Tag Archives: Clyde in the Classroom Trout Eggs

Pupils, Science

Clyde in the Classroom

Blog 6

Our trout are still developing well and they are growing daily. We can see their eyes properly and their yolk sac has now disappeared. This tells us that they are now ready to be released and begin hunting for their own food. We are feeling quite nervous about this and we hope they will survive in the wild.

Over the weekend some more of our trout were leaving the tank to swim about the area at the top. Sadly this resulted in five of our fish dying. However, we are very pleased that so many have survived. So far we have removed 30 dead eggs or alevin over five weeks. Caroline predicted that we would lose up to 5 each day initially, with probably 100 eggs/alevin dying. We are delighted to be releasing approximately 170 alevin later on today. This is a result of us being extremely careful and checking and monitoring our eggs very carefully. Our four times daily checks were very worthwhile.

Yesterday we invited the children from each class to visit the trout and to see their progress firsthand. All of the children enjoyed this and many of them were able to ask us questions about the progress we’ve been making.

Later on today we are visiting the ABC park in Barrhead to release our trout. We are feeling a little upset because we will really miss the trout and our daily visits to them. We are also quite excited as we will see them swim off to start a new chapter in their lives. We hope that they will all thrive in the next stages of their life cycle.

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Clyde in the Classroom

Blog 6

5 March 2014

Recently we have been discovering many changes to our trout. The yolk sac has almost disappeared and the alevin are getting bigger each day. The colour is now dark brown and they have a more “fish-like” appearance. When we visit each day the fish are starting to move much closer to the top of the tank – some of them are even jumping!

Over the weekend, two fish managed to escape from the tank and were found swimming around the top of the two tanks. Fortunately some water had been spilled so they were able to survive. It was very surprising and little bit funny. To say that we were shocked was an understatement. We were even more surprised when two more fish did this again on Monday night. We realised that the tank was too full and had to remove nearly 22 cups of water from the fish tank.

Yesterday we invited our parents and carers into the classroom for a short presentation. We prepared a slideshow for the parents, including lots of information and photographs of all that we have been doing over the last four weeks. Our parents were extremely interested in all we had to say and were asking us questions, all of which we could answer successfully.

The final part of this day included inviting our parents/carers into the P Pod to see our fish and discuss the progress they have made. We were extremely proud of ourselves and were true ambassadors for St Mark’s.

We are now excitedly waitng for the day we release the trout. Caroline will be accompanying us to the ABC park in Barrhead on Tuesday 11 March, where we will all be involved in the release of the fish! Look out for our next update and many more photographs.

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Clyde in the Classroom

Blog 4

24th February 2014

Every week we are noticing more and more changes. Our trout now swim much more and are approaching the top of our tank when we are visiting. They are much more active and their colouring is darkening daily. They have grown in size and we love checking on them after the weekend – we notice lots then.
We have included some pictures of us caring for the trout. You will see us checking the water temperature and  adding some iced water bottles to the tank. We will also be topping up the water into each tank, using the chlorine free water we’ve been preparing in our buckets.

You will also see a close up picture of our ALEVIN – shortly they will become FRY.

We’ve been given an estimated date of release for 10 March and are really looking forward to this step. Our parents and carers have been invited into our class on 4 March when will be reporting all that has happened since our project began. We are really looking forward to sharing our enthusiasm with them.

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Clyde in the Classroom, P6

Blog 3

18th February 2014

Lots to update you on! Our eggs have finally started to hatch and the official name we now give them is ALEVIN. The trout are now able to swim around the tank and they respond to loud noises. They have changed colour from orange to brown. To survive they will continue to feed from their yolk sac. Their faces are starting to appear and we have noticed their eyes too. They still huddle together quite a lot, and they are all very protective of each other. They make it very difficult for us when we try to remove a dead egg or alevin.

We love that they seem more confident as they swim around when we are visiting them. We have had to add small pieces of netting over the taps to prevent the trout from swimming into the cooling tank.

Tomorrow we hope to be given an idea of a date for release from Caroline. We will then plan to invite our parents and carers in to see the project first hand.

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Clyde In the Classroom 2

We have been looking after our 200 eggs very carefully. Since the 3rd February we’ve been checking on our eggs four times daily.

Each check involves – a temperature check, possibly changing ice water bottles, a check for any dead eggs, top up water in tanks and bucket and cleaning the tank. Groups of four children are visiting the Pea Pod to complete this task. They then come back to class, record the information on our checklist and report back to their classmates.So far we’ve identified only one dead egg but we know there will probably be more.

On Wednesday 5 February the eggs had started developing. We noticed that inside their yolk sac eyes were appearing. We had to ensure that the water was kept to the correct temperature during our February holiday and say a big thank you to Mr McDonnell, our janitor, for adding ice on the days we were off.

 We’ve returned this morning to a very exciting sight! Our trout eggs have hatched!!!! We were able to watch them swimming around their tank after assembly. They were very fast.Sadly, some more eggs have died over the weekend. We will now remove these eggs and monitor very carefully.

 Look out for our next update very soon.

 Primary 6