NANFA-- Fertilization of Eggs

George Arndt (georgeacim_at_hotmail.com)
Sun, 03 Jun 2001 23:13:13 -0400

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well it seems that right now there are many bluegills on my local pond. i
thought well why not spawn some. so all i need do is to bring home a male
and female and try to spawn them. then after a few days the idea came to me
to try to artificially fertilize the eggs. well i had asked about pan
frying the bluegills. so i noticed some are males and some are females. so
today i took a small dish of water and took the eggs from 2 females and the
white organs from 2 males and squished them all up between my fingers in the
water in the bowl and stirred up the bowl. then because some of the
material was large, i used a large hole green tropical fish net to pour the
mess through. and throw out the large pieces. then i used a fine mess net
to filter out the water and leave only the eggs. the eggs, now without the
sperm, i put into a clean 5 gallons of fresh water and put in a vigorous
bubbler to keep the eggs moving somewhat. of course too many are settling
on the bottom. i need a bottle turned upside down to better keep the eggs
in suspension. but this is the first experiment. i would guess the eggs
and sperm were together for a good 5 minutes. that seemed long enough.

I do NOT have any literature on artificial fertilization. so i am guessing
what to do as i go along.

i think i will try a large soda bottle with a hole in the cap. and invert
the bottle. and stick an air line into the hole and seal the airline to the
cap with some aquarium caulking. then i need a valve to partially shut down
the air so as to regulate the air flow into the bottle. maybe i will try
this tomorrow.

my 100 gallon now contains a largemouth bass, yellow perch, white perch,
black crappie. all about 8 to 10 inches. the black crappie looks the
largest. I do not think i can keep all them in this small a tank. but for
now it looks great.

oh yes i also put a guess as to a pair of bluegills outside in a 12 ft
diameter pond. the female was super bulging with eggs. but i am not
positive on the male identification. it could be a female that is not full
of eggs.

when i clean the bluegills i have been taking the eggs and using them to
feed my other fish. they seem to like the eggs.

I hope i have not offended anyone by what i did or am saying in this email.

George
harvard, mass
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