dying as they hatch

[hullfishman]

hi guys as some of you may be aware i have a breeding group of L066 which constantly boot the eggs out of the cave which leaves me to raise them myself. All of the eggs looked perfect until last night as they started to hatch, i have noticed that the fry are struggling the escape the egg case and most of them are now dead half way out of the eggs, i have only 1 out of a big ball of eggs that has managed to break free and now it seem that fungus is rapidly spreading through what eggs are still alive. i wish i knew what to do. can anyone help me with this because its just getting a little frustrating now.
thanks for any help
dave

 

[816johnv]

i had the same problem last week with a L182 spawn i now have 1 fry left from over 100 eggs.... i was unsure what it was i thought it might of been something to do with the fact i was treating the tank with melafix and Primafix but i dont think it was

Sorry i cant help but would love to know if there is something causing this

 

[Irene0100]

oh dear.
tell us more about the tank parameters and the fish diet. maybe they are making eggs with too hard a skin. sometimes I get the opposite, the eggs all break before they can hatch because the skin is too thin!

 

[thegeeman]

I have had simillar experiences but it tends to be with the first few spawns. Maybe they werent viable which is why the male rejected them. Do you have more than one male? and does he just spawn with the same female?. I had a male 400 that spawned with several females and I never got them past the first few days once they hatched. I swopped him with another male and never got any problems after that.

Fingers crossed for you mate

Cheers

thegeeman

 

[Marsbar]

I have the same problem with my pleco's, i think the water is to hard for the eggs to hatch properly. I have set up a tank with a mix of RO water to see if I can increase my success rate, my L134 spawned in there last week but the male ate them before i took them out:wb:

 

[Mark]

hard water

You guys in Hull could be receiving water from the chalk head-waters of the West Beck, north of Hull, or groundwater from the chalk aquifers under the East Riding. Both of these sources could be supplying excessivley hard water which could be making it difficult for the fry to escape from the hard egg cases.

Its a common problem with some cory species, that they need soft (acidic?) water for the fry to hatch succesfully. I'm not going to go into a discussion about the relationship between hardness and pH but soft acidic water is better for egg hatching.

Cheers,
Mark.