Studies were designed to evaluated survival of larval striped bass (0-4 days old) in each river system during active striped bass spawning and to relate larval survival to water quality conditions and contaminant concentrations in spawning habitat.
Sample sites were established on the Santee River 10 km downstream from the confluence of the Congaree and Wateree rivers, and on the Congaree and Wateree rivers 7 and 17 km upstream from their confluence, respectively.
The Bounding Rectangle Coordinates below are very general coordinates appearing to define a rectangle around the area described above. They were derived from a couple of very course study area and road atlas maps.
Larvae (24 h old) were used in the tests. The fish were exposed to full-strength river water and serial dilutions of 50, 25 and 12.5%. Well water with a pH of 7.7, alkalinity of 241 mg/L and hardness of 280 mg/L was used. Reverse osmosis water from the National Fisheries Contaminant Research Center in Columbia, Missouri and was used for dilution water preparation.
At the beginning of each test, a single larva was placed in each beaker, and survival was recorded daily. Swimming activity, defined as the number of visually detectable body movements in a 3 minute interval, was recorded for each individual.