removing eggs immediately?

[corywink]

Hi,
My pandas have been spawning vigorously every other day, always at around 10pm. While one female is depositing eggs in the java ferns, the other females go egg hunting. Is it ok to remove the eggs immediately after they've been laid?

[Freshman]

I do removed my bronze cory's eggs immediately. However, I find that if you wait for a few minutes, it will be easier to handle..i.e. the eggs will become slightly harder.

[cartouche]

I don't understand how you could remove the eggs and not to disturb the spawning fish. It is better to offer enough hiding places to the fish and feed them very well. Then they won't eat the eggs.

[kim m]

When my pandas are spawning, I remove eggs once evry hour if I'm home to observe, og the eggs will be gone. The tank is so full of javamoss that the fish can barely move around, but they still find the eggs.

I find that my pandas just continue spawning a couple of minutes after my hand is out of the water and they don't seem frightent at all.

[Coryman]

cartouche,

If you are eating beans and fresh caviar is offered I am certain you would take the caviar and go back to the beans later.

If eggs are laid in Java moss or spawning mops it is quite easy to remove eggs without disturbing the spawning fish too much.

I have a group of C139's that were so intent when spawning that when I reached in to remove a mop from the back of the tank, the female deposited two eggs on the back of my thumb. These fish are around 8 years old and nothing at all disturbs them when they spawn.


picture courtesy Corydorasworld.com

Ian

[cartouche]

You must offer something similar like caviar to them. I feed them with earthworms, cyclops, daphnia, mayfly larvae...until they can't move I consistently had problems with eating eggs, if I had too many Corydoras in too large a tank. It seemed paradoxical to me, because I would assume that in a larger tank, eggs would easily escape their attention or would be harder to find. To the contrary, the fish almost everytime liquidated the majority of the eggs. Now I know why: If you have too many fish in too large a tank, some of the fish often miss the "feeding time" or simply doesn't catch up with others during feeding. Hence some percentage of the fish is always relatively hungry.

[apistomaster]

I have been coming around the same conclusion as cartouche, large tank and spawning group seems like a good idea. In reality, not all in the group are spawning and therefore, the non-spawners find that eating eggs is a great past-time. It is sometimes difficult to strike the right balance because Corys are easier to spawn in groups.

It is worth trying to catch a defininitely spawning pair or trio and place them in a ten gallon with all the Java moss and leaving a constant supply of blackworms or cultured worms available to them.
The yield from one such small group is often higher because egg losses are minimal.

Consider using acrylic yarn spawning mops. The eggs are usually placed in less accessible places than in the less dense Java Moss and it's easy to pick through mops once a day. I know that C. panda has a strong preference for plants but will accept yarn.
Mine prefer to spawn in dense clumps of hair algae. The eggs laid in this crud go will go untouched.

Another reason I use acrylic yarn spawning mops is it allows the spawning tank to be set up free of any snails that also find eggs delicious.

Some species are more prone to egg eating than others. It's usually the one you want the most that is the worst egg eater.

There are as many methods that work as there are successful breeders. We all end up doing what works well for us.

[cartouche]

I can tell you that if you feed very well and if you have enough hiding places for the non-spawning fish, you can have up to 25 Sterbai in a 130-liter tank and you will lose only a negligible number of eggs. Once my sterbai spawned all together and I yielded ca. 380 eggs from one spawning! During the last month I twice had almost 200 eggs from one spawning. And they almost don't use java moss at all and stick it on the sides of the tank. But if you don't feed them well, almost all eggs will be eaten during the spawning already.