Have a nice little clutch of eggs

went down to turn the lights on in the new love nest tank and one of the females was in the males pot. After he kicked her out I checked out the situation and there was a nice little ball of eggs. Not sure how many are in the ball but I do know in the process that 3 got kicked out of the pot. sucked up those 3 in a turkey baster and made an impromtu tumbler. I'll take any advice or criticism on the tumbler as it is my first and was working with what i had on hand. Hopefully the 3 that didn't make it in the ball of eggs got fertilized in the spawning process.

Tank parameters @ time of spawn
temp: 76 degrees F/24-25 degrees C
PH: 7.6+ (we have very hard and high ph water here)
ammonia: 0 ppm
Nitrites: 0 ppm
Weather: we did have a storm front move through just after the spawning so not sure the drop in pressure preceding it induced them into a spawn (but i'll take it)
Cave: terra cotta pots cut in 1/2 and siliconed to a piece of acrylic (i'm sure you all know the setup i'm describing)


DLJ

This is a pic of the now diligent father

[img][/img]

Here is the egg tumbler i threw together

[img][/img]

Here is the contents of the tumbler

[img][/img]

How soon will I see evidence of life in the eggs that are in the tumbler? Asking here and will also check Doug's book to see if it's in there. DLJ

they look fertile to me

congrats on the spawn and good luck with the eggs oh and nice tumbler

I have a bad feeling about what I've seen when I poked a light into the pot where my male is diligently watching over the eggs. It looks as though there is white fungus growing on some of the eggs. Is there anything I can do now or in the future to not have fungus issues? looks as though this clutch of eggs is doomed for disaster. DLJ

Wait & see sometimes it looks like fungus, but it is the little body's forming & you have ALB's so they will look a little ghostly for the first few days,

I do suggest no more spotlighting though or dad will kick the eggs & babies out....

Congrats on your spawn!

Infertile eggs turn completely white so as long as you can see an orangey-yellow egg sac you'll be fine, keep an eye on the ones in the tumbler (nicely made tumbler btw) and make sure they don't start growing fluffy. You can start to see their bodies wrapped around the yolk sac in a couple of days. If the ones in the males cave are going bad, the male should take care of it, but as Chaase said, it can be fooling to the eye. Good luck, I hope everything turns out alright.
What did you make your tumbler out of?

the male took care of the fungus issue, he ate the eggs and went back to the cucumber in the tank. DLJ

bugger, better luck next time.

Make sure you have plenty of movement in the tank - bubbles & filter flow. Fungus grows when there is a) not enough O2 in the water & b)not enough water flow - even with dad helping to keep fresh water over them

Hope this helps

How about the ones in the tumbler?
carol

The eggs in the tumbler got the fungus first that's what made me look in on the male. I'm going to add a massive powerhead to the tank that i have so that I can insure that it is not an insuffient flow issue. I'm sure they will breed again, the male has found his home now and the other female looks just as plump as the one that spawned did. I'll keep up the current feeding regiment and wait for nature to do its thing. It's just a bummer, was wanting the flutter of little fins and my girlfriend was super excited about the prospect of it all.


On another note: someone had asked what I had made the tumbler out of. It was a gravel siphon that I had aquired with a used tank, it wasn't just a straight piece of tube it had some kind of wavy plastic piece on the bottom, i think it's designed to not suck the substrate into the tube, had cleaned it with diluted bleach solution and rinsed it with a liberal amount of water and dechlorinator. threw some of the tank gravel in the bottom to bury the air stone and had the air line going through the cap that normally has the hose attatched to. If you have any other questions about it, i could always snap another pic of it and post it up. DLJ

My tumbler has mesh around it and an air pump is attached to it by an air line. Maybe the siphon is too solid to allow good air flow.

On another note. many times the first spawning does end up this way. Maybe dad didn't fertilize all the eggs.
next time will be a snap
carol