perserving fish skeletons

[small bites]

I am trying to figure out how to preserve a fish skeleton. I've been advised to filet the fish and then steam the remainders. But anytime I've ever steamed a fish, it falls apart. I'm talking about the whole fish bones. Any thoughts on that? Have a guy here that collects the ear "stones" and that's where I'm getting my info. Anyway, my go to plan is "let the ants do their job". Hope this isnt out of line.

[kenny]

The cartilage that holds the bones together would need to dry/harden somehow, which may make the bones loose and come apart.

[rtoler]

I put a filleted fish on an ant mound once. After a week or two the only thing left was bones

[small bites]

That was what I thought. I guess leaving the remains on some kind of hard platform would keep the remainders at least in place.
So "glueing" it onto each bone wouldnt be that hard?

[Milkjug]

One of my gifts when courting my now-wife was a flounder vertabrae brush. The long tines coming off the spine make for an excellent hair care product. It always had a bit of odor to it and turned off color. This was the basic "cook it, scrape meat off, dry" method. Have not seen the thing in a while but hey I got the girl.

A few problems arise if you wanna do it right. You are basically looking at one of the hardest 3-D puzzles you can do. Lots of "floating" bones with nothing holding them in place. Lots of the pieces are thin and will warp as they dry. They will dry to an off yellow, not too good looking.

The ants will leave quite a bit of stuff behind and it will stink and look kind of bad. Dermastid beetles are the best way, but not too many folks have colonies, and you have to take it out early as they would start to eat the soft fish bones too.

Steaming is actually not too bad. You can't steam it completely like you were gonna eat it. Just enough to firm the meat some, then you get to scraping. Get some small nails and pins to get in all the crevices.

Buy some acetone and soak it after you get all the meat you can off. It will dissolve the fats and reduce stink/yellowing. Change the solution regularly as you go.

If the bones have long thin tines (think flounder), you should fix them in place as they dry or they will warp. If they do warp, you can do a water soak, then re-fix and dry again.

If you desire a nice looking white product, get some strong hair peroxide (not the weak wound care stuff) from a barber shop and treat it with it. Look up euro mount instructions for more details on that.

Now that that is all done, you should have a bunch of nice looking fish bones. Hope you remembered where they went. Taking pics as you go can help if it is a complicated one. Luckily many of us are pretty familiar with the bone structure of our prey and you might not need to. Put them together. Hot glue gun does a pretty good job, dries clear, and is reversible if you screw up. Floating bones like the ones holding the pectoral, dorsal, ventral, and anal fins are going to be a challenge. You can use some clear plastic like a cut up food jar to help hold them, or attach them to a nearby stronger bone if it is close enough.

Depending on if you want to display or not, you might want to elevate the mount on a small dowel. The rib bones on the bottom are fragile and can't support the weight of the mount standing in the upright position.

Good luck. I am sure you are gonna just throw it on an ant pile after I scared you with all that talk about work.