RE: [Killietalk] seeing eggs in peat

[Chris <cgraseck at optonline_net>]

Nice post Wright.  I hadn't thought to do it that way.

Cheers,
Chris
Rye NY,  Where its been raining for two days and the back yard is still
covered in snow!

-----Original Message-----
From: killietalk-bounces+cgraseck=optonline_net at aka.org
[mailto:killietalk-bounces+cgraseck=optonline_net at aka.org] On Behalf Of
Wright Huntley
Sent: Saturday, February 07, 2004 8:31 PM
To: killifish discussion list
Subject: Re: [Killietalk] seeing eggs in peat

Diane,

Diane Brown wrote:
> I'm getting ready to try wetting some notho eggs again, and am just 
> wondering:  what do you do to check for eyes-up when the eggs are all 
> mixed up in damp peat?  I don't think there are a lot of eggs in this 
> batch of peat, so I think it will be quite hard to find eggs to check 
> without wetting it and spreading it around on a flat dish.  But if I
can 
> avoid that, I'd like to, because I think I lost the one viable fry
from 
> the first wetting because it was handled too much moving from dish to 
> dish finally to tank. 
> 
> I suspect that just wetting it all and seeing what happens is the way
to 
> go this time, but I bet some of you smart killiefolk have ways to make

> spot eggs in the peat for repeated checking without wetting each time.


I never wet the peat to see eggs. I put it, fluffed, in a shallow, white

bowl. A strong (50W or more) halogen reading lamp across the bowl from 
me gives good light for finding the eggs. Push all the peat to one side,

and then drag  a little bit at a time across the center of the bowl 
while watching for the amber glow of reflected light shining up through 
an egg. Once you have found a few, it becomes super easy. [Until then, 
your brain isn't trained to catch the amber sphere and it seems really 
tough.]

It's easier if you learn with freshly-spawned eggs, as they are lighter 
and more transparent. As they develop, the embryo darkens them and the 
peat may stain them, so mature eggs often are easier to miss. In some SA

annuals, the peat clings to the eggs so much that they are *really* 
camoflaged. [Not usually so with Nothos, but YMMV.]

The bright point-source halogen lamp makes the gold ring around the eye 
really stand out. Don't try this with fluorescents or other widely 
distributed light sources. They will just frustrate you. You probably 
will not find any eggs at all.

HTH

Wright

PS. I once tested myself with the above technique. I put a single egg in

a recently boiled and squeezed peat-pellet's worth of damp peat. After a

number of trials, I concluded that I could detect that single egg with 
90%+ probability in under 10 minutes. Subsequently, I allowed myself 
about 10 minutes to determine if any peat sample contained eggs at all. 
Seems to work for me.

-- 
Wright Huntley -- 760 872-3995 -- Rt. 001 Box K36, Bishop CA 93514

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