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babysteps

babysteps

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Feb 15, 2009
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So my male BN has a bad habit of kicking the eggs out of his cave before they hatch. Hopefully one day he will get it right, but this is now the third time he has done it. It's also the first time I've noticed it soon enough to actually be able to save some of the eggs. I quickly set up a holding tank on Saturday and transfered the 20 eggs that I could find, that were fertile and not fungased, from the main tank. (note: I REALLY need to get an egg tumbler!) I added an air stone and a heater and by Sunday morning, all 20 had hatched :)
So far I've only lost 1, so I'm down to 19. I'm sure I will lose more, but I'm hoping to have at least a few healthy survivors.
Here's a couple pics. My DSLR camera is on loan to someone else so I only had my point & shoot available, so I apologize for the crappy quality.


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This will be the grow-out tank they will be transfered to once they are free swimming. Luckily everything in the tank, filter & media included, came from my other tanks, so it's an instant cycle :)

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An egg tumbler won't help with fertilizing the eggs. Snails (mts or ramshorns) are actually beneficial for eating infertile/fungused eggs IME.
 
toddnbecka said:
An egg tumbler won't help with fertilizing the eggs. Snails (mts or ramshorns) are actually beneficial for eating infertile/fungused eggs IME.
Click to expand...

Don't want the tumbler to fertilize (not possible) the eggs, but instead to keep them moving to reduce the chance of fungus. I'm not a fan of snails and don't have any in my tanks, so that option is out. But that is interesting. I always thought snails would eat the all eggs, whether fungused or not. Still doesn't make me like them though lol
 
I have snails, can't get rid of them w/out taking drastic action, so I just thin them out occaisonally. I had a clutch of BN eggs a while back that the male abandoned (my fault, disturbed him too much cleaning the tank, then aimed a powerhead too close to his "cave" to finish clearing the debris from the water.) I hoped he'd go back to tend them, but the whole cluster of eggs fell out of the cave. I dropped them into a net breeder and moved it close to an airstone to keep the water moving around them. The infertile eggs didn't appear to contaminate the live ones, and the couple snails that made it into the net cleaned them up. All the fertile eggs hatched, and the fry are now a hair over 1". I did lose at least one soon after they hatched, but ended up with several dozen.
 
Congrats on the fry!
 
Congrats on the hatch! I think as long as you have the holding tank or a net breeder and an airline/stone, no tumbler required. You just need to keep some water circulating around them. The infertile ones take just as long to show complete infertility as the fertile ones take to hatch so the fry are hatched before the infertile eggs can do any harm to them. Nature's way of taking care of them! It is quite different to have a pleco spawn vs. another type of individual egglayer spawn. The pleco spawn is held together as a mass and it is quite difficult to actually get the eggs apart from each other without damage. They dont just easily pull away. So with the egg mass all tightly connected, nature has ensured that the unfertilized eggs deteriorate very slowly to match the timetable of the fertile eggs moving away from the remaining unfertile egg clutch. Not sure if I explained that quite well enough. Compare that to something like cory eggs....infertile cory eggs fungus up completely and deteriorate at least a day, maybe 2 before the fertile cory eggs hatch...therefore much danger is present to the fertilized eggs that are positioned anywhere near the unfertilized eggs.
 
update

Lost 2 more today, but I noticed they were weak right from the beginning so it was expected. There is still 1 more in there that looks pretty weak as well so I will probably lose him at some point too. As of right now, I have 16 alive still.

Couple new pics from a few minutes ago. They still have their egg sacs, but are starting to get their colors. I can also see their fins developing which is very cute!

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