Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Types of fish to choose Triploid bluegills

Has anyone heard of the availablility of triploid bluegills? Someone mentioned this to me yesterday but I don't recall seeing it discussed on this board.

MSU was researching triploid bgill at one time. You might check with the fisheries dept at MSU to ask of their experiences. Cecil has contact with someone at (I think) Malone's Fish Hatchery (AK) who is experimenting with this. Cecil will probably comment here.

Bobby Glennon is the biologist from Malones that was doing some work with triploidy, (Molones are the same hatchery that pioneered triploid grass carp) ,but last I heard it wasn't easy and he still had some bugs to work out.

I pretty much gave up on the prospect of finding anyone developing them, as I contacted several key professors (including one at MSU) and they knew of no one that was experimenting with them in the private sector.

I plan on playing around with male only pellet trained bluegills in a small pond to produce large fish, which Bill Cody does and sparked my interest.

One of the problems is the unpredictability of Bluegill spawns. Because Bluegill are intermittent spawners, their eggs are at multiple levels of developement in the ovaries. Also, at 78F the eggs hatch only 30 hours after they are fertilized, which gives you a very narrow time frame for pressure shocking, or other triploidy methods. We have been unsuccessful with hormone injections to synchronize spawns, so we have to rely on natural spawning, which is sporadic with Bluegill. We can trigger a spawn by manipulating water temperature, light, and spawning medium, but we can't make them spawn on any given day, or week!

There are inherent difficulties with Bluegill biology that are preventing Triploid production on any large scale, as far as I know. I'd love to hear other input on this.