January 2014 Update

This January turned out to be a relatively quite month as it related to our chapter's TIC commitment. There was one school, Sussex County Charter School for Technology, where we encountered some significant tank equipment challenges, and the Hopatcong Middle School, where tank water quality issues required replacing most of their brook trout fry. At Sussex, volunteers Ed Sinning, John Nordstedt, Eddie Hicks and myself paid several visits to the school, replacing chillers, filters and pumps, and even emptying the entire tank and scrubbing all rocks, in order to get the tank set-up back into fully operational condition. Unfortunately, and in the end, the school was unable to continue with the TIC program, due to teacher rotations and curriculum conflicts beyond there control. Hopefully, the school will come back on board for the coming TIC seasons. A big thank you to all that were involved. On January 29, we delivered a supply of about fifty new brook trout fry to the Hopatcong Middle School. The fish were picked up at the Pequest Trout Hatchery, where they were raised. This picture was taken after the little brookies were place into the tank at Hopatcong, with the help of two students. As of this writing, both fish and students are doing well!As of right now, a total of 21 TIC school are assigned to our chapter's care, and all of them are nurturing a healthy number of brookies towards their lease into the wild in the spring.