Bottom Feeding Pond Fish Sterlets | Sterlet Acipenser ruthenus

The Sterlet can be described as a prehistoric fish which dates back to the dinosaurs. Its ancient ancestry is also quite clear when looking at its body form, looking completely alien in a pond when compared to other traditional pond fish.

The Sterlet, a close relative of the Sturgeon, derives from rivers that feed into the Black and Caspian seas and although it is a river fish, the Sterlet acclimatises well to a garden pond existence.

Instead of the usual scales as found on koi and goldfish, Sterlets are covered with armoured bony plates called scutes which are arranged the body in five rows.

The Sterlet also swims like no other fish, flexing the whole length of body into a series of lazy curves, moving in an ungainly, clumsy and waggy fashion. There have even been instances where this weak swimmer has become trapped in blanketweed.

The Sterlet can have difficulty feeding in a pond for a number of reasons. Firstly the Sterlets protruding snout and downward facing mouth only really enable this fish to feed off the bottom, meaning that it is usually necessary to offer sinking pellets. This can lead on to a second problem, and that is one of competition. In a typical garden pond of mixed pond fish the frenzy of activity experienced at feeding time may well result in no food getting down to the Sterlets. They are a carnivorous fish, naturally feeding on crustacea and invertebrates in the water column or on the river bed. It uses a set of four fringed barbels protruding from its mouth to feel, sense and locate food items. It also uses these to locate sinking food pellets.

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