Kmiec123
Actual CMAS Member
Well long time since last update. Last nights hatch went great as far as hatch rate with the new airstone bubbling technique. Thanks Mitch. I had transferred the egg Phyto the larval tanks with parent water sanitized trough the Kathy suggested chlorinate/dechlorinate technique. Thanks Kathy
This took place at 4:00pm. Past hatches have been difficult to try and watch the way the lighting in the room is never really DARK until 11:30pm or so with growout, aquatics, MH, Lunar lights all going off at different times. So what I experimented with last hatch, and did very successfully this hatch was, as I stated, covering the larval tank with a towel with just the mini mag with pinhole on the top of the tank to try to keep the larva away from the turbulence of the air bubbles.
This technique worked great, with my new MH balest the parent tank temp. stayed at 82, and all but 18-20 eggs hatched within one hour. So the total dankness, even if earlier than normal light cycle, sufficiantly stimulates the hatch in my experience.
Problems arise after I contemplated pulling the plate and lowering air flow with the 18-20 still unhatched instead of playing the possible two day hatch game and I thing it cost me 50-100 larva. Not great thinking, but hay I tried.
Next issue was with leaving the towel on the tank until morning, so I could sleep in a little and not get up at 5am when the growout lights come on, then give them phyto and rots for their fist meal should have been done the night before as Matt suggested in his thread. That way when the lights came on they would have been set with a meal. I really wanted to double check the light intensity because that was a possible suspect of a previous issue. However, the 4 ft. 2-40w bulb set up 36 in above the tank is fine.
As mentioned earlier, the towel around the tank also affected my tank temp[ raising the temp from 82-84 by morning. I'm not sure if that was the cause of some loss, but in the morning when I went to feed phyto and rots lost another 100-200
so guessing if the Phyto and rots were added the night before so the towel could be removed losses might have been less.
Another cause of the losses was changing the SG. I have read slowly lowering the SG helps. Well, I added 3/4 of a gallon of RO/DI water on a slow drip last night before bed. I should have stayed up to monitor, because I think that was a little too much. the SG went down from 1.022 to 1.0175 in 5 hrs. Too low, too fast I gather. another contributing factor to my losses.
To make a long story short, I have to say "Do you want the Good news, Or the Bad news." The good news is: The new hatching air method gave the best hatch to date, thanks Mitch.
Witch seemed to be my major problem in the past. The good news is: I learned a lot again!!
The bad news is: I'm down to another 21 fry batch. Better than a poke in the eye I guess. It just gets a little frustrating when your so close, yet so far.
Thanks again for all the help Matt, David, Kathy, and Mitch. Any further thoughts of input will, as always, be greatly appreciated. Hope some of my faults help someone else...Carl

This technique worked great, with my new MH balest the parent tank temp. stayed at 82, and all but 18-20 eggs hatched within one hour. So the total dankness, even if earlier than normal light cycle, sufficiantly stimulates the hatch in my experience.
Problems arise after I contemplated pulling the plate and lowering air flow with the 18-20 still unhatched instead of playing the possible two day hatch game and I thing it cost me 50-100 larva. Not great thinking, but hay I tried.

As mentioned earlier, the towel around the tank also affected my tank temp[ raising the temp from 82-84 by morning. I'm not sure if that was the cause of some loss, but in the morning when I went to feed phyto and rots lost another 100-200

Another cause of the losses was changing the SG. I have read slowly lowering the SG helps. Well, I added 3/4 of a gallon of RO/DI water on a slow drip last night before bed. I should have stayed up to monitor, because I think that was a little too much. the SG went down from 1.022 to 1.0175 in 5 hrs. Too low, too fast I gather. another contributing factor to my losses.
To make a long story short, I have to say "Do you want the Good news, Or the Bad news." The good news is: The new hatching air method gave the best hatch to date, thanks Mitch.


Thanks again for all the help Matt, David, Kathy, and Mitch. Any further thoughts of input will, as always, be greatly appreciated. Hope some of my faults help someone else...Carl