Matt's Senior Blog

Tuesday:

7:30am-4pm

Today was my last day, my last full day at the hatchery for my 2010 senior project. It was awesome the experience was unbelievable. Never have I worked in an environment like that and i absolutely loved it. On my final day with did everything the same, picked up the day and our daily feedings, but we did do one thing a little different.

We noticed some fish in one of the tanks having a rough fin… We assumed it was fin rot and a parasite was attached to the fish. Well as we found out what is was it became clear we needed to do something. We put the scales under the microscope and examined it very closely. After a little bit we started to find gyros on the fish skin. After this we got the medicine out and treated those fish, hopefully it works efficiently.

Overall this project was great. It helped me understand alot about myself and the people around me. I cannot wait to further explore my boundaries at Auburn University with there great fisheries developmental program.

Thanks so much for everything could not have done it without you. Thanks again. bye bye

Saturday:

7:30-11:30am

This was a shorter day for me to work because there was not much to do and it was the start of memorial day weekend. We did a morning feed, where Scott fell into the water. It was not seen by my own eyes but um sure it was funny. I only worked until 11:30 because i had some friends come down to visit for the long weekend. I was off work at 11:30 wish one feed in and counting the dead fish.

Friday

7:30 am-4:00pm

Friday is one of the most relaxed days of the week, only 3 out of the normal 6 guys come to work on Friday.

Depending on who’s weekend it is to work that will dictate who works what and when. Each weekend is assigned to someone for the year. They alternate the weekends and since there are 6 guys they work one out of every 6 weekends. It is just picked out of a hat to determine the order at the beginning of each year.

Anyways, after we did the normal feeding and counting the dead, we took some fish and did a sample count on them. In the bucket we would put 20.00lbs of fish and count how many there were in the bucket, we did this 3 times and then did our calculations. You take 20lbs count the fish and see how many are in 20lbs then you do this 3 times and you avg the numbers together to get a mean fish per pound ratio.

The rest of friday we didn’t do much, just an afternoon feed and closing up.

Thursday:

7:30am-4pm

Today was cleaning day. This was the dreaded day of the week, the day where everyone worked really hard at something that was not fun to anybody.

We took long pool brushes and went down each raceway. We brushed all the excess food and fish waste into the pipes at the ends and dumped the waste into the river, since it is not harmful.

That was pretty much the it for cleaning it just took a tremendous amount of time.

At around 11:00 am that day Scott (manager) received a phone call… This phone call was from a state official saying that the waste being produced from the hatchery was harming the wildlife around it. Scott replied with, well everything we use is FDA approved, everything has been safely tested. Here is what the problem actually was. The waste coming from the hatchery was actually building up right below the pipe that leads to the river. This was causing a lack of richness within species. Biodiversity was decreasing, but the species that were there are thriving. The excess nutrients seems to hurt some species in the area, this is why the man got on his back about these nutrients. However, Scott said he would handle it and possibly dump the excess waste into a different area so there was not such a build up.

Overall, day 4 was interesting because it dealt with the normal cleaning, but some problem solving as well.

Worked 7:30 AM-4:00 PM.

Day 3 we had an even higher fish death in the building. Today was really starting to get to the boys head about all these dying fish. The sad part is we can’t do nothing about it…

After we counted the dead fish, we did our normal feeding, then we saw something interesting. A great big ole owl came swooping down from the trees and landed right up on raceway F-4. Stephen, one of the guys, chased that thing down with a net… We had lost enough fish already. But son was this owl determined. After multiple chase offs and stand offs the owl won. He took a nice 10 inch brookie right from under our watch.

Then there was more wildlife this one was more obnoxious than anything… A boomer (red squirrel) was sitting in the tree just watching us making more noise than the pep band. They hoot and howler and its just down right obnoxious.

Today we did something very interesting. We vaccinated fish for a bacterial infection called ERM (Enteric Red Mouth). The vaccination is not like any others, because we are vaccinating over 110 thousand fish one by one is no option… Instead we take a brute trash can fill it up with water and the vaccine and put 20lbs of fish in at a time. Well after about 55 of these cycles we were done. We soaked the fish in these trash cans for 30 seconds for every 20lbs of fish.

Today was very tedious in the work but very very fun. Just like every day so far I am looking towards the next. Tomorrow I will have some more videos to post of the hatchery and what not.

Was the same thing today 7:30 AM-4:00PM

Today was a lot more fatal in the building with the small fish… Over 2000 deaths in each tank we had a lot of fish to count and dispose of.

Disposing of the fish is not hard but its nerve racking… You know these fish are dying and everyone at the hatchery gets a little more tense, a little more anxious, and Lawnmower does not even sleep at night.(Lawnmower is one of the older guys there… I do not even know his real name.) We take these dead fish off up into the woods.(BTW these dead fish we call them morts, short for mortality) We take these fish up into the woods and leave them in the same spot everyday. And in the middle of the summer everyday Mr. Blackbear will come up and get his fair share of trout for lunch and dinner. So that was most of the morning, besides the routine feeding we did.

After lunch we did another session of feeding, checked flow, and we also stocked more trucks to be taken to the rivers and lakes.

By then it was close to 3:00 PM. Scott, the manager gave everyone a little break from work and we went and played a game of softball home run derby. I especially liked that, as I wooped up on the ball pretty good.

That was the end of day 2 and I was starting to feel like a regular…

First off my internet is a little hit and miss here so that is why I am posting for 3 days at one time.

The first day I worked from 7:30 AM-4:00 PM.

On the way to my first day I was not sure what to expect at the trout hatchery in Upstate South Carolina. When I left, I did not know why I was leaving. If I could have stayed there to work more I would have. However; everyone leaves at 4 and I am no exception.

My first day consisted of, counting and collecting the dead trout, feeding, filling the stocking trucks, and problem solving.

Immediately when I arrived there was a problem. There was an acute loss of fish within the building (the building is where the very tiny trout are held, 2 inches or less.) These fish were hit hard with an unknown strike of death. We initiated the problem solving mode. After a little bit we figured out what it was. We figure this out because we literally squeezed a dead fish even more dead. Fish that had been killed we took and pinched there belly and slid our fingers down, they excreted a clear mucus just like a human would from their nose. This mucus is a sign of a virus. There is now a good and a bad about this discovery. The good is we now know what it is, IPN (Infectious Pancreatic Necrosis). The bad news is that it is a virus and just like the common cold there is no cure. A bad case of IPN will take out about 30% of the fish population. That may seem like a lot, well it is. There are over 1.2 million fish on site at the hatchery 30% is a huge number still. After solving this little problem we moved on to feeding the fish in the outside raceways. Raceways are the tanks that the trout are held in outside.

There are 6 rows. A-F. Each row has 4 100ft long raceways in it. There are different sizes and species in different raceways outside. They require different amounts and types of food.

Now you are thinking a fish hatchery is not real high tec… Well actually for each raceway there is a spreadsheet with a formula setup. You enter the lbs of fish in the raceway and it will tell you how many fish there are in there and how many lbs of food you should feed them each day. The most we feed each day is in the lower raceways (bigger fish) we feed them 72lbs of food per day. These are the mitigation fish(fish used to replace trophy trout that have been caught) and the bigger fish that are getting ready to be stocked in one of the several rivers and lakes.

Later in the day the first stocking truck came by. My man Tommy pulls up in his F-350 with big tanks that look like ice chests in the back. The tank is divided into 3 parts and will take fish to different locations. After we load Tommy’s truck we eat lunch and talk more about what to do with the IPN.

After lunch we have one more session of feeding and sometimes two for the smaller fish that eat 3 times per day. At the end of the day we check the flow of the water(which should be 400GPM) and get ready to setup for closing. We check the fish, close up the building with the smaller fish and most importantly we set a couple traps… These traps are to catch the pesky little critters that like to decimate the trout population in the raceways. Otters, raccoons, foxes, and bears all try to sneak in for their share of a fresh meal. Country boy Cody likes to set this traps and whatever he catches he is probably bound to eat.

After day 1 I was tired but boy was I looking forward to the next.

Trout Hatchery Video 1

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