Our salmon eggs have finally arrived! Yesterday we recieved 110 little Coho salmon eggs. Our salmon eggs are currently at the Eyed Stage. An interesting fact about salmon is that their age is actually determined by the temperature they are kept at (not by the days). So, if we keep our salmon eggs at 5 degrees celcius, they grow by 5 "ATU's" each day (depending on how our temperature fluctuates). Each day we will be adding our temperature to the currect ATU. It is important that the students monitor the tank daily to ensure that our temperature is at the right setting. The eggs will turn into Alevin and Fry at specific ATU stages. The reason why it is so important to monitor their growth is because when they become fry they must be fed twice a day... so if our alevins turn to fry BEFORE spring break, we will be in big trouble! But luckily with the ability to control the temperature of our tank, we can control the growth of our little salmon babies. Pretty neat!
Next week the students will start taking turns monitoring the tank. They will check the clarity of the water, the temperature and the water levels. They will also record the daily temperature/ATU's and watch out for any dead eggs/alevin, as they can pollute the water for the rest of our eggs. With 110 eggs, it is expected that a few will not make it... but we'll hope for the best!
We are very excited to monitor and watch as our eyed eggs grow into alevin!
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