Pelagic egg collector?

[fishkid6692]

I'm trying to figure out how to build a pelagic egg collecting overflow. It will need to safely collect the eggs from centropyges and dragonets at this point. Collecting eggs with a pipette or scooping with a cup is inefficient and I feel like Id lose way too many eggs. I want to be able to automatically collect as many eggs as possible to be able to transfer them directly into a hatching tank. Someone suggested I use a 600 micron screen over the overflow with very low flow and pumps turned off during expected spawning times but I am hoping to build something that could maybe separate the eggs into a small container straight from the overflow, allowing me to harvest the eggs every spawn automatically with an egg collector set up on every spawning tank. Any ideas would be great! Thanks.

 

[Mr. Wiggles]

How about something like the Vossen Larval trap. I built one out of scrap plexi and it was pretty easy, but I never got the chance to try it out.

 

[Chad Vossen]

Sadly the Larval trap doesn't work well for palegic eggs. Works best on larvae that are attracted to light though, such as shrimp, crab, or fish such as clownfish and blennies.

To collect palegic eggs, I just use a mesh filter sock on the drain. Eggs float, go down overflow, and end up in the filter sock. Works better if you have fewer fish in the display to eat the eggs.

 

[Lrood]

I use a 250 micron sieve designed to fit in a 5 gallon paint bucket. These are sold as paint sieves. Some styrofoam pieces are hot-glued to it and it floats in my sump with the overflow draining directly into it. Works great.