My peacock decided to lay eggs--Help Dr. Roy!

[bheld]

So I looked at my peacock, Chica, today and found her holding a large red mass made up of many tiny dots...of course they are eggs. There have got to be hundreds of tiny eggs and I just don't know how to handle it. Has anyone on here ever had any experience like this. I know Dr. Roy can probably give me advice so Im just curious as to the chances of them hatching, how many will hatch and what to do with them once they do. Maybe buy a large tuberware container and put baffles in it...If they actually do hatch, I will have many peacocks to sell so keep watching.

This is awesome but could be very bad if I don't know what I'm getting into! ha

 

[Gonodactylus]

I can sympathize since I currently have over a 100,000 Lysiosquillina maculata larvae that are starving and their is nothing I can do about it. I have had O. scyllarus lay eggs dozens of times and I have never gotten them past 3 or 4 days after they became free-swimming.

I hate to be negative, but there really is nothing you can do to rear them. They will hatch a couple of weeks after the female laid them and the larvae will stay on the bottom of the burrow for a few more days until they become photopositive and swim towards the light. At this point they will be out of yolk and will starve to death in a couple of days. Even if you could isolate some free swimming larvae (they are cannibalistic) and had the right plankton to feed them, they would require constant care for months. Enjoy watching her care for the eggs and larvae and their swimming behavior, then allow the filters to do their jobs.



Roy

 

[bheld]

Just out of curiosity, if I were able to isolate, say, 3 of them...how much care would they require and what would they eat. I was also just curious about the typical gestation period because I have had her for over 2 months and saw her at the LFS for about 3 months before picking her up. Thanks for the fast response by the way!

 

[djchristone]

hum...well, i think you should see if they make it past the egg stage i guess you would say. i was on here a while back with the same issue as you but my mantis ended up eating her egg sac after a couple of days...

 

[Gonodactylus]

Daily feeding with live food followed a few hours later by a water change.

ROy