December 5, 2008 – The Fish Hotel will be back. Over the summer, a floating fish habitat was moved to a spot across from Marina City by an organization dedicated to the Chicago River. In November, however, as winter approached, it was decided to tow the habitat to warmer water.

“During the winter the waters of the Main Stem are too cold,” says Caitlyn Bolton, Watershed Project Coordinator for Friends of the Chicago River. “The freezing water and forming ice could cause the fish hotel buoys to sink and take the structure down with it.”

The habitat was towed by boat downstream to Midwest Generation’s Fisk Station, a power plant on West Cermak Road, where it will stay until early spring. But, says Bolton, “It will then return back to its location across from Marina City in its spring flowering beauty.”

The three-level hotel includes floating and submerged plants, brush, logs, etc., as well as cribs at various depths for fish to eat and sleep in. Nets around the hotel keep water fowl from eating the plants. (Left) Fish Hotel as it looked in August across from Marina City.

How do you move a fish habitat? Very slowly, says Bolton. “The fish cribs that are suspended below the surface are first taken out so that they do not create extra drag or get damaged in the towing. Fish who reside at the Fish Hotel swim in and out as they please. They are welcome to follow the Fish Hotel to its winter location but it is more likely that the Fish Hotel houses other fish when it arrives. Either way though, it does provide habitat year round but the location changes.”

The Fish Hotel is a project by Friends of the Chicago River to restore the river into a more vibrant ecosystem. The habitat started out in 2005 just west of the Michigan Avenue bridge but was moved this year in anticipation of the Riverwalk expansion.

 Related story: Fish hotel opens across from Marina City