| Summary: | Since first large-scale attempts to culture sturgeon from the larval stage were carried out in the former U.S.S.R. at the end of the nineteenth century, rearing technology has advanced considerably during the last 20 years and noticeable improvements in incubation and larval rearing techniques have been implemented in normal hatchery procedures. Siberian sturgeon eggs are incubated in MacDonald jars at 13-14_ C to prevent fungal infections. Mass hatching takes place 7 days after fertilization and hatching rate can be predicted as a function of the percentage of eggs fertilized. Survival at the end of the endogenous feeding stage is correlated with hatching rate. Egg size has no direct implications for larval growth and survival of Siberian sturgeon. Experimental studies have demonstrated that behavioural observations are useful criteria to assess the quality of larvae and to synchronize the physiological state of fish with the appropriate rearing procedures. Special attention should be given to the transition to exogenous feeding, where cannibalism, diculties in adaptation to a new diet, overfeeding and resulting bacterial infections dramatically reduces survival to the fingerling stage. Although a commercial artificial diet specifically formulated for larvae of Siberian sturgeon and other acipenserids is still lacking, commercial non-purified rainbow trout diets and starter marine fish diets are currently used and their results are reasonably acceptable in terms of larval growth and survival. Further research must be focused on the determination of egg quality indicators in order to provide the producer with the tools to estimate the viability and performance of the progeny.
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