NANFA-- Intriguing tiny sturgeon

Irate Mormon (archimed_at_netdoor.com)
Tue, 11 Jun 2002 21:04:12 -0500

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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