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Lippy has faced long odds since the beginning.

He arrived at South Buffalo Elementary School in November as one of 350 brook trout eggs — roughly half of which never hatched.

He matured from fry to fingerling in a 50-gallon tank — one of only 80 to make it that far.

He's living with a deformity that earned him his name — a larger than average set of lips.

And come Tuesday, he'll endure his most difficult challenge so far: He'll be released into Buffalo Creek and forced to survive in the wild, where his chances of reaching maturity hover around 1 percent.

"It's kind of upsetting," sixth-grader Haley Conner, 11, said about Lippy's prospects.

Under the supervision of teacher Dave Keibler, Conner and her classmates have watched, guided and chronicled the development of Lippy and the other fingerlings to make it this far.

The school received matching $500 grants from the Pennsylvania Fish & Boat Commission and Pennsylvania Trout Unlimited to buy the eggs, equipment and materials needed to raise the trout.

The purpose of the project is giving students hands-on experience in studying water quality.

On Thursday, Keibler's class filed into the room that houses the fish tank and took seats against the wall. A handful of students were handed tiny test tubes to collect water samples and test them for nitrate, nitrite, ammonia and pH levels.

Keibler shook each of the test tubes a few times and watched as the samples turned colors after being mixed with chemicals. He then rattled off some numbers to the class.

"Our big problem right now is what?" Keibler asked the students.

One student suggested that the ammonia level was too high. But, that wasn't the right answer.

Another said the nitrite level increased. That answer was spot on.

"What could cause that?" Keibler asked.

The students immediately began to list potential causes:

"It's from dying plants."

"We didn't change the water."

"We put too much food in the tank."

Improper nitrite levels — or levels of any of the other chemicals — could kill the trout.

As Brad Keener, 11, said, "We have to be careful about those things. Sometimes we have to raise the pH and then lower the pH."

Jesse Hubert, 12, said even keeping the tank at the right temperature — around 52 degrees — is important.

Hubert said he and his classmates have become adept at maintaining a healthy environment for the trout.

"We don't lose fish too often," he said.

Conner said the project is teaching the students more than just lessons about water quality. "It's teaching us responsibility," she said.

Conner said she has mixed emotions about releasing the trout on Tuesday. She's sad because the class has invested time and effort in raising the trout. But she's happy to see the fish moved to a natural habitat.

As for Lippy, he's only fish left in the tank with a name. The students said they named the trout with deformities — for example, Deformo, who had two heads — and that Lippy is the only one who's survived.

Keibler, meantime, said his plans are to continue raising trout with his sixth-grade classes.

He said that judging from parent and student feedback, "This is the big talk around the dinner table."

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