[Killietalk] Lampeye Eggs

[Tom McLean <tmac2 at opusnet_com>]

When something seems to work with the Killies, I make a set of notes for my 
fish file so that I can remember how it went later on.  I just finished 
penning up the following bit on my experience with lampeye eggs and though 
that maybe some of the rest of you might find it interesting.

Tom McLean
AKA, NWK
North of Portland, OR

The Tank

I have some success with a group of five Procatopus similis.  The adults 
are kept in a 20 L community tank with plants rocks etc.  I have made a 
current in the tank using three air lifts pointed in the same 
direction.  The eggs are collected from a mop that is hung around one of 
the air lift tubes.  The fish make an attractive display swimming in and 
out of the current chasing each other and any thing that drops into the 
tank.  I feed them chopped red worms, white worms,and daphnia with 
supplements of fruit flies and some frozen food.

The Mop

The mop is 50 strands of green nylon yard wound around a three wring 
binder.  The strands are not cut and three wine corks are tied into the 
center of the strands with the nylon yarn.  The corks are placed in line on 
one side of the loop by using a loop of thread to hold the cork in place 
then two pinching ties at each end of the cork to tightly bunch the 
mop.  The corks are placed end to end with a pitching tie between them. 
This gives a two sided loop, one with the corks and one without.  The loop 
is placed around one of the air lift tubes with the corks out in the current.

Collecting Eggs

The first time I collected any eggs I did just as all of the book 
recommend.  I sat down with my best pair of glasses and a pair of fine 
tweezers and carefully extracted about a dozen eggs.  Carefully going from 
section to section of the mop while it was resting in a ½ gallon Glad 
box.  I put each egg in a pint plastic box with some tank water.  After I 
had made two or three rotations of the mop it occurred to me that I was 
finding as many eggs on the second or third pass as I had collected the 
first time.  I am a slow, but persistent, learner.  The great enlightenment 
came when I picked up the mop and looked at the water in the Glad box that 
I had it resting in.  There I found another five eggs and two swimming fry!

The moral of the story?

Don't Pick the Eggs:

I now carefully move the mop from the adults? tank and put it around an 
airlift in a 2.5 gal.
fry tank.  This keeps me from losing missed eggs and puts the collected 
eggs in an oxygenated stream of water while they hatch.  I leave the mop in 
the fry tank for 2 weeks.  Most of the fry seem to hatch in about ten 
days.  I start feeding First Bits and vinegar eels as soon as the fry are 
seen swimming, and add a clump of Java moss from the daphnia tank.  BBS are 
added after a couple of weeks and grindal worms after a month.

TLM Sept. 04

To join the AKA see http://www.aka.org/pages/join.html
Archives are at http://fins.actwin.com/killietalk/