February 15-18, 2009 Washington State Convention Center Seattle ...

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NEW TECHNIQUE FOR ADMINISTRATION OF HUMAN CHORIONIC GONADOTROPIN
– “OVARIAN LAVAGE”
Craig Watson*, Amy Wood, and J. Scott Graves
Tropical Aquaculture Laboratory
University of Florida
1408 24 th Street S.E.
Ruskin, FL 33570 USA
For a number of varying factors, certain species of fish do not respond to standard injection methods for administration of
spawning hormones. Research with two new species of fish, Tetraodon nigriviridis and Mastacembelus erythrotaenia, resulted
in the development of an alternative method for application of Chorulon®, via direct lavage into the ovaries. This presentation
will discuss the issues which led to this development, as well as the dosage and application details.
CAPTIVE REPRODUCTION OF Tetraodon nigriviridis; SERENDIPITY IN AQUACULTURE
Craig Watson, Scott Graves, Kathy Heym, Jeff Hill and Amy Wood
Tropical Aquaculture Laboratory
University of Florida
1408 24 th Street S.E.
Ruskin, FL 33570 USA
cawatson@ufl.edu
Tetraodon nigriviridis, or the Green Spotted Puffer, is a commonly sold aquarium fish collected from rivers and estuaries of
Asia. It was listed as a priority species that would be profitable for Florida farms if production techniques were developed.
Early on in our research, a literature review and internet inquiries led to the discovery that this species also is an extremely
important animal to genomic studies, having the shortest known genome of any invertebrate species. Scientists studying this
species were also limited to wild-collected juveniles and adults, which greatly limited the types of studies which could occur.
Our successful reproduction strategies will shortly make this species available to the hobby, but also promise to lead to new
discoveries as we can now produce embryos. Publications in progress include a detailed discussion of the 4 day embryology
as well. This development will provide an additional, totally unexpected market for Florida farms, providing researchers with
captive bred fish of a known lineage, fertilized embryos of varying age, and potentially transgenic fish.