My high school project, back in the stone age, was in performing a parthenogenetic reproduction of Polypterus ornatipinnis. At the time, this species had never been spawned in captivity. I conditioned females to egg development then,injected them in the caudal base with home-decanted PMSG (pregnant mare serum gonadotropin). This caused the females to release their eggs quickly.I had blood from the adults standing by in agar prep petri dishes. Using a microscope and home-made extraction vacuum jig, I withdrew a nucleus from a blood cell and injected the nucleus into an egg. Keep in mind that fish do not possess marrow to develop new blood cells. Their blood cells are nucleated and self-replicate. I was successful in injecting 3 dozen eggs before the viability of the blood cell nuclei dropped to unusable. Then, it was a simple matter of artificially incubating the eggs in a hatcher until perfect clones of the adult female hatched out from the eggs.
Note: before injecting the nucleus from the blood cell (these nuclei had both chromosome sets from the parents of the female), the egg's nucleus (single chromosome pair) had to be neutralized. This was accomplished via a short burst of focused short-wave UV light. Pricking the egg membrane caused the egg to sense whether it had been fertilized. When the egg's hormones discovered the 2nd set of chromosomes, the egg initiated development.
Nowadays, the messy PMSG steps can be bypassed by purchasing ready-made OvaPrim, which is a hatchery injectable spawning hormone supplied by Syndel corp.
