ok this is driving me nuts

chrisinha · Post by **chrisinha** » 19 Jun 2005, 18:57

today's cleaning day. so, i went to clean my tank and found a middle sized snail, which i dont know where it came from,attached to the breeder net.i moved him to the "snail tank". I scrubbed the glass and all, and did a partial water change, replaced the water i'd removed with a little bit cooler water (im in california, it's summer, so the water can get pretty warm in here), waited a little and fed them daphnia. Minutes later i go check on them and notice the emerald cory going up and down on the glass, up and down... i thought she was having some problem, then i look again and found EGGS scattered all over the glass! how can that be???? i swear i had just cleaned the glass and they were not there!!

they are the size of a pinhead, clear. there's no "sac" or "web" involving them or uniting them. they're "individualized", but on the glass???

i dont know what to think anymore...

natefrog · Post by **natefrog** » 19 Jun 2005, 19:24

Those sound like fish eggs to me, so congratulations. I can't be sure without a picture, but, from your description it sounds like you have cory eggs.

A couple of questions: How big are they? Is there a potential male that could have fertilized the eggs?

Good Luck.

Oh also, snail eggs will generally be very tiny with a bunch of them in one common gelatinous blob.

chrisinha · Post by **chrisinha** » 19 Jun 2005, 19:24

well, i collected the eggs, put them in a container, went to the kitchen and i went back... more eggs! man, whoever is doing this she's FAST!

i took some pics but the quality s not good

this last one looks like they're dark but it's just the light, they are clear

chrisinha · Post by **chrisinha** » 19 Jun 2005, 19:28

natefrog wrote:Those sound like fish eggs to me, so congratulations. I can't be sure without a picture, but, from your description it sounds like you have cory eggs.

A couple of questions: How big are they? Is there a potential male that could have fertilized the eggs?

Good Luck.

Oh also, snail eggs will generally be very tiny with a bunch of them in one common gelatinous blob.

yeah i know i have a tank just for the snails and i know what they look like. not a long time ago i had eggs in another tank which i thought were cories' because they were bigger than the regulgar pond snails, but it turned out they were my Marisa's snails. But they DID have that 'sac' involving them. Now, these ones dont have this gelatinous thing around them

I have no idea who's male who's female... i have 4 albino cories aeneus and 4 emerald cories

chrisinha · Post by **chrisinha** » 19 Jun 2005, 20:20

is it OK to put methylene blue in the tank?? does it harm the fish?

natefrog · Post by **natefrog** » 20 Jun 2005, 01:30

Those are most definatley cory eggs!!

As far as the methyline blue, I generally don't like treating the whole tank unless i really need to, (i.e. a big fungal outbreak). If it is possible for you to float a small plastic container in the tank with a small airstone in it, this would be one easy way to be able to treat the eggs seperatley form the rest of the tank. Each day you can swap out the old water in the plastic container with fresh tank water and retreat with the methyl blue.

Once the fry hatch, you no longer need to used the methyl blue treatment and then you should likley use a net breeder or a small, bare bottom fry grow out tank.

good luck!!!

chrisinha · Post by **chrisinha** » 20 Jun 2005, 03:08

ok, i'll try to do what you suggested then...

how many days for the eggs to hatch (if they're reaaally cories eggs!

)???

Post by **corybreed** » 20 Jun 2005, 03:14

Depending on te temperature it takes an average of 3-4 days for the cory eggs to hatch. Do not feed the fry before the yolk sacks dissolve. That will tke another 3-4 days.

Mark

chrisinha · Post by **chrisinha** » 20 Jun 2005, 03:37

the tank temp is 78-80F, depending on the room temp as well. it's summer now here and it'been getting pretty hot.

do i need to float the plastic container in the tank? can i just leave it out with tank water? my room temp is always somewhere in between 78 - 80F anyways... im from a tropical country, so i need to feel warm all the time

it's just because im afraid the container will flip and will wind up losing all the eggs...

natefrog · Post by **natefrog** » 20 Jun 2005, 06:28

If it is possible to leave the container in the tank I feel this is the best option. Often if you have a tight fitting tank lid the container will sit fairly well up against the lid with little risk of flipping over; however, if you don't want to take a risk, it is possible to hatch the fry in a seperate container outside the tank. Use a fairly good size container, (a 1 gallon ice cream pail works well), and ensure that there is good circulation from an airstone and that the temp remains consistent.

Because the container is not being buffered by the temperature of the tank i would try and use the largest container possible.

chrisinha · Post by **chrisinha** » 20 Jun 2005, 15:57

well, i guess the eggs were not fertilized or had fungus or something because they all turned blue when i put the methylene blue.

natefrog · Post by **natefrog** » 20 Jun 2005, 18:33

It might not be all bad. Leave them and see what happens. Sometimes the eggs will pick up some of the methyl blue. I only use half of the recommended dose on eggs as it seems to be enough.

You may be right about the eggs not being fertiled however, as when the eggs are fertilized they immeadiatley form a membrane that is much less permeable to certain chemicals.

chrisinha · Post by **chrisinha** » 22 Jun 2005, 16:31

still waiting to see what happens... so far nothing...

oh i did see 2 albino cories ... errrr.... making out yesterday! you know, the T position thing... why do they do it? how is it supposed to spawn anything??? i noticed they "curve" their bodies a little too, why?

natefrog · Post by **natefrog** » 23 Jun 2005, 04:15

The "T-position thing," is a form of courtship that helps a spawning pair certify that both partners are ready to breed. Each species of fish, or for that matter most species of animals, have signals that both sexes utilize to indicate readiness.

Most species of fish use external fertilization as a breeding mechanism. Having said that live-bearers, sharks and many other species fish use internal fertilization....after all this wordiness I'm embarrassed to say I'm not sure which it is with cories. I've bred three species of cories and have yet to see the male fertilize the eggs after the female deposits....perhaps Coryman or Corybreed can help on this one?

chrisinha · Post by **chrisinha** » 23 Jun 2005, 16:38

wow! thanks for the info!

chrisinha · Post by **chrisinha** » 23 Jun 2005, 18:01

well, i went to check on the eggs today and noticed that some has disintegrated. then, i decided to carefully touch some of them and they also disintegrate. what happened?

bronzefry · Post by **bronzefry** » 23 Jun 2005, 19:32

It's possible they weren't fertile. One of the sticky notes deals with how to tell if an egg is fertile or not. It happens a lot with Cory eggs.

chrisinha · Post by **chrisinha** » 25 Jun 2005, 03:00

i read the sticky and i do think they were not fertile. the cories laid more eggs today. im gonna leave them alone, hopefully the mollies wont eat them

but they are also clear with a white "nucleus", so im not sure if these are fertile either

chrisinha · Post by **chrisinha** » 25 Jun 2005, 16:18

checked on the eggs this morning, they were gone. probably the mollies or guppies. however, there are more eggs and some of them have a tan color this time. i also saw the male going back there and "doing something" with his mouth. i hope he was not trying to eat it

bronzefry · Post by **bronzefry** » 26 Jun 2005, 16:07

I've seen tankmates eat Cory eggs more often than not. It's a food source and a tank is an enclosed environment. It's what fish do.

You may want to think about a separate fry tank, maybe a 10 gallon tank? Some of the larger warehouse-type pet stores have 10 gallon tanks for $10 American. I've only been in this hobby a few years, but I don't know what I'd do without a number of 10 gallon tanks around. I'm going to switch the fry tanks over to bare-bottom: no substrate at all and a sponge filter. The fry have done well for me with just a sponge filter and frequent water changes. I tried the "net breeders" with very limited success. A Cories barbel's can get caught in the netting. That's been my personal experience.