clown spawn

Fizhstiks is doing a great job!

I'm having a lot of fun reliving the experience. It's been a while since I raised babies.

Say ... truthdesigns ... is that a blue centered candy cane?
 
The eggs didn't hatch last night, they'll probably hatch tonight or tomorrow.

The two larvae are doing good, the one that was swimming weird is swimming normally now :D
 
I'm so pleased that your two are hanging in there. Sounds like you might make it with them.

Start marking on your calendar when the parents lay and when they hatch and you won't have to go through the suspense anymore. You'll find that it will be the same number of days each time as long as your temperature and parameters stay the same.

For example, my pair lays eggs every 12 days ... at dinner time ....I could set my watch by them. The eggs hatch the night of the 8th day, they wait 4 days and then lay again.

You can check me. They laid a new nest tonight. They'll hatch next Saturday, the 17th..... after dark .... I won't know unless I sit up and watch until the morning of the 18th when the lights come on and the eggs are gone. :cool:

You'll save yourself a lot of frustration if you get their pattern down.

Glad your larvae are looking strong going into mm. That's what is will take for them to make it.

Keep us posted.
 
Do larvae start to swim slower in metamorphosis? The larvae aren't swimming as fast as they used to.

Oh, and the eggs hatched today. I must have caught at least 100 larvae :D It was way too hard catching them with a cup this time so i tried to siphon them out and it seemed to work very well.
 
Yes, they definitely will slow down. The first day or two they may actually kind of sit on the bottom till they figure out how to swim again.

I had a feeling you'd do better with this next batch. The siphon has its pros and cons to capture larvae. You can get more and get them quickly, but I always found more dead in the corner in the morning when I siphoned. A lot of people siphon and in the Wilkerson book there are instructions for an elaborate capture device using a siphon and then a pump to send the water back to the tank.

Once I used one of those wide gravel vacuum siphons and taped the penlight to the top of the vacuum ...so it would stay out of the water but point the light right to the opening of the siphon. Got LOTS of babies that time. :-)
 
6 left :(

What could possibly kill over 100 larvae in less than a day? I took the water out the day of the hatch, the temp. was exactly the same, i made sure there were plenty of rotifers in the tank, did a small water change this morning...I don't think i did anything wrong :(

the remaining larvae look a little skinny, maybe they didn't have enough of their egg sacks left?
 
The most likely possibilities at this early stage are:

Injury or stress during transfer

Too many rotifers, which decrease oxygen availability in the tank

Thin larvae (insufficient yolk sac) which can be parent nutrition or a hatch delay that causes them to use up some yolk before they hatch. Thin larvae can usually last into the 2nd day, though and if you see any yolk left at all they hadn't starved yet. What did the yolk sac look like on the ones that died?

Water conditions could do it, but it sounds like you're on top of that. I wouldn't have done any water change yet this first day, but that's not a big deal given your timing.

If you think the larvae left are thinner than they should be, leave the lights on longer or even over night to keep them feeding. You'll have to add rotifers more often to keep you density up.

What about the rotifer tank? Is there any ammonia or pollution making it from the rotifer tank to the larvae tank? You're straining the rotifers that you add, right? Not adding rotifer tank water to the larvae tank?

I'm really reaching here .... trying to think of any remote possibility.

We already talked about having enough, but not too much air.

How are your first two doing? Any color change yet?
 
I only have 2 left :(

I don't think its because of transfer, i caught 40 with the cup and siphoned the rest. Even if the siphoned ones died from injury, the ones i caught with the cup would probably still be alive.

I dont think there were too many rotifers, i counted 19 rotifers in the circle on the hyrdometer.

What should an egg sack look like on a newly hatched larvae? All of the larvae look pretty thin even though i have alot of rotifers in the tank...

I strain the rotifers with a coffee filter and then put the rotifers into tank water. Then i put the tank water with the rotifers in it into the tank.

I have the air stone under the heater with just enough air coming out to break the surface of the water.

I decided to put a tile in the tank over their spawning site today to see if i can get them to spawn on the tile. I hope i didnt disturb the parents too much.

At least my first two are doing well :D They are orangish now and their body shape looks like it changed. Hopefully they will get their stripes soon..

Thanks for the help
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9208824#post9208824 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Kmiec123
Do you have live phyto in the tank, and how much?

Is phyto the algae you use to feed the rotifers? I dont use live phyto, im using a bottle of algae that came with the rotifers when i bought them. I use just enough to tint the water kinda greenish.
 
It sounds like you're doing everything right.

I don't know what is wrong.

When you finally figure it out, it will probably be one of those things that you will wonder why it didn't come to you sooner.:rollface:

I know exactly how frustrated you feel right now as I went through the same thing with a number of batches until everything worked.

Good luck getting the parents to lay on the tile. That takes care of a lot of problems if they will cooperate.

Glad to hear the other two are coming along. After they start turning orange, look for a white spot on the top of their head that will evolve into their first stripe.

That will cheer you up. ;)
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9209361#post9209361 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by crpeck
Glad to hear the other two are coming along. After they start turning orange, look for a white spot on the top of their head that will evolve into their first stripe.

That will cheer you up. ;)

It sure will :lol:
 
well all the larvae are gone now, i can't believe it. I caught over 100 larvae and they all died in less than a day.
 
Oh I'm SO sorry.

That is just too weird. There is some very definite reason for that to happen so fast.

I only wish I knew what it was.
 
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