Ram Eggs/Hatching!

Cathy G

Cathy G

Bolivians Rock
Jan 15, 2006
720
0
16
Wisconsin USA
www.cathygeier.com
Well, looks like I have fertile fishies!! (It has taken a while to get some...)
The eggs were laid on Friday night, and are hatching as we speak (Monday am).
My dopey fish laid them on gravel, I scooped them up with a spoon, and deposited them in a 2.5 gallon tank in RO with RO Right for the salts, etc.

I had been adding 2ml of Hydrogen Peroxide twice a day. The temp is 80 - 81. I plopped in a large hunk of willow moss this morning and am watching them hatch.

My question, there are some fungused eggs. Some have smallish plumes attached, the large plumes I pulled out of the tank. Side by side with fungused eggs are hatching ones. Will this fungus damage my fry? I know they can't swim right now, and are wriggling around, is this cause they are trying to get away from the fungus? Or are they just happy to be alive? :clap:

Any advice would be appreciated, it has taken me 3 months now to get some ram fry! Geesh I'd hate to lose them now.

Cathy
 
Cathy G said:
Well, looks like I have fertile fishies!! (It has taken a while to get some...)
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Congratulations! I have 2 batches working right now. The first spawn hatched yesterday and they're currently at wriggler stage. The second spawn should hatch tonight or tomorrow morning.

Cathy G said:
My question, there are some fungused eggs. Some have smallish plumes attached, the large plumes I pulled out of the tank. Side by side with fungused eggs are hatching ones. Will this fungus damage my fry? I know they can't swim right now, and are wriggling around, is this cause they are trying to get away from the fungus? Or are they just happy to be alive? :clap:
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I don't know. I always let the parents take care of the eggs themselves (I have 3 pairs that are each in their own 29g, 29g and 40g tanks respectively). Since the eggs are taken care of by the parents they take care of any fungased eggs. I'd say that eggs with fungas on them are no longer a threat to hatched eggs. Also newly hatched eggs naturally "wiggle". Hey, that's why they're called wigglers at that stage.

May I ask why you took the eggs away from the parents?
 
My female has a history of eating her eggs. I bought the new male only a couple of weeks ago - took a terrible chance not QT'ing him properly because my female was ready to go and her mate had died a few weeks before... they are in a 10g with 2 ottos.

The male who died was not fertile. All of the eggs would be eaten, none would darken/change color before that happened. I wanted to see if I had a working couple so I pulled a bunch of the eggs. I did leave some for them and will leave their next batch completely alone.

It was also suggested to pull the female and let the male take care of the eggs. I might do this next time, but I didn't have a safe place to put her this time -

How do you deal with the kind of mess left on the tank floor after they hatch? Just leave it until they are free swimming and strong enough to deal with a little clean-up turbulence? I have bits of debris, unhatched eggs and some gravel. Is this ok?

Thanks for writing and if you have any other tips, please please share them with me as this is my first sucessful spawn! (Or maybe it can only be called successful if the babies survive?!)

Cathy
 
Cathy G said:
My female has a history of eating her eggs.
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I've read/heard that setting up a "night light" helps keep fish from eating their eggs. Maybe they are more likely to get spooked and eat their eggs in complete darkness. I've never had a problem with eggs being eaten, but I always have a 65watt compact flourescent light going in my fish room for my brine shrimp hatcheries.

Cathy G said:
The male who died was not fertile. All of the eggs would be eaten, none would darken/change color before that happened. I wanted to see if I had a working couple so I pulled a bunch of the eggs. I did leave some for them and will leave their next batch completely alone.
Click to expand...
If you are successful in artificially rearing your current batch of eggs then you should definately leave the next spawn to the parents (maybe with a night light). There's nothing more endearing than watching cichlid parents take care of their brood.

Cathy G said:
It was also suggested to pull the female and let the male take care of the eggs. I might do this next time, but I didn't have a safe place to put her this time -
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Hrm. There may be something to that. I've noticed that, in my pairs, the male takes care of the eggs way more than the female (I'd say a 75-25 split).

Cathy G said:
How do you deal with the kind of mess left on the tank floor after they hatch? Just leave it until they are free swimming and strong enough to deal with a little clean-up turbulence? I have bits of debris, unhatched eggs and some gravel. Is this ok?
Click to expand...
I have no real experience in cleaning the mess after hatching. I'd say that you have the right idea to wait until they're a little older before siphoning up the mess. The willow moss that you've added to your tank should definately help adsorb any decomp that comes from the egg shells.
 
Cathy G said:
The male who died was not fertile. All of the eggs would be eaten, none would darken/change color before that happened. I wanted to see if I had a working couple so I pulled a bunch of the eggs. I did leave some for them and will leave their next batch completely alone.
Click to expand...
So they are supposed to darken if they are fertilized? Mine did this right before being eaten...I thought maybe it was a sign of a dead egg or something but maybe my rams just like to eat them. This gives me hope that the male I have is fertile.
 
IndianaSam said:
I've read/heard that setting up a "night light" helps keep fish from eating their eggs. Maybe they are more likely to get spooked and eat their eggs in complete darkness. I've never had a problem with eggs being eaten, but I always have a 65watt compact flourescent light going in my fish room for my brine shrimp hatcheries.
Click to expand...
Two out of the three times I've noticed the eggs to be there in the morning but not by the afternoon (lights on). I'm not sure either of my females will raise eggs up very well. Then again I don't know if the male or the female is the culprit...the eggs are gone so fast.
 
Yeh, the female eats them. My old male ate them too... I'd watch them!
The otos were fairly well chased off this spawn and whenever I'd get up in the night to check on them, both male and female were over the nest - sleeping.

I have left lights on in previous spawns, but to no avail.
There are a few things different however this time, I brought my gh way down - it is 4 now. I used almost straight RO with Kent's RO Right for electolytes/salts. I also had to add 1/8 teasp baking soda as I have co2 running in this tank and don't want the pH to crash.

It could be that my last male was fertile, but that my water was too hard and the eggs wouldn't develope. I believe my gh in that tank was 7-10 at that time. If the eggs were not developing properly, that might be why they got eaten.

In this spawn, I left a few eggs, they were eaten. However, it must have been traumatic when I scooped into their nest and took some so I am not holding it against them.

Now that I know the water which works for eggs, and that I have a fertile couple, I am going to try to let them learn to take care of their brood. At least for a while - hopefully I'll have my hands full with this one in the upcoming weeks/months.

Cathy
 
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