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All Saints 7th-grade Fish Friends Release in the Bangor Daily News

Fish Friends Coordinator

“So many students say they’ve looked forward to this for a long time,” said Vanessa Rehmeyer, science teacher at All Saints Catholic School in Bangor. “Raising an endangered species is a big deal. Our class has worked hard to study and maintain these incredible fish.” Read more here!

Fish Friends during 2020-21

Fish Friends Coordinator

Given continued COVID-19 realities, Fish Friends will look a little different this year. We can still provide eggs for schools to raise but our in-person support will be limited. We are currently exploring a virtual alternative for those unable to raise fish in-person, so stay tuned about that. If you are interested in some form of Fish Friends during the 2020-21 school year, please fill out this brief survey to indicate your interest. If you are fairly sure that you want to raise salmon eggs this year, please sign up for a permit by 11/15/20 here.

Have further questions or missed that deadline? Reach out to the Fish Friends Coordinator.

Options during Covid-19 School Cancellations

Fish Friends Coordinator

This is usually the time of year when I send out information about raising the temperature of the water in your tanks to simulate the rise in temperature of our local streams and facilitate egg development, but this year is a bit different due to Covid-19 and the school cancellations across Maine. 

Below is a series of options for winter/spring 2020 Fish Friends participants who are caring for ~20,000 endangered Atlantic salmon during these challenging and constantly changing times. I have developed these in consultation with the hatcheries and the Department of Marine Resources.  I have listed them in order of best to worst options and invite you to choose what option works best for you given your particular reality. 

Don’t hesitate to contact Hazel, Fish Friends Coordinator, here.

  1. Keep tanks where they are, but make sure someone can check on them regularly to ensure the chiller is working and remove any dead eggs/fish. If you choose this option, see the end of this post about how to handle the temperature adjustment piece. Please consider that many of our Mentors are in the highest risk category for Covid-19, so please minimize asking for their in-person support during this time. 
  2. Move tanks to a place where they can be checked on regularly. There is a higher risk of mortality due to moving them, especially once they’ve developed into alevin due to the possibility of damaging the yolk sac. In the likely case that you can’t move your whole tank at once, you’ll have to: 1) carefully move the salmon into a cooler with water at the same temperature as your tank’s water (put a bunch of ice cubes in the cooler’s water and add ice cubes as necessary), 2) drain the tank, 3) move your whole setup, 4) refill the tank and get the water back to the right temperature (this can be expedited by adding sanitized jugs of ice to the water), and 5) move the eggs back into the tank.  The key thing here is to maintain consistency of temperature that the fish are in–any changes in temperature can cause problems. As above, please consider that many of our Mentors are in the highest risk category for Covid-19, so please minimize asking for their in-person support during this time. Also review the temperature adjustment considerations below.
  3. Put your eggs into someone else’s tank that can be checked on regularly, assuming they have the same stocking location on their permit as you. If you need help figuring out who near you does Fish Friends, let me know.
  4. Leave tanks where they are without being able to check on them or adjust temperature. Not being able to remove dead eggs or ensure that the chiller is running could cause complete mortality. If you’re not able to start raising the temperature by mid-May, you won’t be able to stock them and they’ll die.
  5. Stock salmon into river now. Please only use this option if you feel confident you won’t be able to check on your tank before the summer. Stocking them into the river now may kill them, but it may be a better option than letting the chiller run and having them die in their tanks in the event that you can’t get into the school before the summer. If you do choose this option, please stock them where your permit says to stock them and email me with the date, water temperature, and how many of what life cycle you stocked (e.g. x# alevin, x# eyed eggs, etc.). If they’re alevin, simply let them go in the water. If they’re eggs, find some gravel out of the main current, dig down a few inches (adult salmon usually dig down 6-12,” but do your best!), and “plant” the eggs there–gently covering them back up with gravel afterwards. Using a section of pipe or a cup with the bottom cut off may help you place them in the hole without them floating away.

Raising Temperatures:

Option A: Leave temp low:  You can keep the temperature of your tank low as it currently is for awhile longer. This will delay egg development. It’ll take about a month to raise the tank temp from 35 to 50F, so if you’re not back to school until mid-May, you should still be able to start raising the temps then and stock them by the end of the school year in mid-June. 


Option B: Raise tank temperatures as usual. Some general guidelines for raising the temperatures:

  1. Have your tank’s water at 50F by the time the fish need to be stocked (usual goal: late May/early June)
  2.  Keep the temperature as cold as possible as long as possible
  3. Don’t increase the temperature abruptly—a change of 1F twice per week (e.g. Monday and Thursday or Tuesday and Friday—resulting in a total change of 2F per week) should be tolerable.    

For example, if your goal is to stock your fish on May 31st, working backwards from there would look like this:

  • 49F on May 28th
  • 48F on May 24th
  • 47F on May 21st
  • 46F on May 17th
  • 45F on May 14th
  • 44F on May 10th
  • 43F on May 7th (and so on).

It takes about a month to raise the temperature from 35F-50F. Once your tank’s water is at 50F, your fish have developed into fry (no yolk sacs attached), and the stream where you’ll release them is right around 50F too, they should be ready to go into the wild.

ASF’s “Magic on the Rivers” Guide Now Available!

Fish Friends Coordinator

Hot off the presses: ASF’s “Magic on the Rivers” guide was published in July 2019 and is a great resource for Fish Friends schools and allies!

“The purpose is to assist those teaching young adults the pleasures of salmon and trout angling. It does so in light of the need for these 21st century anglers to practice conservation ethics that match the needs of the rivers and the fish.” 

While the entire 126-page resource is full of educational gems, Fish Friends participants may find Modules 3, 5, and 6 most applicable.

You can download the whole thing by visiting our Participant Resources page. Let us know how you use it!

Testimonials from 2019 Fish Friends Participants

Fish Friends Coordinator

This is our 26th year doing the Fish Friends project. We are so thankful to those of you that keep this program going! It is the highlight of our students’ Academy Hill School experience!

Academy Hill School teacher

Fish Friends provided my class with a valuable learning experience. My students were interested and involved all the way through the process. We had amazing support and teaching from our mentor.

Cornville Regional Charter School teacher

I’ve been doing this program for years. It is important for students to learn about our natural world, understand, and take care of it, for the benefit of the animals and survival of the planet. Every creature matters and it our responsibility to be good stewards.

Great Salt Bay School teacher

I can talk all day about how salmon develop and the challenges that they face here in Maine, but feel like I don’t really get through to students. However, once we had the eggs in our classroom, students really started to put the ideas together and truly understand what was happening. Thank you for the opportunity to share this with my students!!

Hampden Academy teacher

Our school has participated in this program for over 20 years. The students still get just as excited watching the salmon grow and participating in their release.

Indian Island School teacher

Raising salmon is high interest – anything I connect to the salmon gets 100 percent of the kids’ attention. This is a very valuable program.

Margaret Chase Smith School teacher

Fish Friends helped learning become fun, engaging and exciting again!

Sacopee Valley Middle School teacher

Our students loved watching the salmon hatch and taking care of them. It was really powerful to bring them to the river and release them. The students felt empowered to make the world a better place.

Saint George School teacher

Fish Friends and the salmon hatchery provide an awesome educational experience for students (and educators), who are in need of repeated exposure to the natural world during an impressionable period in their lives. This is likely their first chance to see the beating heart of a vertebrate embryo!

Yarmouth Elementary School teacher