pages 46-54 of the UWP Educator’s Guide to Teaching Students About the Upper Uncompahgre River Watershed (also see contents, introduction & pdf link)
Habitat requirements: The white sucker is highly adaptable to different habitats and changing environmental influences.Generally, the white sucker is found in small streams, rivers, and lakes. The white sucker is also relatively tolerant of turbid and polluted waters. It does, however, have low breeding success in acidified waters.
Food source: The white sucker is a bottom feeder, meaning that it uses its fleshy lips to suck up bottom sediments and other organisms that may be located there. It will eat almost anything it can, but most commonly small invertebrates, algae, and plant matter. Larger predatory fish species such as walleye, trout, and bass prey on the white sucker.
Temperature: 59 to 77℉
pH Tolerance: 6.5 to 7.5
Dissolved Oxygen Requirement: minimum 5 ppm
Habitat requirements: The Snake River cutthroat resides not only in large lakes and reservoirs, but also fast flowing rivers and small streams. Adults tend to migrate into spring fed tributaries during the spring spawning season, which begins in March and lasts into the summer months. Newly hatched fry will remain in the low flow creeks for up to one year before moving to broader areas in search of a more sustainable diet.
Food source: Similar to other trout, the Snake River Cutthroat feeds primarily on aquatic insects. Occasionally they are known to prey on small terrestrial insects as well, and when they have grown to a decent size they will also actively search out other fish as their main food source.
Temperature: they prefer 50℉
pH Tolerance: prefer higher than 6.0
Dissolved Oxygen Requirement: 6.0 to 10.0
Habitat requirements: Depending on what phase of their life history strategy they are in, Brown Trout (also called steelhead) live in freshwater rivers and streams, estuaries and marine environments.
Food source: Trout feed on a variety of aquatic and terrestrial invertebrates and small fish. They normally feed on zooplankton when they are young and as they mature begin to include fish eggs, crayfish, snails, small fish and even mice in their diet.
Temperature: optimal temperature is 45-55℉
pH Tolerance: 7.0 to 9.0
Dissolved Oxygen Requirement: minimum 6 ppm
Habitat requirements: Brown Trout are a cold-water species that can inhabit streams, rivers, and lakes in both fresh and brackish waters. It lives in a wide range of depths and velocities, but competes best with other fish in faster flowing waters.
Food source: Brown Trout consume benthic invertebrates crayfish, fish, and can be cannibalistic.
Temperature: optimum 45 to 50℉
pH Tolerance: 7.0 to 9.0
Dissolved Oxygen Requirement: minimum 6 ppm
Habitat requirements: Kokanee salmon are primarily found in the cold, clear freshwater lakes and reservoirs across the western United States, including states like Colorado. These fish select habitats based on the availability of food and the right environmental conditions such as temperatures and depth.
Food source: The fry feed on small aquatic organisms, such as insects and zooplankton, as they gradually grow and develop. As they reach the smolt stage, which usually occurs after one to three years, Kokanee salmon undergo physiological changes that prepare them for their transition into the open waters of the lake.
Temperature: optimum is 39-64℉
pH Tolerance: 6.5 to 8.5
Dissolved Oxygen Requirement: ideal is above 8 ppm
Habitat requirements: Yellow perch spawn between February and July in the northern hemispheres and between August and October in the southern hemisphere. Yellow perch are found in ponds, lakes, and slow flowing rivers, most commonly found in clear water near vegetation.
Food source: Yellow perch consume a wide variety of invertebrates and small fish species.
Temperature: 40 to 70℉
pH Tolerance: 3.9 to 9.5
Dissolved Oxygen Requirement: at least 5 ppm
Habitat requirements: Adult smallmouth bass live in shallow rocky areas of lakes and in the clear and gravel bottom runs and flowing pools of rivers. They also live in cool flowing streams and reservoirs fed by these types of streams.
Food source: Young smallmouth bass feed on plankton and immature aquatic insects. Smallmouth bass are also known to be cannibalistic. Adult smallmouth bass feed on crayfish, fish and aquatic and terrestrial insects, birds and mice, and salamanders.
Temperature: 40 to 80℉
pH Tolerance: 5.5 to 8.5
Dissolved Oxygen Requirement: at least 6 ppm
Habitat requirements: The Green Sunfish is extremely adaptable and tolerant of extremes in turbidity, temperature, dissolved oxygen, and flow. It reaches greatest abundance in small sluggish streams and ponds, and reservoirs, usually where few other types of sunfish occur.
Food source: crayfish, small fish, and insects. This makes them naturally carnivorous
Temperature: up to 80℉
pH Tolerance: 6.5 to 7.5
Dissolved Oxygen Requirement: at least 5 ppm
Habitat requirements: Generalist fish that can tolerate clear or turbid water, deep or shallow, natural lakes, rivers, and reservoirs
Food source: Newly hatched walleye eat small insects; they later switch to leeches, snails, crayfish, and even small mammals. As adults, walleye mostly eat smaller fish such as small mouth bass and more.
Temperature: 35 to 80℉, water temperature affects where fish are found on any given day
pH Tolerance: 5.0 to 8.0
Dissolved Oxygen Requirement: above 2 ppm
