Canopy EcoTurismo Pesca

Common Name

Rainbow Trout

Scientific Name (gender and specie)

Oncorhynchus mikiss

Salmo irideus

Animal Description

This fish is a salmonido of sweet water. It is grey with black stripes and points and one green, red or blue line in the middle of their body, which is covered by thin grudges that with the water and the sun give the original name to the fish "rainbow". This peculiar coloration may vary depending on the sex, maturity and the environment.

There are also other kinds of trout, white, which are called albinos, or pink which are known as salmonadas, yellow or gold, creoles and other that come from the sea. Their white or pink meat is very appreciated around the world; it has motivated the breeding of this fishes, which are similar to salmons.

At breeding farms there may reach an average size of 40 to 60 cm, but some are a little bigger and their weight can be of 300 to 400 gr. There are also some of 5kg and they have a development average of up to 1 to 3 years.

The rainbow trout that lives in a river may reach 50 to 90 cm long, gain weight of 15 kg and reach an average life of 5 years.

In Costa Rica there is no trout or salmons in the rivers in a natural way, this is because it's an endogenous species.

It's a very strong, capable and smart fish, their meat has a very high nutritious value, its very hygienic because it can't live in contaminated waters with lack of oxygen.

 Type of Source

Each day in different parts of the World the trout is used for human food, sport hunting in rivers, and recreational fishing on tanks.

Its breeding has generated several employment, recreational places, changes in the nature environment and a magnificent food resource.

Trout's meat is of a very good quality in a nutritious way, because it is rich in proteins, low on fat, high on vitamins B1, B2, niacina and C, and it has low cholesterol and úric acid; in fact, it has less calories than most of the meats of common use and it helps eliminate the excess of cholesterol in the blood.

Additionally to its soft and fine taste, its frequent consumption contributes to diminish the risks of patients with cardiovascular sickness.

In Colinas del Poas, we develop in our own breeding deposits with the water of springs that the property has.

Thanks to the pureness of the water and to careful process, we can guarantee a trout of exquisite taste and high quality. This allows us to offer our clients the possibility to fish them on our tank and take them home or ask our own chef to prepare it for them. In the Trout Restaurant we have developed exquisite recipes with organic vegetables and this delicious meat.

How is their breeding process?

For the breeding of the trout the female throws out its eggs. They can produce about 1500 to 5000 eggs, this are deposited in a recipient where afterwards are sprained by the male’s semen. These eggs are hardened and they change their colour. This are collocated in the incubadoras, where they are kept for a month.

In Costa Rica INCOPESCA and some other handmade breeders make this reproduction process and sell to trout farmers the babies.

In Colinas del Poas they are raised by a controlled and careful process, by imported ovas from Washington. USA. Each four months approximately we bring the fecundated eggs and they are placed in the special incubadora, in which you regulate the temperature of the water that has to be in 41 degrees.

During this first month, the eggs breaks and the tail and the head come out, keeping them in vitelino bag, in which they feed during 8 to 10 days. There they grow up and develop in an approximate size of 2 to 3 cm long.

At this moment they pass to the room and placed in the trays to be fed constantly for 90 days until they are moved to the trays of development.

In the farm they can reproduce anytime of the year.

The river trout reproduces itself at the end of winter and the beginning of spring, during the months of January to Mars the couples leave the lakes quietly and they go up against the flow. In a quiet place not very deep in clear waters in which the female excavates characteristic nests laying its eggs so that the male may sprained them. Eventually the male dies providing food to the babies.
   

In breeders exist a 60% chance that the fecundation is effective, and then a mortality approximately of 50% during their development; this depends of the quality of the seed, the cares and the type of alimentation. In rivers the mortality is higher because of the natural predators, surviving species are just a few.

 About their alimentation?

When the trout is raised in a faro, they are fed with “pellet”, which is componed of fish flour and other components rich in animal proteins and vegetables and they are fed 1, 2 or 3 times a day. When they have 5 or 6 months they are moderately fed  so when they are sold they are not so big and so fat.
This alimentation process guaranties nutrients and hygiene in the little trout, that’s why we choose careful suppliers suach as the Biology Center of the UNA, whose aliment for the first months is fundamental.
The trouts that live in the rivers and lakes that are born on the mountains eat each other, being victims the smallest ones.     

Characteristics of the environment where they are raised, and their adaptation mechanisms.

They live in tanks that are build in moving waters that come from rivers that are born in regions of tempered forest. The water in which they live has a temperature of 5 to 18 ºC.

These living things have a medium capacity of adaptation, that’s why they can support cold temperatures, until their limits are obstructed. They can die if the water reaches 20 to 24ºC.

The trouts can’t be too long without being in clean water, oxygenate and with a flow, and maybe this one of the causes of their extraordinary power to feed. Its impossible to find in them toxins or contamination because they develop only in fresh waters. Even when you add a strange substance to the water for example pesticides, the trout simply dies.

Sustainable Turism

By being a trout an endogenous specie in Costa Rica, they are not allowed to leave to the rivers because they convert themselves into predators for the rest of the speciesthat may live in the river.

As conscientious human beings we must protect nature and support actions of conservation of species, that's why we have a plan of Environmental Administration and a regent that handles constantly the practices of production of trout and of the organic agriculture.

To avoid the contamination, and to support social change in the community and to establish an economic growth in harmony with the environment are part of the day to day objectives o Colinas del Poas. Our focus in sustainable development is fortified each day with new actions. We are going to obtain in the following stage of hosting the Certificate of Sustainable Tourism with high standards of quality, because we do not only are going to have the restaurant services, canopy, trout breeding and organic agriculture, we are also having a hotel, a heath centre and beauty spa.

Thanks for your visit, and don't forget to enlighten us with your commentaries or suggestions.