Hatching Pseudomugil Eggs – Revised Thinking Equals Success
Jul 15, 2016 21:28:08 GMT -6
dave pauls, rainbowbratt, and 2 more like this
Post by rainbowfish on Jul 15, 2016 21:28:08 GMT -6
Guys I’ve been hatching and raising Pseudomugil as sort of a “side hobby” to keeping and breeding the large rainbowfish. Pseudomugil in some way are easier than the big rainbowfish but in some other ways much more difficult.
For the most part for both types I pick all eggs and tray incubate them. I change the water in the tray every day or every other day to keep the scum off of the surface which inhibits oxygen exchange which kills the egg. I used freshly dechlorinated water, not tank water to avoid any extra bacterial or fungal contamination. The eggs are incubated at temperatures between 78 and 84 degrees where 80-82 being ideal. In the past my fishroom was always 78-80 so I could just set those trays on the back of an aquarium and watch them every day for hatched fry. Fry are immediately moved to a grow out tank of 5.5-10 gallon size. Large rainbowfish eggs take from 7 to perhaps 12 days to hatch. Remember the cooler it is, the slower this development. In the past I’ve observed that lengthy incubation periods due to cooler temperatures resulted in smaller and weaker fry that hatch out. In some cases they didn’t hatch out at all but for large rainbowfish that was relatively rare. When I made the switch from fluorescent T8 lights to LED T8 I noticed a big drop in the overall temperature of my room. This did cause more problems with the larger rainbowfish egg hatching and also exacerbated some of the problems I was having with hatching Pseudomugil eggs. For the larger rainbowfish eggs I was able to get things somewhat back on track by making sure that I closed the door to the fishroom during the winter months. My well insulated fishroom is heated from the central heating system by a single vent. Fry raising tanks on the top rows do have individual heaters. Often the trays were rested on the gutter light racks that contained the T8 LEDs so that they were at least 82 during the 10 hours that the lights were on and lower at night.
The Pseudomugil Hatching Problem
For the most part Pseudomugil were hatching out at 14 up to 21 days at my original higher temperature room. But after it got cooler the incubation times started taking a lot longer and for several of the species the eggs incubated so long they finally failed to hatch. When I did get one to hatch it was often so weak that the fry didn’t survive. The Pseudomugil I am currently working with are: ivantsoffi Kopi River, mellis, gertrudae Aru II, Species “Dekai”,signifer “Ross River”, cyanodorsalis, luminata (red neon), and reticulatus. I do especially like the reticulatus and I guess that’s why they give me the finger. They really are little and I’ve never gotten a photo that I’ve really liked but you can get an idea from these two shots.
It’s only one of a few blue-eyes that has a sort of orange/red egg and it’s quite big
I may have lost the ivantsoffi but have 6 fry coming up so that got me thinking that I really need to pay attention to these fish otherwise I’m going to lose all of them. The mellis and especially the reticulatus were taking so long that the egg would fungus or the fry would hatch out weak and die. I had to something so I sent an email off to “The Pseudomugil Whisperer”. My European friends know him well but North Americans might not know about Wim Heemskerk. When a new Pseudomugil hits the scene the collectors make sure it finds Wim because they know he can usually keep it going. I already knew I had a temperature control problem but he also said that I needed to avoid chlorine and chloramine removers. He said that these hardened the eggs making it tough for the fry to ever get out of the egg. Here I was every day or so added fresh dechlorinated water to the trays. Essentially I was adding more of the reducing chemical, Sodium thiosulfate, with every water change. So how to get rid of deadly chloramine so it wouldn’t kill my eggs was the next important question. If you only have chlorine in your water you only have to bubble it for a half day or so and it’s gone. This isn’t the case with chloramines though as they stay around for as long as a week in a clean bucket of bubbling water.
What I decided to do was take a 10 gallon size bare tank aquarium and fill up with fresh tap water. Then put a hang on back filter (HOB) on the tank that contained two cartridges loaded with top grade carbon. The carbon after a few passes will remove the chloramine. People have been using carbon block filters for years to remove chloramines from their water to fill their fish tanks so I expected it to work. I also have a chlorine test kit (http://inkmkr.com/Fish/ItemsForSale.html ) so I made sure the chloramine was removed before I started adding any eggs. I also added a heater so that I could make sure that I was incubating eggs at constant 81 degrees F. With the HOB filter going I just couldn’t float the trays as they would get under the outflow, fill up with water and dump the eggs. So I did a “Rube Goldberg” set up by placing 2 Penn Plax breeding mesh traps at the front of the tank. I then took four Dannon yogurt (Oikos) cups and cut out most of the bottom, leaving a small edge. I used GE silicon I to glue some fine mesh netting over the bottom of the cups. I took a loop of airline tubing and put it under the lip of the cup and used a piece of rigid airline to loop it. This helped keep the cup floating. It would probably work better with larger diameter tubing but I was using materials that I had on hand. Two of these cups fit into each breeding trap. All cups were marked and eggs were incubated in these cups.
See meshtrap incubator and hatchcups. The first cup is Ps. reticulatus and the second is Ps. gertrudae "Aru II"
Before adding any new eggs to the cups I would first treat them overnight with a very light solution of methylene blue. Any infertile eggs would be stained blue and removed before they could fungus and harm the fertile eggs. Every few days as fry hatched I would remove the “mini-incubator” and place another yogurt cup underneath it to keep water on the eggs. The fry were pulled out with a plastic eye-dropper and then acclimated to their grow-out tank.
If that’s just too much work for you then you can bend a few fine mesh nets and make egg holders that way too. I had 5 species of Pseudomugil eggs that I needed to incubate in this manner so I just bent a net, see fishnet incubator photo. Put a piece or two of gravel in the bottom to hold down the bottom of the net.
I should also add that Mark Nicholson has done something similar and has had much success with hatching and raising the Pseudomugils that he has been keeping.
A few things I’ve noticed that since I’ve been hyper motivated to up my Pseudomugil breeding setup.
1) Good water changes are important. Fifty percent changes at least once a week or more is helpful in getting egg production. My breeding setups are 10 gallon tanks with 2 to 6 pair of Pseudomugil per tank. Breeding tank temps for mellis, “Dekai”, Aru II, and reticulatus is 76 F. The temperature for luminatus is 72 F as it’s on a lower rack. Most of the Pseudomugils are getting a very healthy dose of live baby brine shrimp. Some of them eat frozen adult brine shrimp and some are eating frozen “Cyclopese”. When available feeding a bit of chopped live blackworms is an extra treat.
2) Incubation of reticulatus eggs at 81 degrees greatly speeds up the incubation times. It is closer to 10 days to two weeks now instead of 21 plus days. The fish that hatch out are quite large and robust. They are eating live baby brine shrimp immediately. Providing a steady incubation temperature also speeds up the incubation times for the other fish eggs.
3) When putting the reticulatus eggs back in the incubation bath I pull the mesh yogurt container completely out of the water so that the eggs are exposed to air for a few seconds. I was originally trying to flush some of the scum that had gotten into the container out but this seems to help hatch the fry. If I have eyed up eggs in the container I can almost count on some of them hatching within 15 minutes after this treatment. I kind of knew about this with my cyanodorsalis tray incubation methods as I would always get a bunch of fry hatching out a few minutes after draining and refilling the tray.
I’m pretty sure though that NOT adding a dechlor to the hatching water was the big difference. So if you are having troubles hatching Pseudomugils find a way to remove the chlorine/chloramine from your water w/o having to resort to using a dechlorinator. Carbon will remove it and if you don’t have a test kit let it run for 24 hours or so to be sure. Again I want to thank Wim for this suggestion. Chlorine remover had never been a problem in the past in my hands for hatching any egg so this was something new for me. If you’ve been having problems hatching Pseudomugil give this method a try and I think you will also be successful.
[/b][/font]
[/font]
For the most part for both types I pick all eggs and tray incubate them. I change the water in the tray every day or every other day to keep the scum off of the surface which inhibits oxygen exchange which kills the egg. I used freshly dechlorinated water, not tank water to avoid any extra bacterial or fungal contamination. The eggs are incubated at temperatures between 78 and 84 degrees where 80-82 being ideal. In the past my fishroom was always 78-80 so I could just set those trays on the back of an aquarium and watch them every day for hatched fry. Fry are immediately moved to a grow out tank of 5.5-10 gallon size. Large rainbowfish eggs take from 7 to perhaps 12 days to hatch. Remember the cooler it is, the slower this development. In the past I’ve observed that lengthy incubation periods due to cooler temperatures resulted in smaller and weaker fry that hatch out. In some cases they didn’t hatch out at all but for large rainbowfish that was relatively rare. When I made the switch from fluorescent T8 lights to LED T8 I noticed a big drop in the overall temperature of my room. This did cause more problems with the larger rainbowfish egg hatching and also exacerbated some of the problems I was having with hatching Pseudomugil eggs. For the larger rainbowfish eggs I was able to get things somewhat back on track by making sure that I closed the door to the fishroom during the winter months. My well insulated fishroom is heated from the central heating system by a single vent. Fry raising tanks on the top rows do have individual heaters. Often the trays were rested on the gutter light racks that contained the T8 LEDs so that they were at least 82 during the 10 hours that the lights were on and lower at night.
The Pseudomugil Hatching Problem
For the most part Pseudomugil were hatching out at 14 up to 21 days at my original higher temperature room. But after it got cooler the incubation times started taking a lot longer and for several of the species the eggs incubated so long they finally failed to hatch. When I did get one to hatch it was often so weak that the fry didn’t survive. The Pseudomugil I am currently working with are: ivantsoffi Kopi River, mellis, gertrudae Aru II, Species “Dekai”,signifer “Ross River”, cyanodorsalis, luminata (red neon), and reticulatus. I do especially like the reticulatus and I guess that’s why they give me the finger. They really are little and I’ve never gotten a photo that I’ve really liked but you can get an idea from these two shots.
It’s only one of a few blue-eyes that has a sort of orange/red egg and it’s quite big
I may have lost the ivantsoffi but have 6 fry coming up so that got me thinking that I really need to pay attention to these fish otherwise I’m going to lose all of them. The mellis and especially the reticulatus were taking so long that the egg would fungus or the fry would hatch out weak and die. I had to something so I sent an email off to “The Pseudomugil Whisperer”. My European friends know him well but North Americans might not know about Wim Heemskerk. When a new Pseudomugil hits the scene the collectors make sure it finds Wim because they know he can usually keep it going. I already knew I had a temperature control problem but he also said that I needed to avoid chlorine and chloramine removers. He said that these hardened the eggs making it tough for the fry to ever get out of the egg. Here I was every day or so added fresh dechlorinated water to the trays. Essentially I was adding more of the reducing chemical, Sodium thiosulfate, with every water change. So how to get rid of deadly chloramine so it wouldn’t kill my eggs was the next important question. If you only have chlorine in your water you only have to bubble it for a half day or so and it’s gone. This isn’t the case with chloramines though as they stay around for as long as a week in a clean bucket of bubbling water.
What I decided to do was take a 10 gallon size bare tank aquarium and fill up with fresh tap water. Then put a hang on back filter (HOB) on the tank that contained two cartridges loaded with top grade carbon. The carbon after a few passes will remove the chloramine. People have been using carbon block filters for years to remove chloramines from their water to fill their fish tanks so I expected it to work. I also have a chlorine test kit (http://inkmkr.com/Fish/ItemsForSale.html ) so I made sure the chloramine was removed before I started adding any eggs. I also added a heater so that I could make sure that I was incubating eggs at constant 81 degrees F. With the HOB filter going I just couldn’t float the trays as they would get under the outflow, fill up with water and dump the eggs. So I did a “Rube Goldberg” set up by placing 2 Penn Plax breeding mesh traps at the front of the tank. I then took four Dannon yogurt (Oikos) cups and cut out most of the bottom, leaving a small edge. I used GE silicon I to glue some fine mesh netting over the bottom of the cups. I took a loop of airline tubing and put it under the lip of the cup and used a piece of rigid airline to loop it. This helped keep the cup floating. It would probably work better with larger diameter tubing but I was using materials that I had on hand. Two of these cups fit into each breeding trap. All cups were marked and eggs were incubated in these cups.
See meshtrap incubator and hatchcups. The first cup is Ps. reticulatus and the second is Ps. gertrudae "Aru II"
Before adding any new eggs to the cups I would first treat them overnight with a very light solution of methylene blue. Any infertile eggs would be stained blue and removed before they could fungus and harm the fertile eggs. Every few days as fry hatched I would remove the “mini-incubator” and place another yogurt cup underneath it to keep water on the eggs. The fry were pulled out with a plastic eye-dropper and then acclimated to their grow-out tank.
If that’s just too much work for you then you can bend a few fine mesh nets and make egg holders that way too. I had 5 species of Pseudomugil eggs that I needed to incubate in this manner so I just bent a net, see fishnet incubator photo. Put a piece or two of gravel in the bottom to hold down the bottom of the net.
I should also add that Mark Nicholson has done something similar and has had much success with hatching and raising the Pseudomugils that he has been keeping.
A few things I’ve noticed that since I’ve been hyper motivated to up my Pseudomugil breeding setup.
1) Good water changes are important. Fifty percent changes at least once a week or more is helpful in getting egg production. My breeding setups are 10 gallon tanks with 2 to 6 pair of Pseudomugil per tank. Breeding tank temps for mellis, “Dekai”, Aru II, and reticulatus is 76 F. The temperature for luminatus is 72 F as it’s on a lower rack. Most of the Pseudomugils are getting a very healthy dose of live baby brine shrimp. Some of them eat frozen adult brine shrimp and some are eating frozen “Cyclopese”. When available feeding a bit of chopped live blackworms is an extra treat.
2) Incubation of reticulatus eggs at 81 degrees greatly speeds up the incubation times. It is closer to 10 days to two weeks now instead of 21 plus days. The fish that hatch out are quite large and robust. They are eating live baby brine shrimp immediately. Providing a steady incubation temperature also speeds up the incubation times for the other fish eggs.
3) When putting the reticulatus eggs back in the incubation bath I pull the mesh yogurt container completely out of the water so that the eggs are exposed to air for a few seconds. I was originally trying to flush some of the scum that had gotten into the container out but this seems to help hatch the fry. If I have eyed up eggs in the container I can almost count on some of them hatching within 15 minutes after this treatment. I kind of knew about this with my cyanodorsalis tray incubation methods as I would always get a bunch of fry hatching out a few minutes after draining and refilling the tray.
I’m pretty sure though that NOT adding a dechlor to the hatching water was the big difference. So if you are having troubles hatching Pseudomugils find a way to remove the chlorine/chloramine from your water w/o having to resort to using a dechlorinator. Carbon will remove it and if you don’t have a test kit let it run for 24 hours or so to be sure. Again I want to thank Wim for this suggestion. Chlorine remover had never been a problem in the past in my hands for hatching any egg so this was something new for me. If you’ve been having problems hatching Pseudomugil give this method a try and I think you will also be successful.
[/b][/font]
[/font]
