Re: NANFA-- Intriguing tiny sturgeon

Steve Hayes (steve_hayes127_at_yahoo.com)
Wed, 12 Jun 2002 19:34:54 -0700 (PDT)

The small size for the sturgeon is about right. 7-8 year class for atlantic sturgeon are only about 12-18 inches according to a guide I read. That growth can be stunted by protien poor diets or crowding more than 1 specimen per square foot.
Only problem with having them breed is you'll have to wait about 5 or 6 years. On the up side they live to be about 70 maybe even 100 so that comes out to about a dime a year for each one.
Enjoy,
Steve

P.S. I would be interested in getting in touch with the hatchery that has them.
Irate Mormon <archimed_at_netdoor.com> wrote: Some of you may have read my post about silversides recently. While
I don't know yet about their long-term survivability, I was able to
ship these fishes to Sorin Damian and they arrived alive, and
reportedly hungry :-)

I didn't provide many details about the trip during which these
fishes were collected because, as I mentioned, it was actually an
anniversary trip with my wife and the fishes were somewhat
incidental. HOWEVER, I did find something interesting which I will
now proceed to relate.

On the route to Gulfport, near Hattiesburg, there is the Pearl River
Fish Hatchery. In addition to supplying game fishes to farmers they
are working with gulf sturgeon. Everybody know about triploid grass
carp, but apparently somebody at the fishery was curious and wondered
what would happen if you tried the same thing with sturgeon (why
sterile sturgeon? I don't know, it was just an experiment). Anyway,
you subject the eggs to high pressure for a certain amount of time
and, at least in carp, you get triploid carp.

What do you get with gulf sturgeon? Teeny Tiny Sturgeon! They have
never grown larger than 6 inches, and these are specimens which are
at several old. Now, I know they don't grow very fast anyway (Jan,
how large would normal sturgeon be at this age?), but it would appear
that you can produce miniature sturgeon (For the aquarium hobby??)
which won't outgrow the average tank.

Anyway, they had bunches of these dwarf sturgeon, so I bought a
couple even though the guy charged me $10 a piece. They happily suck
down blood worms and sinking pelleted food. I am curious to see if
these fish will ever be reproductive, although I am inclined to doubt
it. I have never heard of this before so I just thought I would pass
it on...
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/"Unless stated otherwise, comments made on this list do not necessarily
/ reflect the beliefs or goals of the North American Native Fishes
/ Association"
/ This is the discussion list of the North American Native Fishes Association
/ nanfa_at_aquaria.net. To subscribe, unsubscribe, or get help, send the word
/ subscribe, unsubscribe, or help in the body (not subject) of an email to
/ nanfa-request_at_aquaria.net. For a digest version, send the command to
/ nanfa-digest-request_at_aquaria.net instead.
/ For more information about NANFA, visit our web page, http://www.nanfa.org