One of the necessities of aquaculture development is to increase attractiveness for investment in this sector by introducing high value added products such as sturgeons. Unfortunately, despite efforts made by Iranian Fisheries Organization and International Sturgeon Research Institute during recent years, natural stocks of Iran’s sturgeons have been declined and there is a dramatic reduction in landing values and natural caviar production. Therefore, rearing of sturgeons and production of cultured caviar have become highly important nowadays. The main problems in this regard are long culture period and high nutritional costs of most sturgeons from family Acipenseridae which made it impossible for many of fish farmers to invest in this sector. Despite this, there is another family of sturgeons called Polyodontidae which has high potential for aquaculture due to its short culture period and high growth rate (reaching 2-3 kg during 1-2 years) and feeding on zooplanktons. The proper temperature ranges for propagation and rearing of this fish are 13-16 °C and 16-18 °C, respectively. Puberty age is up to 14 in wild and up to 8 in captivity. Proper initial weight and stoking density for grow-out in erthern ponds are 150 g and 25000 per ha, respectively and final yield is almost 3 tons per ha without dry feed. According to planktivory feeding regime of this fish, water fertilization is indispensable. Also, the qualities of meat and caviar of this fish compete with those of Acipenseridae's and is very similar to sevruga. The only problem in the context of is that these fish are exotic and there are no natural stocks in Iran. According to previous experiences in importing brooders of exotic species such as sterlet, Siberian sturgeon and Chinese carps, that is not going to be impossible to introduce paddlefish to aquaculture sector of Iran. Hence, the present paper has reviewed methods for propagation, rearing and caviar processing of paddlefish.
