Congo Tetra Eggs

It only took about a year, but my Congo tetras finally spawned directly over the egg-catching tub I made. That means I have a little tub with water, eggs, and other "crap" that floated its way in there. Now what?

The eggs are super-delicate, which I discovered after touching one which didn't look fertilized. It imploded. I tried rinsing them out and getting rid of a lot of the brown gunk they were sitting in. Hopefully I didn't destroy them.

Not knowing where else to put them, they are now in an external breeder box with a slow dribble coming in from the tank they were laid in. I also wonder if they'll be warm enough. Hmm. Other than that, I guess I will wait and see. Vinegar eels and microworms are on standby.

I've housed schools of these, I will be very impressed if you get fri. Good luck!!!

Okay, so the first batch of eggs didn't go well. Some were infected by mold and the others just disappeared. I noticed most of the information on the internet about breeding these fish is also very brief and not very informative. But luckily my fish gave me another batch two days ago! I'll list what I think I did wrong and what I'm going to try this time.

What I might have done wrong:
-Low flow in the breeder box. I think this allowed mulm to gather around the eggs and encouraged molding.
-Straining the eggs through a mesh net. I was trying to get the mulm out, was unsuccessful, and probably damaged the fragile eggs in the process.
-The egg catcher was sitting in the aquarium for about a week. There was tons of mulm, which the eggs stuck to and made it hard to see the eggs or get good water flow over them. It made seeing if an egg was fertilized impossible.
-Nematodes! There was some sort of nematode in the mulm and I don't like them next to my eggs.There weren't a lot, but after a week of eating mulm or possibly eggs, there were a lot more. Maybe they're harmless, but with close to 10,000 different species, who knows.

What I'm doing different this time:
-Checking the egg-catcher once a day. If it doesn't have eggs in it, I clean it out. Keeps the mulm down and makes it easier to remove fish poop with a syringe to keep the breeder box clean. Also eliminates the potential of damaging eggs while trying to remove them from gunk and poop.
-Increased the flow in the breeder box. After two days, I haven't had any moldy eggs and I can see the embryos.
-Manually remove nematodes when I see them and any other debris away from the eggs. Those little bastards better not be eating my eggs. I can see them a lot easier with a clean breeder box. I've seen movement in a couple embryos. I hope it's the baby fishy and not a nematode feasting on the embryonic goodness.
-With the clean breeder box, I can clearly see the embryos inside the eggs. I will remove opaque eggs or ones without embryos.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

I have almost literally no experience with eggs (my rams are watching over their second clutch of eggs right now), so I don't have any concrete advice, but my initial impression is that you might want to try going with a more natural approach while also decreasing the amount of work you are making for yourself. Have you thought about tossing the box idea and using dense low-lying plants to achieve the same protection for the eggs? This would solve a lot of your issues including heat loss, flow through the box, possibly the waste issue, and definitely make it much easier on yourself as well.

Good luck, I hope it works out this time!

Many of the treatments for parasites will kill nematodes but eggs and fry need a reduced dose. Coppersafe will kill nematodes (they are invertebrates) but it probably isn't good for the fry. Look at those kinds of options.

What type of Rams are they Luminous? Will you be selling fry? I do not mind if they are tiny. I'll segregate them. I lke watching them grow and get their coloring.

Update: I've got fry! They're nearly impossible to count because they are tiny and translucent, like splinters of glass with eyes, but I know I have at least three.

The nematodes appear to be cleaner crew, only eating mulm, so they could make good fry food and there's no reason to add chemicals to the tank. Thank goodness.

I've placed a ball of java moss from an established tank in the breeder box for microorganisms and cover. In a couple days I'll start feeding live foods.

And while I do want to replant this tank, I'm saving up for a new light, so that I can grow more foreground plants. But this a community tank, so fry survival would probably be minimal to nil. Unfortunately, the congo tetra are too skittish and won't spawn unless there are dither fish around, who will eat their eggs. That's why I use the egg-catching boxes.

Squirm will you be selling congo fry?

hyp3rcrav3 wrote:Squirm will you be selling congo fry?

Well, since I put the moss in the box, I haven't seen the fry, but that's not surprising since they're nearly invisible. I'll get back to you in a month, since tetra fry are notoriously difficult to raise and I've never done it before. I think I should wait until I succeed at raising some before I think about selling them.

Congrats! I didn't get fry from my Blue Rams, the eggs hatched but by the next morning there was no sign of them... I think they either died and got eaten, or they just got eaten.

That's awesome that you have fry though, I hope they find enough small food. That seems to be the main challenge in raising fry, because in general we like to keep our tanks (at least looking) clean, and often things that are good for eating like to live in the muck