Sturgeon Hatchery Manual

FAO Fisheries and Aquaculture Technical Paper No. 558

Prepared by

Mikhail S. Chebanov
Senior Scientist
FAO Consultant Krasnodar, Russia

and

Elena V. Galich
Krasnodar, Russia

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Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
Rome, 2013

ABSTRACT

Chebanov, M.S.; Galich, E.V. 2013.
Sturgeon hatchery manual.
FAO Fisheries and Aquaculture Technical Paper. No. 558. Ankara, FAO. 297 pp.

This Sturgeon Hatchery Manual includes the latest available scientific research findings and experiences and compiles advice given in earlier manuals and handbooks on sturgeon culture and reproduction practices. This document can be considered an update of the Sturgeon Breeding and Rearing Handbook (Chebanov, Galich and Chmyr, 2004), which was published in the Russian language. The Sturgeon Hatchery Manual was prepared in response to numerous requests for practical guidance on this subject from the Central Asian and Caucasus region to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO).

This manual is targeted particularly at sturgeon farmers, sturgeon hatchery operators, hatchery technicians, and fisheries and aquaculture managers involved in sturgeon aquaculture development and the restocking and rehabilitation of sturgeon populations in the countries around the basins of the Black and Caspian seas. It aims to provide a practical handbook of modern sturgeon hatchery practices and management. The manual is available in the English, Russian and Turkish languages. The manual starts with a chapter on the taxonomy, biology, distribution and life histories of Azov-Black and Caspian Sea sturgeons. Subsequent chapters discuss the following aspects of sturgeon hatchery practices: hatchery design, collection and transportation of wild broodstock, broodstock management, spawning and gamete processing, fry and fingerling rearing, production of live feeds, the technology of artificial reproduction, ecological- morphological and ethological-physiological express estimation of larval and fingerling (fry) viability, release of fingerlings into natural waterbodies, the formation of domesticated broodstock, basic sanitation and fish health measures, tagging, and early sexing and maturity determination in live sturgeons using ultrasound techniques. The manual also contains an extensive list of references, a list of Acipenseriformes and numerous figures, photographs and tables to support the guidance given on the various hatchery practices.

CONTENTS

Preparation of this document Abstract Abbreviations and acronyms
Chapter 1–	Azov-Black and Caspian seas sturgeon taxonomy, biology, distribution and life history
	1.1	Introduction
	1.2	Biology, distribution and life history
Chapter 2–	Hatchery design
	2.1	Basic requirements for hatchery design
	2.2	Modernized hatchery schemes
	2.3	Selection of the hatchery location
	2.4	Hatchery structure
	2.5	Hatchery water supply
	2.6	Water quality requirements at sturgeon hatcheries
	2.7	Recommendations on the structural improvement of existing hatcheries
Chapter 3–	Collection and transportation of wild breeders
	3.1	Sites and periods of breeder collection
	3.2	Transportation of broodstock to hatchery
	3.3	Tagging of wild breeders
	3.4	Main biological and reproductive indices of wild breeders
Chapter 4–	Broodstock management
	4.1	Introduction
	4.2	Late autumn assessment
	4.3	Overwintering of breeders
	4.4	Spring evaluation of gonad maturity status
	4.5	Determination of prespawn holding regimes for broodstock
	4.6	Hormonal induction of spawning
Chapter 5–	Spawning and gamete processing
	5.1	Obtaining mature gametes
	5.2	Egg incubation
Chapter 6–	Rearing of larvae, fry and fingerlings
	6.1	Hatching and holding of prelarvae
	6.2	Rearing of larvae
	6.3	Fingerling rearing in ponds
Chapter 7–	Production of live food
	7.1	Introduction
	7.2	Cultivation of oligochaetes (enchytraeus albidus)
	7.3	Cultivation of cladocerans (daphnia, moina)
	7.4	Cultivation of artemia salina
	7.5	cultivation of californian red worm (eisenia foetida)
Chapter 8–	Artificial reproduction of sturgeons based on the control of seasonalityy
	8.1	Introduction
	8.2	Collection of breeders
	8.3	Transition of breeders to spawning temperature regime (STR)
	8.4	Regime of egg incubation and thermal adaptation of prelarvae
Chapter 9–	Ecological-morphological and ethological- physiological express estimation of viability of sturgeon larvae, fry and fingerlings
	9.1	Polyfunctional evaluation of larval and fingerling fitness indices
	9.2	In vivo assessment methods: express tests
	9.3	Anaphase method for counting chromosomal aberrations in larvae
	9.4	The melanophores (pigment cells) background response
	9.5	Teratological analysis of larvae and fingerlings
	9.6	Physiological and biochemical evaluation of the state of standard hatchery-produced sturgeon juveniles
	9.7	Evaluation of adaptive qualities of juveniles on the basis of central nervous system response
	9.8	Neuro-pharmacological testing of juveniles
	9.9	Fluctuating asymmetry as a statistical indicator of juvenile variability and for environmental stress evaluation
Chapter 10–	Release of fingerlings into natural waterbodies
	10.1	Introduction
	10.2	Methods for enumeration of released hatchery production
	10.3	Release of fingerlings from ponds
	10.4	Selection of optimal release sites
	10.5	Transportation of fingerlings to release sites
Chapter 11–	The formation of domestic replacement and broodstock
	11.1	Introduction
	11.2	Genetic aspects of domestic broodstock formation
	11.3	Fish farming and biological criteria for broodstock establishment
	11.4	Rearing of broodstock in cages
	11.5	Peculiarities of broodstock holding and handling
	11.6	General recommendations on building broodstock sexual structure
	11.7	Broodstock building in sturgeon pedigree farms and hatcheries
	11.8	Optimum temperature conditions for sturgeon broodstock management
	11.9	Morphological abnormalities in development of replacement and domestic broodstock
	11.10	General testing of broodstock: genetic control of broodstock material
	11.11	Adaptation of wild fish to artificial holding conditions
	11.12	Transportation
Chapter 12–	Basic sanitary and fish health measures
	12.1	Basic diseases of sturgeon
	12.2	Clinical signs of the most common diseases
	12.3	Methods for treatment and prevention
	12.4	Preparations used for treatment of sturgeons
	12.5	Use of antibiotics
Chapter 13–	Tagging
	13.1	Tagging requirements
	13.2	Tagging with pit tags
	13.3	Tagging with cwt tags
	13.4	A framework for developing an international programme of tagging hatchery-produced sturgeon juveniles
Chapter 14–	Early sexing and staging maturity in live sturgeons by using ultrasound techniques
	14.1	Equipment for ultrasound diagnostics of sex and gonad maturity status in live sturgeons
	14.2	Use of sonography for early determination of sex and gonad maturity stage
	14.3	Ultrasound glossary
	14.4	Anatomical structure and noninvasive detection of inner organs and tissues in sturgeons by ultrasound technique
	14.5	Noninvasive detection of organs and tissues by ultrasound technique
	14.6	Early sexing and staging maturity of sturgeons by using noninvasive express ultrasound technique
	14.7	Ultrasound diagnostics of developmental anomalies in the reproductive system of sturgeon (pathologic echoanatomy)
	14.8	Noninvasive measurements of linear characteristic and calculation of volumetric parametrs of inner organs
Literature cited
Annexes
	1 –	List of species of the Acipenseriformes
	2 –	Design of the artificial spawning channel for seminatural reproduction of sturgeon
	3 –	Relationship between τ0 and temperature for four sturgeon species
	4 –	Effective breeding number (Ne)

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