HPL STURGEON RESEARCH

Sturgeon Research at the UMCES Horn Point Laboratory

Restoring sturgeon to the Chesapeake Bay is an evolving science that melds traditional aquaculture and innovative science to find the best way to breed this unique species, rear them in a laboratory, then release them into the wild. In many cases, researchers are writing the book as they proceed.

Feed Training of Wild-Caught Atlantic Sturgeon

In the wild, sturgeon are bottom dwelling fish that feed benthic organisms including mollusks, insects and crustaceans. In the laboratory however, that’s not the case. One of the biggest challenges facing researchers is training wild-caught fish to eat commercial food pellets – pellets that wild fish do not readily accept.

At the Horn Point Laboratory, researchers evaluate various feeding methods to train wild-caught sturgeon onto commercial pellet diet. To date, researchers have successfully trained 92 percent of smaller fish and 35 percent of large fish (>10 kg) to eat commercial pellets which comprised of pieces of natural food (bloodworms, clams, shrimp and squid). While some fish have lost weight during the study, some have gained up to 160 percent.

Larval Live Food Enrichment Study

One of the greatest advancements in hatchery success for Atlantic sturgeon has been improved diets that rely on the use of automatic live food delivery systems. These advancements help give rare spawning females and fry the best chance to thrive in a laboratory setting.

However, the transition from live brine shrimp to commercial diets occurs at a critical stage in the development of larval sturgeon and coincides with the period in which the greatest mortality occurs. Research has shown that enriching brine shrimp with certain fatty acids (DHA, EPA and ARA) for larval culture significantly increases fry surviva

 

Example of one successful diet regime beginning with shrimp; followed by a gelatin diet consisting of shrimp, fish, various vegetables, and ground commercial diets; and lastly the commercial diet.