I am a baby snatcher

Chelsey · #1 11-20-2009, 03:28 PM

I stole more eggs from the LFS display tank today. As best I can tell these eggs are 2-3 days old, which means they'll hatch between Wednesday and Friday of next week...perhaps not the best planning on my part but hopefully they'll hatch Tuesday night

At any rate, it's good practice and they would've been eaten anyway

This time I have a better method of artificial incubation and if nothing else it will be good AI practice for the next time I have a nest of my own (I've decided that I'm pulling the next nest so that it doesn't get eaten). I have been doing some reading on MOFIB and the "new" method for artificially incubating eggs is to keep them in a funnel with an airline coming up through the base for agitation and to keep the eggs in suspension. The majority of people use glass funnels so that they can see the eggs but those usually have to be ordered online somewhere. The LFS has eggs NOW so I had to be creative. My solution: a plastic champagne glass from Walmart. I cut the stem off and drilled a hole up through the bottom to insert the airline

This contraption will be inserted into a piece of foam and will float in my broodstock system so that the water temperature can be easily maintained. Water will be changed daily to account for evaporation and to decrease water fouling/egg fungus. We'll see how this works. I have probably 200 eggs to attempt to hatch out...pics of eggs and contraption will follow shortly

Eggs...I think they're 2 days old:

Artificial Incubator:

It's floating in the broodstock system so that the temperature can be regulated. It also makes WC in the incubator easier because the new water is right there.

scbadiver · #2 11-20-2009, 04:51 PM

You are an ingenious little rascal Chelsey. Good luck with it. For all your work you really deserve a healthy batch soon!

Chelsey · #3 11-20-2009, 06:29 PM

Haha, thanks Robbie

I don't know that I've been called an "ingenious little rascal" before

I think I deserve a healthy batch soon too, but it's probably because I'm impatient!!!

Chelsey · #4 11-21-2009, 01:17 PM

Just did my first water change on the incubator and using a pipette I sucked out the bad eggs...there were probably about 20 or so. It's to be expected, especially since I don't have any methylene blue to add to the water. The eggs that are still viable are continuing to develop though, I probably have 150-200 left to work with

We'll see when they hatch, I'm REALLY hoping it's Tuesday but I have my doubts.

Chelsey · #5 11-21-2009, 08:40 PM

Second water change has just been completed. I only pulled 3 bad eggs and one rupture. Here's one of the bad eggs:

Chelsey · #6 11-22-2009, 02:14 PM

Did a third water change earlier today. I had the bubbling up too high, several of the egg membranes ruptured resulting in losses

Here are the pics of the premature larvae that will not make it:

After counting them I believe I have somewhere around 140 eggs!

Chelsey · #7 11-23-2009, 12:23 AM

Just finished with the second water change of the day...not so many losses now that I turned the bubble rate down. There are an awful lot of eggs that have tails sticking out of the egg membrane, so I think I might experiment and see if the eggs will be ok that way. I've been pulling them out but to be honest they don't really look that bad. I left several in the incubator this time so we'll see if they are starting to get a fungus when I do the next water change. Here are some pics from this WC. It's interesting to me to see how much the eggs have changed since bringing them home! I feel like a proud mamma.

On another perhaps more entertaining note, if the eggs have not hatched by the time I leave on Wednesday they, and the rotifers, are going on a road trip with me back to Farmington. I've posted on MOFIB about it and have a gameplan that I think will work fine. This should not suprise any of you that know me very well...it's a "perfectly Chelsey" thing to do

Chelsey · #8 11-23-2009, 11:46 AM

Just finished yet another water change. I turned the bubbles WAY down last night because I didn't want to damage the eggs any more than I already had, and when I went in to check them this morning I found that apparently some of the eggs got stuck on the side of the glass and suffocated

I had more mortalities this morning than I had for a while

This pic is terrible...it was taken through acrylic through the curved champagne glass with my macro lens that hates curved surfaces. However, you can see that the eyes are silver!

On another note, Marlin and Pearl will be spawning today, Pearl's ovipositor is out

Chelsey · #9 11-23-2009, 07:43 PM

Bad pic but look at all of the eyeballs!

Chelsey · #10 11-25-2009, 10:39 AM

Somewhere around 3/4 of the eggs hatched last night and I moved 75 larvae into the kriesel setup this morning

There are still probably 25-30 eggs to hatch so I have to take the incubator home with me in addition to everything else. I'll get pics as soon as I can, but today is going to be a crazy busy day!