The+SUNY+Cobleskill+Fish+Hatchery

=**The Cobleskill Fish Hatchery**= = // Rachel Staudt, Coral Szumiloski, Kylee Sayers, Katie Rowe, Randy Baisy // = On November 30, three students from the Block 6 environmental science class and three students from the Block 1 class went to SUNY Cobleskill to collect the trout eggs. There, we were met by Brent Lehman, who is the head of the Fisheries Department.



After arriving at the hatchery, Mr. Lehman gave us a tour of the facilities. We saw the three different types of fish that are raised at the hatchery – Brook, Brown, and Artic Char, which is a hybrid trout. All the trout are kept in 2,000 gallon tanks with nets over them, to prevent them from jumping out.

We also saw where all of the trout eggs are held until the hatch. Did you know that a female Brook trout will lay 1,000 eggs per pound of her body weight? All of the eggs are put into trays and kept in a cabinet. The students will come and take out the dead eggs from the trays, or else they will infect all the other eggs as they decompose. A dead egg is white and milky-looking, while an alive egg is orange and clear.

We asked Mr. Lehman different things about the fish, such as how long they can live (up to 5 years), how many times we should feed our fish (twice a day, then moving up to three times a day as they get bigger), among other things.

Then, we got our fish eggs! Mr. Lehman measured out about 200 eggs (by using a graduated cylinder) for block 6 and 250 eggs for block 1. We put the eggs into glass containers, and put them into cooler bags filled with ice to keep the eggs alive. We also received some food to start feeding them after they hatched.



When we came back to school, it was time to put the eggs into the tanks. We placed the jars into the tanks to let the waters even out in temperature. After waiting 15 minutes, we took the jars out of the water and poured the eggs into baskets that hung to the sides of the tanks. Then we took a pipette and sucked out all of the dead eggs. Mr. Lehman told us that the biggest losses of eggs would be within the first few weeks, given that there is only a 75% survival rate from the egg stage to the alevin stage.

On the first day, we removed 25 dead eggs from the tanks. In total, we lost 77 fish, which is very good compared to other classroom tanks.