Acipenser oxyrinchus oxyrinchus died, ideas?

[Lemons]

Well they take back the sturgeon at the end of the school year. They got them from some sort of fishery, I have no idea, I don't have direct contact with them, although I tried to get it to see if I couldn't keep the fish until it out grew my tank.

The fish was on the DNR supplies pellets, I assume he was fed them before I got him. He was not bloated at all, which was one thing that was not pointing toward an intestinal blockage. I figured maybe in the weakened state he died before it had time to get noticeable, and especially with the lowered body weight from the fast any bulge would be harder to detect.

I don't know the tank temp, the didn't give us a heater, and would not tell us at what temperature to keep him when I asked about me putting a heater on it. It is almost as if the program is run by a demented *******.

 

[dsaavedra]

mechanicsville is in St. Mary's County.

i take a Natural Resources Management class off campus at a Tech Center a few miles away from my school.

we have an aquaculture system set up with two big 350 gallon circular tanks. two years ago we got atlantic sturgeon, i'm not sure where they came from or how many we got, as i wasn't attending the class yet. i think it was six sturgeon that were somewhere around 8-10 inches. in the other tank there was a school of american shad.

well the shad all died by getting sucked into the filter, and over the course of last year, as the sturgeon grew, they would manage to escape the tank (we kept a net over it). we had the same 3 sturgeon for a long time, and they all grew to around 18-20 inches. i'm not sure what happened to two of them, but something got out of whack in the tank and the last one ended up dying from nitrite poisoning.

now we have 12 striped bass fingerlings in each tank, as part of one of the student's capstone project.

 

[Lemons]

Oh cool, do you go to St. Mary's College? They apparently have a sick wet lab with a flow through system.

 

[MultispeciesTamer]

Well they take back the sturgeon at the end of the school year. They got them from some sort of fishery, I have no idea, I don't have direct contact with them, although I tried to get it to see if I couldn't keep the fish until it out grew my tank.

The fish was on the DNR supplies pellets, I assume he was fed them before I got him. He was not bloated at all, which was one thing that was not pointing toward an intestinal blockage. I figured maybe in the weakened state he died before it had time to get noticeable, and especially with the lowered body weight from the fast any bulge would be harder to detect.

I don't know the tank temp, the didn't give us a heater, and would not tell us at what temperature to keep him when I asked about me putting a heater on it. It is almost as if the program is run by a demented *******.

This could have been the problem here the temp. Sturgeon are a cold water fish they need no heater and should have a chiller in the tank. I would think if left over 70 degrees for a prolonged peried of time with not enough 02 is what killed it. If the fish was being kept near 70 degrees, you should have had lots of O2 in there. As you can never have to much 02. The key to cold water fish is oxygen, not the cold, but cold water is def. a plus and can help in keeping the fish unstressed.

 

[Lemons]

Well I had the filter output making bubbles, as well as an air pump on a fine air stone, and a battery powered backup air pump, I wouldn't think that low O2 would have been a problem. It may very have been over 70 degrees at some points, but I doubt for a prolonged period of time. Especially because the school probably turned off the heat for the break, and we got about a foot of snow during break haha.

 

[MultispeciesTamer]

Well I had the filter output making bubbles, as well as an air pump on a fine air stone, and a battery powered backup air pump, I wouldn't think that low O2 would have been a problem. It may very have been over 70 degrees at some points, but I doubt for a prolonged period of time. Especially because the school probably turned off the heat for the break, and we got about a foot of snow during break haha.

then being at 70 or room temp during school then the sudden drop over night when heat was shut off might have been what stressed it out

 

[Lemons]

I thought about that too. The drop in temp was prob much more drastic than the raise in temp. And he died over 2 weeks after the drop in temp, so that wouldn't have been the main cause. Maybe the raise stressed him out, but I still don't think that would have killed him... I mean, he died several days after it happened.

 

[dsaavedra]

ours were kept at room temp and there was LOTS of O2 from the filter output. they were on a pellet diet the entire time we had them and they were fed on a timer.