Today, the Sanday school received 119 ova from Swannay Loch brood stock. After a car journey from the Kirbister hatchery to the airport, a flight on board the Islander plane to Sanday and a short run on the minibus to the school, only one single ovum didn’t make it alive to the tank!
Class 2 were given a presentation on the sea-trout and brown trout life cycles and it was good to see that the young captive audience had remembered so much from last year’s Troot in the Shed programme. Such words as ova, alevins, spawning, obscure as they might be to most people, had no secrets for our pupils. They were also shown various clips of trout embryos wriggling in their shells and sea-trout spawning in the shallows. A big thank you to Mrs. Muir and Claire who are actively supporting the project with the monitoring of the mini-hatchery. And I was going to forget… Another big thank you to Mrs. Newton for providing us with the tank water, but not any water… Roo’s Loch premium water which we hope will give our future alevins the best start in life!
Hope to hear from the young folks on Sanday whose contribution was much appreciated last year.
Mr. P
We’re delighted to be involved with the project again this year! 119 eggs…it certainly doesn’t seem that many, they must have all been hiding yesterday. School is closed to pupils today due to the poor weather, so our rota team for this week will have to be extra vigilant tomorrow.
Its my first time doing Troot in the shed and im enjoying it already,i cant wait until its my teams turn to check them everyday 🙂
I am Glad that it’s up and running, I love watching the Alevins Eye up and Grow Through the Weeks. Hopefully All Goes Well :-).
I love doing troot in the shed and I hope all goes well at sanday school, I love getting to take care of the small alevins and seeing they’re life cycle through life!
It’s good to see you’re enjoying following the ova through the hatching process. Thanks for your enthusiastic comments Emily, Bryony and Lauren! I think that by Monday, we should be able to see the eyes clearly through the egg shells. Hope they don’t mind this cold weather too much!
Mr.P
im really enjoying it and hope none of the eggs die 🙂
im really enjoying watching the eggs grow and cant wait to see more!
🙂
and a big thanks to mr.pietri for bringing the eggs!
Hello, it’s been a while since we last updated! All P6/7 have just been out to the shed in the hope of seeing some alevins…but no hatching yet. They seem very happy staying as eggs! The temperatures are quite cold: 5.8c water, 4.6c air. This is probably good though as we don’t want our release to the loch to be too early 🙂
From P6/7.
Hi folks,
Cold and dark is what we want! The eggs only started to hatch today on Stronsay, and the shed is a bit warmer there, so the Sanday ova should be hatching sometime this week – as the weather is supposed to be quite mild. Keep up the good work and keep an eye on the water quality. Change a few litres every second day if needed.
Mr.P
Good morning Sanday!
Still no sign of hatching alevins? This suspense is just getting to much…;-)
Mr.P
Hello, normal activity and no hatching! We’ve only had one dead egg since they all arrived so we’re very happy with that 🙂 No rush (they obvioulsy love our tank).
I can’t wait till the ova hatch! I love watching the the alevins swimming around in the tank! 🙂
Well, only one casualty out of about 120 eggs must be a record to be proud of! You must be doing a great job out there.
However, I would have thought that by now, the ova would have hatched… I know it’s our most northerly mini-hatchery but there can’t be that much of a difference in temperature 😉 !
STILL no hatching with us! But we were a week later in receiving the eggs due to the snow. They’re looking fairly healthy (we think) and there are definitely no dead eggs to pollute the water. Our shed is pretty cold, as is the water. From Primary Five 🙂
Yo I’m really enjoying taking part in this again and hope that mr pietri is feeling better
Hi Jo,
Glad you’re enjoying the project this year again, even though the Sanday eggs don’t seem to be in a rush to hatch!
I’m not in great form just yet… Just like most of you guys!
Hope everybody gets better soon and that the eggs hatch quickly…
Mr.P
Hello! Exciting news from Sanday this morning! WE ARE HATCHING!!! At long last one peedie alevin has made it out of his/her egg. We’ve named it Jiggly 🙂 Hopefully the others will start soon too.
From Aimee, Jasmine and Bryony.
I am Very Excited To Check the Eggs/Alevins Today!. Hope Maybe Another one or Maybe More Will have hatched for us to See! it is Very Small And Cute, quite a few of them are jiggling About. its Very Exciting and Interesting,And We Really only noticed it by its yolk sack! 😀
Thank you Aimee, Jasmine and Bryony for letting us know the big news!
I hope that by the time you check again today Jiggly will have a few siblings to keep him company!!! Try and have a peep under the mesh; that’s where the alevins will try and hide, away from the light and strong current.
We’ll remove the grid together next week once they’ve all hatched.
Please let us know if there’s
any more news from Sanday!
Mr.P
Yipee!, There are 2 visible,And it looks like 2 little tails Inbetween the Eggs! Jigglys Yolk Sack Is Very Big!, so There are 4 Alevins we think, but seem that they like to hide under the mesh, there may be more! i hope some hatch this weekend!. and i also hope the next troot team have a good week next week! 😀
Hello, there are a few more alevins today. Claire applied the ‘pump-safety-device’ yesterday so hopefully they will all be nice and safe over the weekend.
Excellent move! I was a bit worried some alevins might get sucked into the pump… We’ll have to keep an eye on the water quality in the next few days.
Mr.P