way, Guy doesn't have plants in his tank. Those are images on a background photograph behind the tank.
As some of you have reported, while many of Guy's fish look big and healthy, some are languishing on the bottom and not eating. This is probably due to the fact that, while Guy was on paternity leave spending time with his wife and their second baby, a substitute teacher lowered the basket--probably too early. These scrawny fish will almost certainly not make it. Be sure to remove them before they decompose and contribute to water chemistry problems. |
Joe Mark is Lead Facilitator of Vermont's Trout in the Classroom program.In June 2012, I retired after 40 years in higher education, having spent the last 32 years of my career as dean at Castleton. One of the first things I volunteered to do in retirement was to work with a parent-friend to help the Dorset School, where his kids and my Vermont grandkids attend, start a TIC program. Gradually that commitment grew into my current role, which is both demanding and highly rewarding. Archives
December 2019
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