How I hatch the eggs of the Simpsonichthys

[timebomb]

This post is for Kennedy who wants to know how I hatch the eggs of the Simpsonichthys. I learnt this method from Ronnie and Jianyang.

The eggs usually comes incubated in peat moss. There's no neccessity to add more peat. I usually keep the bag in a drawer and check on the eggs regularly. Do not follow the wetting date written by the breeder. Our weather here is far warmer so eggs develop faster.


When the eyes are well-developed and you can also see "body" in the form of a tiny tail, that's when you wet the eggs:


Get a plastic tray and fill it up to about 1 cm in depth with aged water. Put in 2 oxygen tablets. I sometimes use more, up to 4 tablets.


There are many brands of oxygen tablets in the market but I like this one:


Open up the plastic bag that contains the eggs and pour everything inside the tray of water. Do not remove the peat moss or the fry will turn out to be belly-sliders. It's okay to remove the debris floating on the surface. It's hard to see the fry if there's too much surface debris. I then add a cube or 2 of ice to the hatching tray. I'm not sure what's the temperature after adding the ice but I suppose it isn't a big deal even if it's too cold. The temperature will eventually return to room temperature. The ice and oxygen tablets act as catalysts for the eggs to hatch. There's no necessity to maintain the temperature or the oxgyen content in the hatching tray.


I usually have a raising tray on standby and I will place it beside the hatching tray so that the temperature of both trays will be about the same. I usually wet my eggs at night and catch the fry the next morning.


Usually, not all the eggs will hatch. After 2 days, I will collect the peat and dry it again. And I'll wait for another 2 weeks before wetting it.

Loh K L

[kennedy_ng]

Thank you Mr Loh. It's very helpful.

I will update in the mass order thread when I wet the eggs.

[turaco]

This is for Kennedy too, just to add on ..

Some peat just won't sink readily. You can pour the peat(with eggs) into a water tight container, add water, give it some shake to fully soak up before pouring back to the hatching tray for hatching. Make sure no eggs get stick behind the container. By shaking, I mean reasonably gentle, or you might damage some good eggs.

If you are too worried being on it the first time, wet half a pack of peat, & see how it turned out. Good luck!

This is to frighten you a bit: Some breeder use very fresh peat. Keeping the hatched-out fry in highly acidic water(result of fresh peat) for too long can kill them all.

[RonWill]

Kwek Leong,
I use one tablet, break it into quarters and space them apart. If there's alot of peat, I'll use a bigger container with 1½ tabs.

Also, I don't use the ice cube directly in the hatching tray but have a couple cubes in a jug, then use the chilled water (which btw, is aquarium water, not tap water). Temp reading is between 18º~20ºC.

This is the only method I use now and can't imagine doing anything else that would work better.

Curious me have to ask... any fry yet?

[promethean_spark]

That's wierd that you get eggs that need checking, I always mail my eggs out once they're within a few days of 'optimal ripeness', and suggest that they be hatched immediately or inspected and educated judgement used. So far people seem happy to hatch immediately, and get good results.

As a buyer I'd be leery of a deal that needed a month or two to see if the product was good or not. I thought distributing mature eggs was pretty much standard practice.

[stormhawk]

For annual eggs, they are best shipped when they are in Diapause I, that is when the eggs are about a week or so old and do not show any signs of development.

Sending mature eggs may not work out sometimes for annual species as variables during shipping may or may not affect the way the fry turn out to be. If they are too mature, they may die en-route if the shipping takes too long.

KL, I'm happy you've wetted the marginatus. I'm going to wet mine later today and hopefully have some fry too.

This is a species already extinct in the wild so do be very careful with them. Both you and me hold the only eggs available locally. After my loss of the adornatus, I'll be really freaking out over these fellas.

[selena]

Curious me have to ask... any fry yet?

Ditto, ditto, ditto......... Getting very impatient .


----------------------------------------------

Selena

[timebomb]

Sorry for the slow response, guys. Just got home from bowling. It's one of the highlights of my week - bowling in the league for my team.

I got 4 fry from the first wetting. 2 seems to be belly-sliders. Jianyang, I would suggest you wait a while before wetting your eggs. I suspect it's better late than early. Can't tell you the reasons why but it's just a hunch.

Loh K L

[stormhawk]

Eeks! I already wetted them before I logged on..

Ah well, I saw at least 4 fully eyed-up eggs. Hopefully there'll be some little fry popping out soon.

One thing to note, this species does not do well in extremely warm weather. Keep them cool or they may not be so active, according to the breeder who sold the eggs.

[stormhawk]

Not a good result. I found one dead stillborn and the rest of the eggs are not showing any signs of hatching out yet. By tonight if none appear to be hatching out soon, I'll re-bag the peat. Counted only 6 eggs or so left but I might be wrong.

KL, anymore fry appearing?

[kennedy_ng]

I see several eyed up eggs among the peat. I asked Mr Loh, and he recommend that I wet the eggs after a few more days.

Will wet half a bag on tuesday and update on the forum the number of frys.

[stormhawk]

Kennedy, be very careful not to handle the eggs directly with your fingers or a tweezer. I made this mistake once and contaminated perfectly good eggs.