Mass Egg Order (Feb 2005)

[stormhawk]

Good news Choy, collected 6 fry from the hatching tray. 4 were pretty healthy, while the other 2 are struggling but still hopeful.
Its a dismal hatchrate but better than nothing. If luck has it, I'll have at least 4 at the end and hopefully a pair at least.

[hwchoy]

I am crossing all my toes

[stormhawk]

Hi Choy,

You can uncross your toes now. I lost the fry.

Pretty depressed now but a pair is heading my way from the US. Let me breed those and maybe I'll pass the progeny to you for photography at a later stage.

[hwchoy]

[stormhawk]

Now your hopes are pinned on Gan to get some fry out of the auratus and pyropunctata. I don't think they're due yet.

[turaco]

Now, now..I don't dare to wet!

[RonWill]

You can uncross your toes now. I lost the fry.

Need I ask what happened?

[stormhawk]

I have no idea. They were fine and feeding well on day 1 and 2 then on day 3 something happened and all konked.

The raising tank was mature and had an assortment of tiny critters living in it, plus a small number of snails and other critters to make up the rest of their tankmates.

Apparently this isn't the easiest of the Simpsonichthys, as was testified to by Dr Roger.

[whuntley]

No idea if that's the case here, but sudden death of young babies is often the result of Velvet infection.

You cannot see it on the bodies with the naked eye, because the attack concentrates in the gills. Back when I was being very diligent, I did a necropsy on all sudden baby deaths under a microscope, and in at least 90% of the cases, it was Oodinium o/e. I finally quit looking, because it was so certain to be Velvet disease.

Wright

[RonWill]

...and in at least 90% of the cases, it was Oodinium o/e. I finally quit looking, because it was so certain to be Velvet disease.

Wright

It doesn't have to be so. I found 2 reasons why my Leptolebias minimus and Fundulosoma thierryi fry container was empty.

Here's one reason...


and here's the other


Haven't had enough? Look here.

I was infuriated and decapitated them before sending them to the big pond in the sky

Sigh.... back to the drawing board

[turaco]

Ron,

This spell trouble! There might be more somewhere.

[whuntley]

Ah, the joys of living in the tropical zone.

Only my outside tubs get such beasties, and then only rarely. OTOH, all my tanks must be tightly covered to avoid sudden onset of carpet crispies, and to control our too-rapid evaporation.

Wright

PS. How about an opposite story?

I got some striatum Lambarene eggs from Ohio that apparently went through too much cold in shipping. After removing the obviously dead eggs, I threw the last 8 or 10 (pretty-scuzzy-looking) eggs in a spare 20 liter tank and ignored them. The other day, I was quite surprised to see a tiny baby swimming in there. More showed, and, as of this morning, I counted 6 lively, growing babies eagerly scarfing down bbs.

Does that make up for one disappearing baby tale?

[RonWill]

Gan, hope you have the minimus going at your end and it's gonna be a busy Sunday flipping through all those growout containers! YIKES! Good luck with the other 2 bags.

Jian Yang, I just thought of this and you might want to check for hydra too. It can happen when one continues to feed the tray without checking on the occupants... that's how I lost the Aphyosemion amoenum 'Sakbayeme' that Bill sent.
[Suggest you have a word with Murphy too... he's the bugger who send shivers down our splines... "if something can go wrong, it will"]

Wright, was that a typo? 20 liter tank for about 10 eggs... that's one big hatching tank!

[turaco]

Ron,

Yes, Lep. minimus still doing ok with my side. Your little cosy corner looks attractive enough for dragonfly to think of making babies there. You just have to pray hard, hoping they won't visit you too often. [-o<

[nonamethefish]

That is actually a damselfly larvae. I think it may have come along with plants.

[stormhawk]

Hi Ron,

No Hydra found in my tanks as yet but I hope they won't appear here. I've been very lucky not to have Hydra all along.

By the way, who's Murphy??

And yes, those are damselfly, not dragonfly larvae. You can recognise the difference by the thinner and longer body profile, plus the two elongated "tails" of the larvae, which dragonfly nymphs lack.

Yeah they do hitch a ride on plants. Check on the Egeria you have. Occasionally very young ones would be hidden amongst the bunch of leaves.

[whuntley]

Ronnie,

No typo. I had them in a smaller food take-out-type container, but the eggs were all going bad, and no one looked to be hatching. I had a clean 5G tank just sitting there with plants and no fish, so I tossed the eggs in rather than flush them. At first, there was no light over the tank, and some light from a window. It was after I added a lamp that I started seeing the babies.

The eggs had been sent from Ohio, with minimal insulation, so froze in transit (or so I thought). Even the Walter Worms in the box didn't survive.

Wright

[retro_gk]

Murphy = Capt. E.A. Murphy of the USAF...credited with coming up with Murphy's laws...http://www.murphys-laws.com/

[stormhawk]

Now I get it. Thanks Rahul.

[stormhawk]

Current updates:

Simp. adornatus: 6 fry out of 40 or so eggs on the bag's label - All dead.

Simp. marginatus: 0 fry out of 45 eggs on the bag's label - peat re-bagged for wetting at a later date.

On a sidenote, I was lucky to find some fry from eggs of a new species (newly described in 2004) sent from a friend elsewhere.