Recommendations for breeding sturgeon at home: breeding, keeping and feeding

Many people do not even think about breeding commercial fish at home, however, this is quite realistic. Most often, sturgeon is bred on the territory of a private house. Such a process does not require huge investments and does not cause any particular difficulties.

Business benefits

Before you start breeding sturgeon for sale, you need to study the features of such a business:

• High demand for fish products, including caviar.
• Low competitionI, after all, few people are engaged in the cultivation of sturgeon, sterlet or stellate sturgeon for sale at home.
• No need for significant financial investmentX. So, starting a business will require the purchase of fry, as well as cleaning the pond or preparing a special room and equipment.
• To breed sturgeon, you should have only basic knowledge about fish. In any case, the necessary information can be found in the specialized literature.
• Breeding fish takes a little time. So, every day it will take about 4 hours for care. The exception is sorting days, which take about 15 hours once a month.
• Sturgeons take root well at homebecause they are undemanding to lighting.
• This kind of fish is almost not susceptible to infectious diseases. An exception is gastric disorders, the cause of which in most cases is the use of low-quality feed.
• Business pays off within 8 months.

Preparation of premises

Recently, many people have resorted to sturgeon breeding, using the possibilities of a country house for this. If you do everything right, the quality of the product will not suffer.

First of all, you need to have about 30 m² of free space for the device of the pool. The room itself needs to be heated regularly. So, in winter, the water temperature should be 17-18º C, and in summer – 20-24º C.

For sturgeon breeding you can use a polycarbonate greenhousewhere the pool and the necessary equipment is located.

Some people prefer to buy everything necessary for breeding fish in special firms. In this case, all the equipment will be brought and installed by the master.

Swimming pool and equipment

It should be understood that even a self-prepared pool is suitable for growing sturgeon. Its depth should be 1 m, and the diameter – 2-3 m. In such a small container, about 1 ton of sturgeon can be grown per year.

Experts recommend to start with one small pool. Thanks to this, during the year you will be able to understand whether you can breed sturgeon and whether you like this business. If everything goes well, you can expand the pool or prepare a few additional containers.

It should be remembered that sturgeon is a shy fish, which are unstable to stress, so the pool should be located as far as possible from highways and public buildings.

For the normal functioning of the pool, you need prepare compressors and filters, as well as take care of aeration and the presence of a pump for periodic water changes in the pool. You can additionally purchase an automatic feeder, the use of which will save a lot of time. However, if desired, the fish are allowed to be fed by hand.

When choosing pumps and compressors, you need to consider the power of the equipment. It should work with a small margin, due to which the wear of equipment will not come soon.

Since sturgeons are bottom dwellers, they do not need special lighting.

If tap water is used to supply water, make sure that no residual chlorine enters the pool. To eliminate it, a budget charcoal filter is suitable. Water is partially changed every 3-5 days.

Pond breeding

If the option with a pool for some reason is not suitable, you can try to grow fish in a pond. Such a reservoir must be prepared by thoroughly cleaning it. If this is an artificial pond, you should cover the bottom with limeand then rinse it gently. Such processing is carried out 15-20 days before the fry are placed.

The reservoir should have the appropriate flora and fauna, which contributes to the proper development of fish. This is about algae, green manure, reeds and shellfish.

The fry are placed in the pond in the summer. The best time for this is at night. When the size of sturgeon becomes average, fish are transferred to the spawning pond. Caviar and fry can be returned to the first pond. In this case, it is necessary to pay attention to the condition of males, because they are often carriers of infections. Experts recommend moving the fish to the pool for the winter so that it does not freeze. It can be returned to the pond only in the middle of spring.

Feeding

When choosing food, there are several important factors to consider:

• Food must sink in water.
• It is important that sturgeon food has an attractive smell.
• Water-resistant food will be required, because the fish does not eat all the food at once. Accordingly, it should not be destroyed under the influence of water within 30-60 minutes.
• Ideally, food will swell and soften slightly in water. Thanks to this, the sturgeon will eat it faster.

For faster development of individuals, high-calorie feed will be required. It should have included:

• 45% protein;
• 25% raw fat;
• 3-5% fiber;
• phosphorus;
• lysine.

The feed should correspond to the size of the sturgeon. Adults are fed 4 times a day, and fry – 5-6 times. The intervals between meals should be the same. If you do not follow such a schedule, then the sturgeon may refuse food.

It can be difficult for a novice businessman to breed fry at home, so they should be purchased only from trusted fish farms. At the same time, it must be remembered that for successful breeding of sturgeon, it is important to follow the feeding schedule, maintain cleanliness in the reservoir, and also regularly sort out fry from older individuals.