Arcadia Native Fish Hatchery

Recently over 30 members of local angling clubs, from Kyabram, Undera, Euroa, Tatong, Rochester and Nathalia together with senior VFA and VRFish members participated in an outing to Greens Lake, Waranga Basin and the Arcadia Native Fish Hatchery organised by the Victorian Fisheries Authority (VFA) fisheries manager Michelle Wenner. 

13 large Golden Perch were taken from Greens Lake and released into Waranga Basin at the new boat launching facility at Harriman’s Point as part of the Greens lake salvage operation, BBQ lunch and a very informative visit of the new fish hatchery in Arcadia was undertaken providing an excellent insight into this modern facility. 

Anthony Forster gave a tour of the hatchery starting with the Brood Ponds where female cod lay their eggs into fine mesh structures, taken, checked and the fish larvae transferred into Zooplankton ponds, where it will take only one week for the larvae to grow into fingerlings 4-5cm. The zooplankton ponds with a bed of grass are filled with water towards the end of September, sprayed with fertiliser and within a short time turn green with algae, the microscopic animals (zooplankton) drift around eating the algae turning the water into a brown soup, fish larvae is then placed into the ponds and swim around eating the zooplankton, once ready the fingerlings are then transferred via underground pipes into blue tubs in an area below ground level, and distributed into our waterways 

Fish Ecologist, Ryan gave a demonstration of how to determine the sex of a Cod, insert a Tag (microchip) and take a DNA sample. 

The entire process from collecting the eggs to getting the fingerlings ready for release does not require any nets or handling procedures that could harm the fish.