TX Peacock bass project

[Copper2]

Hi everyone, I need to know some things on Pbass for a breeding project to potentially release them into power plant lakes in Texas with the Texas parks and wildlife. I’m only fourteen and have never caught one of these but I’m fascinated with them. Texas had Pbass introduced a few decades ago to lakes that had power plants running only part time. This resulted in the fishing dying in winter. Several new plans have been made for these fish to come back to lakes more consistent intemperatures like lake braunig in San Antonio. These were shut down because of the potential for the fish to get loose in nearby rivers despite the temperature barriers. These fish could be made sterile though and then upon approval released in Texas for anglers as an alternative to fishing in South America and Florida for them.
My questions:
1. are they easy to induce breeding.
2. Is anyone willing to study their fish and breed them.
3. These fish must be made Tripold using a simple procedure of sticking the eggs in a warm water bath that’s hotter then the original water they were in when fertilized.
4. Tripold fish sometimes come out diploid- they can breed. So they must be all females. This requires creepy hormone treatments on the parent fish. It’s not that hard.

I hope those of you who have butteryfly bass could participate in trying to breed triploid Pbass. I’m still researching on this but if done Texas can be stocked with these fish! Also I would like to try to introduce speckled Pbass here and hybrids between them and butteryfly bass.

Thanks to everyone who participates!

 

[Copper2]

The process to make the triploids is fairly simple. Two groups of female Pbass are started out with. One is given hormones to make milt to fertilize eggs. These “male” female bass still have only XX chromosomes so when bred with normal female Pbass the offspring will be all female. So once this is done and they spawn naturally or induced into spawning the eggs are collected and then mixed with the “male’s” milt; is let to set for about 20 minutes then the eggs are put in much warmer water stopping a little chromosome, that normally ejects out of the egg at this point, to stay inside the egg making the fish triploid. Of course some escape the treatment and that’s why they’re all female, since the ones that turn out normal can’t reproduce without a male, and female fish turning to male doesn’t happen very often in the wild. This is very effective but of course if someone releases a male peacock illegally that could cause bad consequences.

 

[TwoHedWlf]

I wonder if it's a similar process to produce triploid grass carp that you can get here if you apply for a permit?

 

[Copper2]

It should be

 

[phreeflow]

Fascinating....good luck on the project!