Each of the female cod will lay as many as 20,000 eggs that will be carefully collected and bred as fingerlings up to about 40 millimetres long over 10 weeks before fisheries staff release them into the wild - if conditions permit.
"The Murray cod are quite clever,they follow you around when it’s feeding time,"Matt McLellan,the centre's hatchery manager,told theHerald during a visit last week."Fish in the larvae stage are at the most risk to predators and fungus - as are most fish in the wild."
Mr McLellan took part in the rescue of the cod when the combination of low flows in the Darling River and extreme heat contributed to the mass die-offs. The largest fish brought to Narrandera was 1.08 metres long.
"We weren't sure how the rest of the summer was going to go,"he said,explaining why the fisheries team chose to deliver the fish to the hatchery rather than just relocating them to parts of the Darling where water remained.
AstheHerald reported on Monday,the government has began relocating thousands of fish this week from the Menindee to the lower Darling ahead of what it expects will be a"fish Armageddon"as the drought intensifies.
"As a government we’re working as fast as we can to prepare for the potential horror summer of fish kills we’re facing,"NSW Agriculture Minister Adam Marshall said.