Cryogenic freezing of Killie eggs for species preservation

["Bill Wallace" <bwallace at mitra_com>]

Has anyone tried cryogenic freezing of killie eggs?  Is there any data on hatch rates after freezing, and/or methodology?  It seems like it would be a good way to preserve the purity and availability of certain species.  If we could get a biology student willing to do a Masters or PhD on it, and perhaps get longer term government funding to run a program, then we would be able to preserve a great many more species (including non-killi fish).  After the initial research was done, it would likely be possible to have continuous work done both by volunteers using established guidelines, as well as in a University setting as part of an icthyology course or as part of a Master's work in biology to add new species and confirm hatch rates etc for them.  I'm guessing that it would have to be phrased somewhat differently to get funding, but I'm fairly certain it would be possible to get reasonable amounts of money for this.

It might also be possible to flash freeze fry and have them live when they are thawed as long as the fry are sufficiently small.  I know that insects can often be frozen and still live, but I don't know what the issues would be with fry.  Some fishes naturally contain various types of anti-freeze, which might be a way to help the process.

Bill
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