5 replies to this topic

[Bunky twincam]

Hello all,

 

My four female in a colony with one male regularly are holding eggs. How ever they only hold for about 4-5 days, is this because they get hungry or they know the eggs are not fertilised?

 

I striped my female two days ago as she had been holding for 4 days. I put the 45 eggs into a tumbler with the eggs just moving on the bottom of the tumbler, over the last two days 6 eggs have turned white ish and are now floating and have fuzzy looking fungus on them, is this because these eggs are not fertilised or am I not tumbling them enough or am I doing something else wrong?

 

Cheers

[Poncho]

Are the eggs yellowish when stripped? That indicates they're fertilised. If so then you need to tumble a little more - fine tune it though as it's easy to go too much.

If they are white to start with then they probably aren't getting fertilised. This might be because your male is more of a dud than a stud so you could try source another. Or he's not getting his speem to the eggs for whatever reason.

The females not holding could be for a number of reasons such as stress caused by aggressive tank mates or the fish being striped through generations and not having the holding instinct imprinted in their brain (have heard about this with frontosa but not malawis).

Provide a bit more detail about the environment you've got them in and it may help someone better identify what the problem is.

[Bunky twincam]

The eggs are yellow, I have had the fish since fry and they are in a large tank, the male is very placid and I have stripped eggs many times before and had success but sometimes they just go white and get a fungus, I have increased the air flow in the tumbler.

[Poncho]

so it's a new problem in regards to females not holding?

You could also add a drop of meth blue to help the eggs fungusing over if you struggle to get the airflow right.

[Bunky twincam]

Nope they never hold full term, just every time a strip them some of the eggs go bad and I don't know why.

[Poncho]

Pretty normal to lose a few eggs - if they held full term they would lose some too but you wouldn't notice because they'd dispose of them privately. The thing when raising artificially is that you'll lose a lot more if fungus spreads so a little more tumble or meth blue and you might get better results. Too much tumble though and you can promote deformities and need to cull. It's a balancing act so keep finely adjusting until you get a feel for it. It's one of those things you have to work out yourself and you'll know best if you've gone too hard or too soft. But don't worry, you're not doing anything wrong.

Good luck