EKF :: Ku’ula 10-12 Curriculum

Cultivation of Fish

Ashton and Leilani
Grade: 10
2001-2002

Project Proposal

We are going to be focusing on the Hawaiian Flag tail fish also known as the Aholehole. We would like to do research about the Aholehole and find want it eats and how the ancient Hawaiians used them in their daily living. We would like to experiment raising Aholehole and see if we can be successful in nurturing and reproducing this marine life species.

Material needed:

Fish Cage
Computer
Recipe for fish food
Underwater Camera
Aholehole

We would like to gain more knowledge on the Aholehole and be successful in what our ancestors did, and following in their footsteps.

Introduction

Ever wonder how fishes grow? The Aholehole fish, in the Hale ‘o Lono fishponds located in Keaukaha, HI. Our project has three main participants who are involved in their work. They are Ashton Crum and Leilani Kapuni working together to do research and reports on the progress of the fish, what would be good for them to eat and how the native Hawaiians used to raise up their fish. Louis Pelekane who does the actual work. He goes down to the fishponds every week and checks up on them and feeds them. Our project is important because we are reproducing the Aholehole fish, and are trying to have enough fish so when one of the people of Keaukaha get hungry for this fish they can come and take fish from us and feed their family. But for now it's just an experiment.

Process and Information

He Ahole ka i‘a, hole ke aloha.

Ahole is the fish, love is restless

In the beginning of our project we had to work on a project proposal, which explained how we were going to approach our project. In this proposal we had to set our goals in the end product of this project, we had to explain what our project was going to develop into for the people of Keaukaha, and we also needed to explain what our responsibility in this project would be. We needed to list down our resources and what type of help we needed in this process we have had Keone Chin help us with a lot of our labor and research. Without him we would have been lost because he was the one that helped guide us in the direction that we needed to follow. He showed us where most of the resources were.

In search for resources, we have found a lot of different ways in which we could have approached our project differently. One of our main resources was the book called “The Native Use of Fish In Hawai‘i.” This book had almost all the things we needed to complete our three page report, it had what the old Hawaiians used Aholehole for, how big the fish get, and what kind of water the fish live in. The second major lifeline was the Internet. The Internet helped us in our research to look at the different ways we can make cages, the type of nutrition that they need, and we looked at the different types of recipes to see if they had what the fish needed to grow.

The nutrition is a very important part of a fishes diet. For this part we did a lot of research. We had to find all of the nutrition in a recipe that would help the fish grown and be as healthy as possible because it all of the fish died then we wouldn't be successful in our project. We also had to do a report for this, which wasn't' that hard because we had more of the information we needed.

We have found out that fish need to have carbohydrates, lipids, protein, amino acids, and vitamins. We had to research all of these things and find out why these things were so important for the nutrition of the fish. We have found that if we lack in one of these things it could impact the health of the fish and cause the health of the fish and cause a major effect on the way the fish interact with other fishes in the cages.

In our research for the right diets for our fish we have had a chance to research the other health needs and diets of other animals like dogs, rabbits, guinea pigs. In the research we have found that these animals need the same type of nutrients as the Aholehole. With all of the information that we have gathered we have written a report. And I believe it's our portfolio. With all this information we still needed to find a recipe in which we can use ourselves to help our fish grow to the potential that it is needed or is expected.

We have come to know that finding a recipe to feed fish isn't all that easy. It took my partner and I a while to look for the type of recipe that included lipids, carbohydrates, amino acids, and vitamins. We looked for this recipe and finally we found one, which actually fit the expectations. As we read the requirements of the recipe, it needed to have limy, which we had to collect ourselves. This wasn't very fun, especially when it's cold and raining.

The Aholehole

A little bit of facts about the Aholehole.

The Aholehole is also known as the Hawaiian Flag tail fish. The scientific name is Kulia sandvicensis. It grows up to 12 inches. It eats planktonic crustaceans. It is a bright silvery color, shading to bluish gray on its back.

Mo‘olelo

There was once these two sisters named Haunani and Kawehi. They both grew up at the beach. One day while at the beach, they ran into these two Aholehole's named Kekoa and Kekai and they ran into friends. Haunani and Kekoa fell deeply in love, until Haunani had to go and visit her father who was very sick and left her sister Kawehi at home. Not knowing that Kawehi and Kekoa started to get close and before Kawehi had been unfaithful with Haunani and decided to tell her, so he did. When Haunani found out she became very angry and killed her own sister Kawehi and Kekoa. Soon after she realized that she had fallen in love with Kekai and Kekai had fallen in love with her.

Difficulties

One of the biggest difficulties we had was finding the recipe, we didn't know what kind of food to use that had the nutrition that the fish needed. We had to use food that was grown in school because we wanted to use the least money as possible. We couldn't find anything that had lipids. So we looked on the Internet for recipes and we luckily found one. The next problem was getting the limu for the recipe we found on the Internet.

Conclusion

If we had the chance to do this project again, we would have chosen to do another kind of project. We didn't realize how much we were about to have until we began working on the project. We thought that it was going to be easy and fun, but it was the exact opposite. But we tried best to do the best that we could for our project. The main thing that gained from this project is how to raise and nurture the fish. If we were to do another project based on the same content, the project would be about the history of the Aholehole and how the Hawaiians raised and nurtured the fish, and to compare the difference from their doing to ours, and if the outcome of it all would be successful.