Newbie question about kicking out eggs

Hi everyone:)

I'm new here and loving it.
I have had to do some quick learning about the breeding of BN cause my Commons laid a clutch on Sunday night.
I never planned on breeding them but I had no choice to put them together in the one tank, so I guess it was inevitable.

All seems to be going ok, dad is fanning but he does keep taking off for a couple of minutes at a time and often. I don't know if this is ok or not.

I discovered earlier that he has kicked a small batch of the clutch out and was wondering why they do this?

I can't seem to find any other threads to explain this to me.

Thanks very much for any info given:)

He's only a young male and still learning, my albino longfin male is doing the same thing. Not sure why they boot the eggs (my old male booted eggs first 4 spawns before getting it right) only thing you can do is not disturb him. About the eggs you could always place them in an egg tumbler.

From everything I have read on here, I sort of expected that this first time could be a bit touch and go.

I don't have a egg tumbler and I have been looking at the DIY ones and I can't work out for the life of me exactly how hey work, so I will have to do some more research.

The one good thing though is, the eggs are now being tended to by my Cheery shrimp, so they might still have a chance from what I have read on here.

The 2 BN live in my 3ft Cherry Shrimp breeding tank and were never going to be used to breed but now that it's happened, I'm happy, cause I love seeing nature take it's course like this.
I'm just not sure what I am going to do with all these fry that are going to keep getting born as I have no other tank for my BN to go into where they are safe.

Thank so much for your thoughts, I am just curious why they do this.

If you don't have an egg tumbler then you can use a breeding trap, the type for guppies etc, with an airstone below it. I've used this method in the past and had great success.

There are several reasons why eggs can get kicked, as kfenk has pointed out they may take time to learn the finer points of breeding. Sometimes the surface of the cave can be to smooth for the eggs to attach properly, or it may be slightly to small for thr male and female to be in at the same time and they dislodge some of the eggs. there are theories that the male knows when some eggs are infertile and boots them to stop any risk to the good eggs.

Thanks Jim, I do have a breeding net, so will try this cause he ha snow kicked more out this morning since I first posted.

I do think though the theory of kicking out not fertile eggs could be true cause looking at the eggs that he has kicked out, some are full and opaque looking and most are completely see through and it's obvious there is nothing inside.

Should the air stone just be gentle? Just enough to move fresh water over them or quite hard so it's enough to really move them around?

This male is pretty special to me cause I saved him from certain death about 3 or 4 months ago.
I had him in my turtle tank along with some other catfish type sucker fish and I found him with his entire tail and a bit of his actual body where the tail joins the body missing.
I gather the turtle has got hold of him and chewed it all off.

So this is when I put him in the Cherry Shrimp tank and his it all healed very slowly and his tail has grown back some what. It is about half the length it normally is and it grew straight up instead of sort of flat out (if that makes sense:) so he beat the odds and now he's a dad, which I thought would not happen cause I wasn't sure if his reproductive bits were bitten off (cause I don't know exactly where they are but I know they are down that way) but obviously not, obviously they are still usable and can do the job.

She has laid on the side of the driftwood, just where it meets the substrate sort of thing. He did actually build what you could call a cave just beside this area, he just kept pushing and pushing all the substrate away until it made a hole under the driftwood but she didn't lay in there for some reason. I think it wasn't big enough for the 2 of them, that's why she laid just outside of it.
What is interesting now is, after she laid, the hole somehow got filled back in a far bit but now when he leaves his eggs, he is going into that bit again and digging it out again and has just since last night, made his cave again.
Would I do damage if (after these eggs have hatched and after he has kicked them away and they are on their own) if I was to help him a bit and dig some more of the substrate out for him and make it deeper and bigger?
Would he get upset if I was to interfere with his cave making?

Because I never planned on breeding them, I didn't have any caves in there as such but I have now added some, hoping next time they will use one of them.

I've always used a gentle flow, basically your recreating the fanning motion used by the male that keeps the eggs clean and oxygenated.

I' would just leave the male to create his own cave, unless he starts to unstabalize the piece of driftwood, but now you have added some hopefuly he will start using one of them.

Good luck with the eggs

Hi congrats on the spawn.

I noticed you said you were going to used a net trap fry saver for the eggs. PLEASE DONT

I have made this mistake before and not sure if others have but the bn babies get their fins stuck and tangle in the netting. I lost a whole spawn from this wwhen i first started out and it is gutting to see loads of trapped little babies.

I either use a plastic one with airstone or put it under the outlet of my external

hope this helps you

good luck

Well as luck would have it, when I went to get my net out, it was not there, so goodness knows where it is, so I can't use it even if I wanted to.

I did think about maybe using a stocking instead (to replace the netting) but didn't have any of them either, so I have done nothing so far.

I think I will let nature take it's course with this first spawn.

Dad has now kicked out about half of the eggs but I noticed today/tonight he has not left the clutch at all, he has finally decided to stay and fan all the time now.
Maybe he is now happy that he has got rid of unfertilized eggs or something like that and feels he can now spend the time he should on the good eggs:)

I am a bit confused about when I should see wrigglers though, I have read 4 days right through to 10 days and everything in between.

These eggs were laid sometime Sunday night/Monday morning, on average when should I expect to see some wrigglers??

Mine usually hatch after 4 days and sometimes 5, but i suppose it depends. I think i read somewhere that temp can effect the time it takes for them to hatch, but im not 100% on that.

danp99 is quite correct I should have stated to use one of the rigid ones and not the net type

The eggs will normally hatch in 4-5 days but it could be upto another two weeks untill the male lets them out, it all depends on individual males.

So I should see some wrigglers maybe tomorrow then, that great:)

There's no sign of any today as yet but I can definitely see which eggs have been fertilised.

Can I also ask, is it normal for the mum to come along and eat the eggs that have been knocked out?

My hubby and I were sitting looking at the tank this morning and I noticed another small clump of eggs that he had knocked out (maybe around 10 eggs), I was telling hubby how I can't use the net etc etc to save them but I might try a stocking etc etc and all of a sudden the mum swims from the end of the tank straight over to the eggs and puts her mouth straight over them and starts sucking.
I was in shock and I couldn't believe my eyes and I said to hubby "surely she knows they are her eggs and she is not going to eat them? How on earth did she know to swim from all the way over there straight onto the eggs?"....then right before our eyes, she munched them down and they were all gone!!!!

I have not read anywhere in all the info I have read that she would/could do this and it shocked me but it might explain that when I went to find all the other eggs he had kicked out, they were no where to be found.....cause she had obviously eaten them!!!

Does this happen often???

Dad has not left the clutch of eggs at all since yesterday and he has not stopped fanning them at all, so it looks like he might finally be taking good care of them?

Thanks so much guys for all your help, I really appreciate it as a newbie to all this. I have been doing so much reading it's not funny.

Mums maternal instincts normally finish once she has laid the eggs.

After they have hatched it will be another 3-4 days before they use up their eggs sacs, at first they look like an egg with a tail but they grow quickly and will always need to have food available.

It's 4am here in Australia (in Brisbane where I am) and last night at 9pm just before I went to bed, I checked on my up ciming babies to find ONE wriggler.

Woohoo!!!! It is soooooo cute

Dad decided late arvo to not sit on the eggs and fan anymore and went about an inch away into into re-made cave and just sit at the edge and fan (maybe he was fanning the eggs from afar).
When I noticed the wriggler (am hoping to find some more shortly when I go and check) he was wriggling away from the other eggs and was way up the driftwood about 1/2 ft away from dad in the opposite direction and dad didn't seem to notice.

So I don't know if he will keep them under his care or not or if he is just not up to all this fatherhood stuff yet cause it's his first lot of eggs.

From what I have read though, out of the ones that do hatch ok, I have hope that they will survive and I will make sure they have correct food etc.

Another thing I noticed and I was hoping someone could explain it cause again, I can't seem to find any info is....

When I did my checks during the day, out of the clutch of eggs that are left (maybe half of original clutch size), earlier they were pretty much all a opaque yellow colour and I could see where I think the tail was and maybe even some eyes but amongst this was the few odd empty eggs that were totally see through and just looked like a shell.
But when I did my before bed check, there was a patch of eggs that had gone from being the opaque yellow to being see through empty eggs, it was all on one side of the clutch and did not look like this earlier.
So how has this happened?
Is it that when they hatch, they do actually leave a empty looking full egg shell behind or something else?
I just don't understand how they can change like this unless it's just the shell left behind and I have more wrigglers running around somewhere that I can't see.

I scared my hubby last night when I found my first wriggler....I was so excited to see it that I yelled out to him to hurry up and come see and he said I scared the daylights out of him.
I'm so stoked watching all this unfold before my eyes, I just love nature like this:)

You are correct with the empty looking shell. some of mine leave these behind and they just vanish? not sure if they dissolve or are eaten but they are there just after the babies hatch

Congratulations

By the sound of it there will be more, going on the description of the cave most will escape dads attention quite early. In a cave where he can nearly block the only exit he will be able to keep them in a lot longer.

Well! I have had a very exciting time in the last hour or so.

After my last post I went in to check on how things were going to find heaps of eggs had hatched out and many wrigglers everywhere. There are now only 7 eggs left in the original clutch and most of the wrigglers have gone goodness knows where but there is only 4 hanging around egg site.

Then I found a clump of eggs he had knocked off again that has 8 eggs in it and I could see all the eyes and tails, so I quickly got the fry saver in there with a stocking on it instead of the net and scooped them up and put them in there.
No word of a lie, not one minute after doing this, I was looking at them all and a egg wriggled and pop! out came a baby, then about 30 seconds later, another one came out....I couldn't believe it, I was so shocked to witness this and it was soooooo cool
I also managed to save one single little egg that i found attached to a pile of empty shells as well, so I have 7 eggs in net and 2 fry in total now, so hopefully these guys will all survive ok.

So going by how many eggs shells are in the original pile, there must be heaps of fry in the tank somewhere, every now and then I get a glimpse of one or 2 but cause they are in with the shrimp, they can be hard to spot due to the white substrate.

I have not seen dad go back to fan any of the remainder eggs all morning and he has dug his cave even bigger now and is in there while his babies are hatching and swimming away but they all seem ok and that's all I can hope for.

This is been an awesome morning watching all this unfold and I'm now hoping to go back in and find the remainder eggs all hatched out if I'm lucky.

Can I just confirm....... I do NOT need to feed the fry until they have used up all their egg sacks right??
And this can take up to approx 14 days??

Of course I still have to feed the shrimp and adult BN but if the fry decide to eat any, will this cause them harm while they still have their egg sacks??

It's an amazing experience when you actually see them hatching.

The fry will start eating around the time the egg sacs have completely vanished, which is normally less than a week. By that time they will look like little miniatures of the parents

Feeding your shrimps and Bn's will not be a problem while they still have the egg sacs, once they start feeding they are capable of eating anything the parents eat. Give them enough veg to last a day, any uneaten can be removed the next day and replaced with fresh.

Daily 10% water changes will also help keep the water fresh.

Congrats mate, sounds like you had a good morning

You don't need to worry bout feeding the wrigglers yet. Maybe just under couple wks you'll see the little mini bn around the tank. If the egg sack is all gone then you should start putting food in there for em

Thanks soooooo much for that confirmation guys, it helps ease the nerves that I'm doing the right thing

Well I went in after last post and checked again on how things were going to find ALL the eggs gone from the side of the driftwood

So I did a hunt and found the last 4 eggs (stuck in amongst empty shells) plus another single egg, scooped them all up and put them in the net too and one more has hatched.

I can't see any of the ones that hatched out in the tank at all, I think they might all be hiding under the spaces under the driftwood and it's nooks.

Oh well, hopefully I will just wake up one day next week and see a tank with heaps of baby BN swimming around everywhere.

With the eggs in the net, how long should I leave them in there before I admit defeat and say they are not going to hatch? Just in case some don't, I don't want to rot the net out or tank out.
Even though I can see the fry in every egg, I don't know if this still guarantees hatching or if they can still die.

Did I mention that you guys seriously rock for all the help you have given me, they would not all have survived if it wasn't for all your help, so another big thanks to you all:)

Ok, mummy BN s being naughty

There are 6 hatched out now in the net and (4 new fry) 3 eggs left to hatch.

I keep finding the mum on the bottom of the net sucking right under the clump of eggs...Grrrrrr.

After watching her do her cannibal thing yesterday, I'm really scared she will suck so hard she will destroy these last 3 eggs. I know it's only 3 eggs but they deserve a chance:)

I can't remove her into another tank because there really isn't any other tank for her to go where she will not get eaten.

I just keep shoving her off (gently) every time I catch her on there.

Still no signs of any of the fry that are in the actual tank, they must hide themselves well.

First off, congrats on the first spawn, and a special congrats for the ones you saved.

Give it a little while longer, the babies should be instinctively hiding until they grow a bit bigger. I'd keep an eye on the mum though. I hope she doesn't cause too much trouble :P

Keep up the amazing work! We'd love to see some pics once the wrigglers show themselves

Thanks Silvashadow

I could not keep mum off the net, so I decided to let them all go once they had hatched so they could go and hide where ever the others are hiding.
I watched all 7 swim away and mum didn't go near them.

So far since my last post, I have not seen one wriggler. I think they have all gone round the back of the driftwood where I can't see this area and are hiding there.

I'm anxious to just see one at least, just to know that they are still alive but I suppose if they are all doing ok, I will see them out and about in the next week hopefully.

I'm about to another small water change now, so you never know, I might get lucky and see some.

Once they are out and about, I will post some pics. I have a pic of the egg when daddy was off them at one stage, so I will post them altogether.

I got my wish:)

I just did the water change and had to put some live plants back together that were floating and I decided to move the driftwood to a better position, so if they spawn again on the side of the driftwood, I can pretty much see it from all sides now.

But best of all, I found ONE baby!!!!!!
Before I even started I grabbed the torch and had a quick look just under the edge of the driftwood and there he was, happily sucking away:)

He has a tiny bit of the yellow egg sack left but is pretty much a mini version of mum and dad now.

Wow! I can't believe how quick they grow!! It was only Friday that they hatched out and now they are like this.

I'm just hoping that as they get bigger that more come out of hiding, I would hate to think that I only have one out of all the ones that hatched.

Well it's nearly been a week since they all hatched out (on Friday it will be a week) and as I said in previous post, I found only one baby.

Up until this morning.......I now have 2 babies!!!!

I went out to check on things this morning and there right beside the original baby number 1 is a sibling:)

I had to move the driftwood yesterday when I did a water change and I very gently lifted it up and while I was there I had a look under it to see if there were any babies but I couldn't see any at all. So goodness knows where this 2nd baby has been hiding but it now gives me hope that there might be more yet. I hope so, cause I hate the thought that out of all those eggs that I saw that were cracked open and obviously they had hatched from, that there could only be 2 live ones:(

Mum and dad have already started playing their chasing games again and spending a lot more time closer together and dad has already dug out his cave again in the same spot he dug the last one which is right next to where she laid, so maybe they might do it again in the same spot (if I'm lucky)

Can I ask a question that I can't seem to find the exact answer for?
OK, from what I keep reading, this breeding thing all seems to depend on when the male is ready to breed and then I read that they can breed every 4 weeks approx, so my question is, is the 4 weeks from when she first lays the eggs or when they hatch? Even though I know this is a short time between both these events but the reason I'm curious is, I noticed the female getting fatter about 2 weeks before she laid and it wasn't until the night before that she looked like she was going to explode and I thought she had bloat:) Silly me didn't even think about them breeding...Der!
So something must get set off in both of them weeks before she actually lays, cause she wouldn't produce eggs unless she knew he was going to fertilize them, or does she????

So am I looking at 4 weeks from the babies hatching out or 4 weeks from when she first laid or 4 weeks from when she started producing eggs which was 2 weeks approx (from what I noticed) before she laid her eggs.
Sorry if that all sounds confusing

I have tried to get pics but my crappy camera just can't do micro pics very well:(

It's approx 4 weeks after she has layed. Generally takes about that long for her produce all her eggs. Then it's up to the male if he's ready or not. She'll keep trying to get into his cave but he won't let her in unless he's ready. I'm not sure if the female will lay the eggs in the same spot or in the cave he dug. That just comes down to what happens during they're next spawning. Good luck tho