www.timesleader.com/news/20070428_28trout_mg_1a_ART.htm -
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Published on: 4/28/2007
Last Visited: 4/28/2007
Wyoming Area biology teacher Damien Rutkoski talks about the trout being raised in his classroom. (Times Leader Staff Photo/Fred Adams)
EXETER , To the right as you walk into the classroom, are flesh-eating beetles.Don't worry, they only eat rotting flesh.In the back, that's a coyote tail on one side and a bear skin on the other, a nuisance bear shot in Canada. In between them, though, that's the big news, the real eye-catcher, the 150-gallon aquarium housing scores of tiny trout.
Well, housed scores until a few weeks ago.Now there are only six, thanks to a massive fish kill that teacher Damien Rutkoski can't explain.The project started out with 75 freshly hatched fry , "They had just shed their egg sacks," Rutkoski noted , and thanks to careful management of the stock only 10 were lost during the critical first 30 days of growth.
Yet when Rutkoski returned recently from a one-day vacation, he found them floating by the dozens.By the time the mysterious deaths were over, he only had these six.
Still, the Wyoming Area Secondary Center biology teacher dubbed the "Trout in the Classroom" program a huge success and he intends to try again next year with a fresh batch of eggs and a tighter monitoring program, probably including a security casing around the aquarium.And why not?
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"It took over 3/1/2 hours to be able to put them in the tank," Rutkoski said.
Students helped change the water (20 percent every week), added bacteria that thrived on the ammonia in the fish excrement to keep the water from getting toxic, monitored the acidity and other factors critical to fish survival, and fed them.That last one is when you really get to see the fish instincts kick in, Rutkoski said with a smile.
Non-trout types may be surprised to learn it, but these water dwellers establish supremacy just as chickens make a pecking order or dog packs get topped by an alpha-male.In this case, a handful of the fry quickly cleared out one side of the tank near the surface, forcing smaller fish into denser clusters.
Why dominate one particular part of the tank?Rutkoski said the water is circulated to resemble a stream, with currents at different speeds and different levels.The alpha-trout may have picked a place where the food was easier to nab and the swimming less energetic.
Only one of the dominant trout survives, but he still holds the same high water space.
"He's the alpha," Rutkoski pointed out.
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The trout grow about an inch a month, Rutkoski said, and the remaining fish are approaching three inches in length.They will be released in Bowman's Creek in May, and although this is primarily a program for the students, it's also an experiment for the state.
"When you have captive trout they look very different," Rutkoski said, because they scrape their fins and stomachs against the concrete growing tanks.
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With growing classroom emphasis on state test results and tighter state control on what schools must teach, it's hard to find a program that can be justified as meeting state standards, Rutkoski said.
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