Fishmyster
Well-Known Member
I have sampled plankton from lakes throughout the Fraser watershed, and although Cultus is relatively productive compared to most coastal lakes irt zooplankton and water chemistry, it is nothing compared to that video.
I would bet that video was shot at an interior lake.
Thanks Dave, I have not seen plankton abundance anywhere like in that video fro a long time. It is impressive! When I was young, late1970's-early1980's there were a few frog ponds with similar abundance that I remember. Fairy shrimp was a species I used to net and bring home to feed to my aquarium fish. Have not been able to find Fairy shrimp since.
I tried to search water quality reports for Cultus lake in the ems database but my search results came up empty. I have been able to access information for other waterways thru the site but not that one. Maybe the test results have not been uploaded to that site? If you know of any plankton and water quality reports I would enjoy reading them.
I read thru the Owikeeno report quickly. It did appear to show similar plankton abundance from past years to compare with 2001. One thing that did catch my eye was the alkalinity and ammonia levels for 2001. The alkalinity average was below 10mg/l where as the levels deemed safe for aquatic ecology in the Canadian water quality guidelines is no less than 20mg/l. Ammonia levels seem high but I am not sure of the used measure compared to ppm. We did receive lots of acidic rain thru the 1990's so it is quite possible for there to be unstable ph during that decade. I am wondering if there could been substantial damage to stream spawn sockeye and only a few lake spawners to have succeeded causing low adult to fry ratio in the more recent years? The water chemistry tests did not show any breakdown of heavy metal concentrations other than conductivity. I would be interested to know the water quality during salmon incubation time and how it compares to summer months. It would also be nice to have water quality data from other years for comparison with these 2001 results. Other information that would be helpful is adult-smolt ratios from variable years. Although limnological assessment doesn't indicate freshwater to be a factor in stock depression adult-smolt ratios over time may show a different picture.
Thanks for the discussion! I haven't had time to read the Woss and Nimpkish report yet but will soon.