We forgot to post a report on the behaviour of the alevins which are now parr.
We observed that the alevins stay under the rocks and they mainly keep their heads and fronts of their body in the air. Sometimes they hold on to the filter and they also squeeze themselves between the gravel and the glass. The alevins like hiding under the rocks in the tank and they like to swim about the tank. The fish didn’t want any food because they still had their yolk sack with them. The alevins have an orange head and a very faint body and their size is roughly 1 cm.
Mr Paterson, who often comes into make sure our 130 (we started with 135 but some have sadly died so we have round about 130 now), now newly turned parr, salmon are healthy. But on Thursday 7th May he came in for a very special visit. Mr Paterson can make a salmon fly. Salmon flies are a special hook that look like a fly so the fish is attracted to it. They usually have wings, body and tails made from feathers that are wound on with special string. He told us some of the history of fly fishing and the tools he used. Some of the feathers he used were from geese, pheasant and peacocks. The tools he used to make the fly were a fly tying vice, bobbin holder, hackle pliers, bees wax and scissors. He first showed us the main wire which had a double hook. He put on feathers to make the body and tail. He wrapped round wire to hold them in place. When he finished he showed us some of his tiny trout flies. The most complex fly was the Jock Scot by Megan Boyd. Everyone enjoyed the experience and learnt a lot.
Ms Rossvoll showed us how to feed the salmon. You take the lid off the tank.You take a pinch of food and sprinkle it on the water. The salmon swim up to the surface to catch the food. The food sinks to the bottom. We have now been given advice not to feed them. We think this is because they still have tiny yolk sacks.
During the holidays I have been checking the fish, I thought you might like to see how the salmon are progressing. Following Mr Paterson’s instructions I turned the temperature up to 6 degrees on Monday.
We are creating a model of the lifecycle of the salmon. We have made clay smolts as part of our understanding of atlantic salmon. We are making eggs, parr, alevin, smolts and fry out of different materials. The challenge is trying to make the different stages of the lifecycle to scale. We decided to make the smolts out of clay.
The salmon are being kept at 6.0 degrees and if the temperature goes up to 12 degrees they die. During the power failure there was no power in the aquarium so the temperature went up to 11.2 degrees because the cooler was off. It was 4.0 degrees when we first got the salmon eggs from the River Ythan Trust, when we moved it up to 5.0 degrees they changed to alevins faster because the temperature was higher.The temperature has gone up so they can grow faster.
When the aquarium arrived it took a week to get it up to temperature and the salmon eggs came from the West Coast from the Carron River. They were in a polystyrene box surround by ice with no water. After the weekend we were all excited about the salmon eggs. They are now alevins.
Our eggs are now alevins they have big black white eyes! But when they were eggs they had competly black eyes they constatly moved around in the eggs .We were very successful no salmon died as eggs.
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