Pre-release sturgeon preparations (By Hannah P.)

Hi everyone! It’s Hannah and last week we had another day at TNACI! Today, the condition factor of the sturgeon was measured. The condition factor includes the length and weight of each fish. We took 30 sturgeon out of each tank (grouped by size) and placed them in buckets of water. Next, we took the fish and measured their length in millimeters. We also massed each fish in grams and took a sample of their fin for later genetic experimentation.

 We recorded all of the data in a chart and the fin clip of each fish was matched up with the length and weight. We repeated this process for each of the three tanks and became very efficient (or e-fish-ent) at measuring the fish.  Kathlina explained that the scutes of the 2014 fish will also be cut in a particular way to identify them as 2014 fish. This is a less expensive method of tagging the fish. A scute is an armor plate similar to a scale.

            This was a nice goodbye to the sturgeon. All of the sturgeon were released on the French Broad river near Knoxville on October 23^rd. It has been such a great experience watching these fish grow and helping take care of them! Stay tuned for our next visit when we help spawn trout!

Tennessee River Rescue- October 4 (by Daphne T.)

The Tucker River Fellows, some members from the GPS crew team, some members of PIC (Partnerships In the Community at GPS) and other good citizens of GPS woke up bright and early on Saturday morning October 4 to participate in the Tennessee River Rescue happening all around Chattanooga. Although most of us were groggy and sleepy from a late night at the McCallie/Baylor football game, this outing turned out to be very fun! 

We picked up our trash grabbers, gloves, and trash bags from the River Rescue organizers at Coolidge park and headed towards the boathouse to pick up our boats. All of us ferried over to Maclellan Island (also known as Audubon Island) in johnboats and canoes. 

When we got to the island we all began working hard picking up the trash that peppered the ground on the small island. Some of us played music and made this not-so-fun sounding activity a great and productive way to spend a Saturday morning! Although we spent several hours on the island, we only made a dent on the surface of the all the trash that littered the island. I would enjoy going back to Maclellan Island to help save the environment and pick up some more trash. 

We accidently located a geocache ammo box full of interesting items on the island; we won’t tell you where it is, but a geocaching hunt might be a nice excuse for an outing to the island. Some items found during our trash clean-up included a toilet seat, lots of styrofoam, some tires and a 50 gallon plastic bucket with unknown original contents. We crossed paths with some boysouts enjoying fishing during a fish derby day. We also came across some people enjoying a campout on the island that is part of the blueway canoe trail system. 

Sept. 30- behind the scenes at the TN aquarium- by Amanda M.

Today the Tucker River Fellows went to the Tennessee Aquarium and met up with our friend Kathlina Alford to take a “behind the scenes” tour of the aquarium. We got a view from above the tanks and watched as someone went scuba diving! All of the water from the tanks is form our own Tennessee River (they just filter and add the salt) and the coral is made of concrete. The aquarium is careful to conserve the water they use in the tanks. 

Some fun facts we learned:

-each suction cup on the octopus is controlled separately

-spider crabs loose legs when the get scared but they grow back (we heard a story about one who was shipped and came into the aquarium with no legs at all!)

-sharks lose teeth constantly and some of them are for sale in the gift shop

-the aquarium has its own Vet Lab where they can perform surgery on any of the animals. They also have a waterproof x-ray machine. 

-they freeze food and give it to the birds so they have to work hard to get their favorite snack.

We are so glad you are reading about what we do and can’t wait to get others involved!

September 18th at TNACI (by Anna O.)

Thursday September 18, Tucker River Fellows went to TNACI propagation facility and half of us were cutting carp meat and buffalo (not the furry kind) meat off the ribs and chopping it into pieces a square centimeter big.

Freshwater buffalo 

Common carp (image from Kathlina Alford) 

 The other half was counting 52 pieces out into bags to bait the trot lines with. The trot lines are 400 feet long, have 50 hooks per line, and are used to catch Lake Sturgeon.

Sturgeon are caught in the Tennessee River in the following reservoirs: Nickajack, Chickamauga, Fort Louden, Holston/French Broad and Watts Bar. Once a sturgeon is tagged it is known as an individual and is never re-tagged. In November last year, Watts Bar and Fort Loudon were "hot spots" for lake sturgeon. 

Water quality and necropsy at TNACI (by Sarah R.)

For our second visit to TNACI (Tennessee Aquarium Conservation Institute), Kathlina Alford again greeted us and let us know that we would be working on water quality. We got to test the water of the different fish tanks within the propagation facility. 

The properties of water we tested included pH and ammonia levels. It is necessary to test these levels in order to maintain healthy fish. The tanks tested include trout, tilapia and baby sturgeon tanks. If these levels are out of balance, the TNACI scientists have to make adjustments to the tanks. It was neat that we were able to collect the data to help them keep the fish healthy!

Ashley-Rose recorded measurements on the iPad

We also got to dissect some baby sturgeon to discover the cause of death. This helps increase the survival of the other animals in the population. When you are dissecting to discover the cause of death for an animal, it is called a necropsy. 

After dissecting the fish we got to look at a fin clip, as well as a skin and gill sample. A possible reason the fish died is because the sturgeon are not fond of their new food, bloodworms. Just as an infant has to be waned off their mother’s milk, the sturgeon has to be weaned off of brine shrimp. 

Viewing sturgeon gills 

We ended our visit with a quick tour of some of the off-exibit animals that the aquarium has at the facility. We can’t wait to see what Kathlina has in store for us next week!

Baby sturgeon and more at TNACI (By Ashley-Rose L.)

Hey Everyone! Ashley-Rose here to tell you about the River Fellow’s first trip to the Tennessee Aquarium Conservation Institute (TNACI). Kathlina Alford greeted us when we got there, and told us basically what we were going to be doing that day. First, we got to feed the baby lake sturgeon. Some lake sturgeon can get as big as six and a half feet, but these little babies were tiny, the smallest around one and a half inches and the biggest between three and four inches. We feed them with blood worms, which are the small, long, thin, bright red larvae of the midge fly. This larva is critical in the wild aquatic food chain due to its red iron-porphyrin protein, which is the cause for its distinctive color. It’s very commonly used in freshwater aquariums, and is the perfect snack for lake sturgeon. 

Feeding blood worms to sturgeon 

Removing the dead sturgeon from the tank 

Since lake sturgeon find their food not by sight but by their other senses, you feed them by gradually distributing the juice from the blood worms through a pipette, instead of just dumping a whole container of blood worms in one spot.

            After feeding the sturgeon we got to the fun part- frozen krill smashing. Krill is also used to feed the fish there, and comes packaged in thick sheets; It’s like frozen shrimp meatloaf on steroids. Our job was to break it into smaller chunks using a hammer and chisel, and then repackage it into gallon size plastic bags. Who knew you could use a hammer to make sushi?

            Sadly, our krill smashing fun came to an end and we had to scrub and clean the brook trout tanks. This was all fun and dandy, except for the fact that brook trout usually live in mountain streams, and therefore, very cold water. The water temperature was about 47 degrees, which may not sound that cold, but the River Fellows felt like we were putting our hands in Arctic water. Just for fun, we decided to have a competition to see who could keep a hand in the tank the longest, which ended in us calling it a tie and all taking our hands out at the same time. 

After we finished cleaning the tanks and regained some sort of feeling in our icy cold hands, it was time for us to leave our friends at TNACI.

Thanks for reading,

-Ashley-Rose

P.S.

We also helped to load up the truck for the scientists that would be doing field work in the afternoon and cleaned some of the filters for the sturgeon tanks.

Trying on the backpack electroshocker before it is loaded on the truck 

Cleaning sturgeon tank filters 

Sustainable Seafood at the Serve and Protect lunch event (by Daphne T.)

 

All of us were very excited when we were told that we were going to skip school to watch the dress rehearsal of a seafood cooking show at the IMAX Theatre for the fourth annual Serve and Protect function. What we didn’t know, however, was that this seafood would be Mussels. I don’t know about y’all, but opening a rock to eat its slippery, slimy contents does not seem very appetizing. But, the famous chefs Nicco Romo, and Barton Seaver convinced us all very differently.

  

After getting our delicious lunches of potato salad, lobster wantons, fried shrimp, and much more in the IMAX lobby, the Tucker River Fellows and others headed into the theatre for the show to begin. Before the chefs came out, we learned that seafood such as mussels, shrimp, squid, trout, and lobster are sustainable seafood. This means that we can harvest it safely and un-harmfully without danger of over harvesting the species. These are animals that we can farm and replace without leaving a damaging footprint in the sea.

As the chefs began showing us how to cook mussel recipes such as mussels with pine needles and “Mussel Opa”, the delicious smells wafted around the room and despite having just eaten, our stomachs grumbled. As they cooked, the chefs educated us about mussels. We learned that they are very healthy, inexpensive, accessible, and contrary to some beliefs, they are quite safe to eat. Knowing this, we began to feel a lot less skeptical about mussels and wanted to try preparing this delicious looking and smelling food for ourselves.

This experience at Serve and Protect was very insightful. We learned that eating sustainable seafood is good for the sea environment, as well as our health.  We also learned about some of the basics of preparing some delicious recipes. The chefs made us feel comfortable with the idea of preparing and eating mussels.  We are much more likely to consider eating mussels and other sustainable sea food after this afternoon with the two informative chefs. Mussels are fantastic! And if you want to support eating sustainable seafood as well as try out some fantastic recipes, check out http://www.tnaqua.org/serve-and-protect