Oh and by the way, how did you go about transporting your fish? If I were to get some wild it'd probably be a 4 hour drive to get the ones I want and i know that trout can be very fragile fish.
I used a pair of large coolers, about 50 gallons each, with small holes drilled in the top for airlines. I sank two air stones in each cooler, run by portable bubblers (the battery type, but you can get one to plug into the car too). I filled the coolers about 3/4 (in the back of the suburban already, of course) and taped around the lids to minimize splashing around corners. I also kept a digital thermometer in each cooler to monitor temperature in transit. I had about a 2 hours trip, and I didn't lose a full degree celsius. I had 25 trout (I know I said 24 earlier... that was the plan, we took an extra for good measure) so 12~13 per cooler, all between 99-132 mm TL, plus a few rosyside and blacknose dace (just for fun). I had no issues in transport, but I did lose 2 in the first overnight. I didn't have lids for the tanks, so I clamped shade cloth over the tops, but two hopped out regardless. Based on their level of desiccation and the time found, I guessed that they were startled by the lights turning on suddenly, so I added dawn and dusk lighting to ease that shock. I also ran to Lowe's and spent a couple hundred bucks on acrylic for lids within the hour...
Here is a picture of the research system, BRAND NEW at the time I started. Pretty sweet setup, although I would have designed it a little differently myself. Each tank is divided down the middle into two channels, water circulates within each tank and returns through a gravel bed at the end of each tank to the pump and treatment system in the corner. The pump can push about 65 gpm total, serving all 4 channels, but I could isolate each channel and send all 65 gpm to one if I chose, plus you get the recirc velocity from the other side coming back around.
Y'all talk about water changes... I did mine every 5 minutes! with an automatic solenoid valve. I opens on the frequency and length of time you set, so I had it open for a few seconds every 5 minutes, adding ~10-20% of the total system volume in 24 hours. An overflow ran water to a floor drain to maintain a constant level. Water added was RO, and pH and conductivity were constantly monitored, with dosing pumps to add sodium bicarb and instant ocean solutions as needed to compensate.
Here is the holding system, I kept one brookie per jail cell... I used 12 in my observations, 4 cohorts of 3 fish each, the rest were a juggling act of 'where can I keep another fish', I added two 20 long tanks to the top of this rack and plumbed them in and constantly had to shuffle fish to unused areas of the channel system. Oh, these fish didn't see a net EVER after coming into the lab, always caught them in a clear plastic container to minimize stress/slime damage.
