Sturgeon :) checking up on success

[grmanrocks]

so, there was a pretty big influx of sturgeon (ive id most of them as whites) into the trade these past few months, anyone have any kind of success? im my experience these fish tend to fail within the first three weeks, quickly dying of malnutrition due to insufficient quantity and quality.

i started with three this year, lost one to predation (got behind the divider and was eaten by my emperor cichlid) and another is still kicking, tho i got him later so hes behind in growth, too soon to call him a success.

just wondering how many of the hundreds that were purchased wound up dieing. and interested in the methods those that have succeeded used.

those of you with success stories, please post the foods you fed, frequency of feedings, growth rates, temperature, and a pic greatly appreciated. just trying to further the husbandry of these amazing fishes

heres pics of my lone keeper about 5.5"s as of now, grown from a tiny and nearly transparent 1.5" at the most, got him around june 25th or so.

fed on black worms and mysis about 4-7 times a day as a baby, and then moved onto sliced and diced squid tentacles and market shrimp twice daily at around 4"s. kept in 75-78 degree water in a divided tank shared with a few other grow outs.

(so sorry about the pic quality, fish never stops and the camera sucks....)

 

[MultispeciesTamer]

man my fav. fish to bad they all grow the common species grow so big.

 

[LBathory]

I'd love to try my luck with sturgeon one day, they just are so fragile and get so big.

 

[grmanrocks]

I'd love to try my luck with sturgeon one day, they just are so fragile and get so big.

theyre not so fragile if u keep um fed. ive kept quite a few species successfully (this is my first shot with a white tho). but yea, the sizes can be a tad intimidating.....

 

[new2natives]

Well, i have just one white sturgeon at the moment, and he is still tiny. I just picked him up 2 weeks ago, and he is feeding 3x a day on bloodworms and mysis. He is in a 6'x18"x18" by himself at room temp, probably around ~71-73. And for aeration, the tank is only filled 2/3 full, so the ac500 and another smaller HOB do a good job of splashing the water all around. I haven't seen any growth out of him yet. Hes about 2.5"


As for success stories, I had one last year, and it was alone in a 29g from 3" all the way up to 7" which took about 3 months, feeding only on bloodworms. Again, it was at room temp, and i had a large airstone in the tank. Then i added a paddlefish to the tank, which was my downfall. I was constantly putting in frozen brine which makes a mess, and i had a week where i was unable to keep the tank clean enough, and then hell broke loose and i lost them both but it was not the fishes fault at all.

After that i had 2 sterlets. I picked them up at 3", again feeding only on bloodworms, and kept at room temp, with a large airstone, and 2 ac500s kicking the water up a little bit.
They went from 3" to 13" in about 10 months. They started out in a 90, and then spent the last 4 months in a 150, along with 2 12" florida gar.
I really have no idea what went wrong with them, but after about 9 months, they started to act funny, and i would find them laying still on the bottom from time to time. I added some salt to the water, and made sure the parameters where perfect, but for the last month they were day to day. Sometimes they would act normal, and others they would just drift around in the current looking very sickly. But all the while they ate just fine. I tried other foods, but they would not eat anything else.


I am hoping this time around goes a little better. I plan on getting one more White this season, and then maybe one Sterlet once they become available. I want to keep then in tanks over through the winter, and then next year once they have a little bit of size, hopefully I can get them to eat pellets, and put them in my 1100g pond with koi.

 

[grmanrocks]

Well, i have just one white sturgeon at the moment, and he is still tiny. I just picked him up 2 weeks ago, and he is feeding 3x a day on bloodworms and mysis. He is in a 6'x18"x18" by himself at room temp, probably around ~71-73. And for aeration, the tank is only filled 2/3 full, so the ac500 and another smaller HOB do a good job of splashing the water all around. I haven't seen any growth out of him yet. Hes about 2.5"


As for success stories, I had one last year, and it was alone in a 29g from 3" all the way up to 7" which took about 3 months, feeding only on bloodworms. Again, it was at room temp, and i had a large airstone in the tank. Then i added a paddlefish to the tank, which was my downfall. I was constantly putting in frozen brine which makes a mess, and i had a week where i was unable to keep the tank clean enough, and then hell broke loose and i lost them both but it was not the fishes fault at all.

After that i had 2 sterlets. I picked them up at 3", again feeding only on bloodworms, and kept at room temp, with a large airstone, and 2 ac500s kicking the water up a little bit.
They went from 3" to 13" in about 10 months. They started out in a 90, and then spent the last 4 months in a 150, along with 2 12" florida gar.
I really have no idea what went wrong with them, but after about 9 months, they started to act funny, and i would find them laying still on the bottom from time to time. I added some salt to the water, and made sure the parameters where perfect, but for the last month they were day to day. Sometimes they would act normal, and others they would just drift around in the current looking very sickly. But all the while they ate just fine. I tried other foods, but they would not eat anything else.


I am hoping this time around goes a little better. I plan on getting one more White this season, and then maybe one Sterlet once they become available. I want to keep then in tanks over through the winter, and then next year once they have a little bit of size, hopefully I can get them to eat pellets, and put them in my 1100g pond with koi.

those are some pretty good runs, but what it woulds like to me is that the fish (in particular the whites) arnt getting enough nutrition, white sturgeon live in slightly warmer water than the sterlets, and i take no extra precautions when it comes to temperature or aeration. i dont know how big the fish you have started at, but at 2 weeks the fish should have just about doubled in size if fed properly. the problem with sturgeon is not just quantity of food, but quaility. what brand of bloodworms and mysis do you use? i have had the most success with hikari mysis and live blackworms (maybe blackworms are bloodworms?)

as for sterlets, i have the least luck with them. they are very picky about temperature (they start to float at anything above 70 degrees in my experience, which is what it sounds like yours were doing?). and the first few times i kept them (one of them is on here somewhere, i knew nothing about these fish at the time) i lost the entire batch. i did however get one batch of 4 to about 8"s before passing them off to another aquarist (i moved to the east coast breifly and didnt want to risk them shipping).

good luck on your next attempt, you shouldnt have any problems getting them on pellets, mine have always eaten anything i put in front of them.
keep me updated on the progress

 

[Moontanman]

It's really sad we cannot get a breeder to release shovelnose sturgeon into the pet trade. they are ok with warmer temps and seem to thrive in confinement much better than other sturgeon. The food quality would still be a problem. I used live daphnia to grow the shovelnose i had. They would gorge several times a day on live daphnia and later live black worms. They would eat micro pellets but they did indeed seem to want to eat all the time. I used trickle filter to deal with the fish waste, not sure if any other type of filter can deal with the bio load. I have avoided sterlets, stubborn I guess, but i would love to try shovelnose again...I do know of shovelnose kept long term, ie, many years....

 

[MultispeciesTamer]

why dont you guys feed very small bits of market shrimp. It really put the bulk on my bass and Iam sure they cant be bad for sturgeon. another thing to try is very small amounts of trout or other high protein fish.

 

[grmanrocks]

It's really sad we cannot get a breeder to release shovelnose sturgeon into the pet trade. they are ok with warmer temps and seem to thrive in confinement much better than other sturgeon. The food quality would still be a problem. I used live daphnia to grow the shovelnose i had. They would gorge several times a day on live daphnia and later live black worms. They would eat micro pellets but they did indeed seem to want to eat all the time. I used trickle filter to deal with the fish waste, not sure if any other type of filter can deal with the bio load. I have avoided sterlets, stubborn I guess, but i would love to try shovelnose again...I do know of shovelnose kept long term, ie, many years....

i agree entirely moon, i would love to get my hands and a few (or a dozen) shovelnose......from everything i understand about the family they seem to be the most resilient species in their native habitat.

i agree entirely about the amount of food these fish consume, and i try to pass on my experience to other would e sturgeon keepers whenever possible. trickly filters are the only way to go on larger systems imo as well (thats what i run on my larger show tank as well as my shark/marine system).

it would seem as tho i am out of the woods for the most part with my bigger white tho. *fingers crossed*

why dont you guys feed very small bits of market shrimp. It really put the bulk on my bass and Iam sure they cant be bad for sturgeon. another thing to try is very small amounts of trout or other high protein fish.

i do diced market shrimp and squid tentacles are what i feed my larger white. it is rather tedious to prepare chunks small enough for these fishes rather small mouths tho. i cant wait for my white to get large enough to start taking real sized chunks off of a skewer.

 

[andyjs]

I never had any problem feeding my white and I had him for several months, but he got too hot in the summer and kicked it. At the hatchery where I used to work, there are 10 whites going on about 16-18 years old. The biggest is over 4' now. They are super cool fish. They actually kind of seem to enjoy petting and will eat right out of your hand