AtlanticTarpon_SpawnandRear_Holt_Joan_PortAransasTX_21June2023_Reel4156.mp3

Joan Holt [00:00:00] Well, I've certainly spawned and reared a whole large variety of fish.

Joan Holt [00:00:07] The redfish is the biggest one that we have worked with, and they're sexually mature at 30 inches or so, couple of feet, two and a half feet. And that's a big fish to put in a tank, a big fish. And it's just really fun to see these big redfish swimming around in a circle in the tank.

Joan Holt [00:00:28] The problem with tarpon is that they're extra large, so working with tarpon would mean working with very, very large fish. They're four, four and a half feet for spawning fish. So that's an amazing thing to begin with.

Joan Holt [00:00:49] The second, I think, issue that I see is the leptocephalus larva. And that's a very difficult stage. The leptocephalus is a flat clear larva that's feeding on we don't know exactly what, but maybe particulate organic carbon. Where do you get that and how do you produce it? I don't know.

Joan Holt [00:01:11] But the leptocephalus larva lasts for 20 to 30 days, and so they have to have absolutely ideal conditions. And the food, it would have to be determined. I think that would be very, very difficult.

Joan Holt [00:01:25] So those two issues would certainly make it difficult to close the life history on the fish. That is, take a spawning fish, have it spawn and raise it up to a juvenile stage, or an adult stage, which we can do with redfish, trout.

Joan Holt [00:01:43] And the state hatcheries here in Corpus and in other areas of Texas have done that. They've spawned the redfish and the trout and flounder and are now putting them out into the bays in various numbers. Some are more and some are less - redfish, a lot, trout, somewhat, and flounder is more difficult, but they are doing that as well.

Joan Holt [00:02:08] But whether you could do that with Atlantic tarpon, I think it would be really, really hard because of the larval stage, which is quite difficult and the large spawning size of the fish.

Joan Holt [00:02:20] I have heard of some success with leptocephalus larvae from eels that had been reared. So, there may be some information that would help with that, but very, very particular environmental requirements for that stage.

Joan Holt [00:02:39] Some people have brought in larvae and grown them up and looked at them, to a certain stage, just to look at development and understand that. So there's been a little of that.

Joan Holt [00:02:50] But I think captive breeding would be a real challenge and require a gigantic facility with very good control over the temperature and the salinity and quality of water.

Joan Holt [00:03:04] So I'm not ready to try it even though I have a lot of experience.

Joan Holt [00:03:09] But the more important would be to make sure that the juveniles have a good place, a good lagoon system, estuarine system, to grow up in, and that the adults survive, and long enough to spawn, in nature. And that would be much, much better.