The Oto Journal

Friends, I can honestly say in a year and a half of doing this, I have never seen anything of likes of what is in the holding tank. Never. I know Mama Oto over in the main tank has had her share of spawns but it just doesn't compare. I'd be willing to bet that there were at least (3) females involved with this spawn session. Absolutely no way of counting the eggs. There are just that many. And, they are litterally everywhere to include the sand! Yes, you read right, they are even laid on the sand!

There are quite a few non-viable eggs and most of those are the ones on the substrate. However, there are still a ton on the sand bed that are good. It seems that almost every plant has eggs on them. No eggs on the glass or driftwood though which I find surprising in that they are on the sand. Very odd.

I'm also wondering if the amount of non-viable ones could be partially my fault as I walked in on them while the spawn was in progress. Just a hunch. I snapped off quite a few shots and getting ready to go through them and see what comes out. There's a bit of current going through the tank due to water level so we'll see what turns out.

Stand by....

 

Ok...here are some shots from today:

Here's some eggs on a couple of small crypt plants:




Eggs on the sand (yellow balls):


And here is a shot of newly hatched fry with new eggs below:

 

Just got back from removing non viable from the leaves. Counted just over (60) on the ground. There were about (12) on leaves. The light went out before I could suck them out but that will be ok until tomorrow. The Java Fern is just littered with eggs. All up in there.

 

Pretty busy day seperating good eggs from bad. Some of the eggs were non-viable and started fuzzing up. Problem is, they were next to good eggs. Had to get them seperated. Some were pretty easy as I just took a needle and was able thread it through the good and bad and then seperate.

Others were a little more difficult. I would up removing the group of eggs which were mostly groups of three with one bad egg. I would scrape them off where they would fall on the ground. Then, using a dosing syringe, suck them out and place them in a lid with water. Then using two needles would seperate them. The good eggs were placed back in the tank.

Here's and example:


What was very interesting, is the second group that I seperated, when the eggs were released back into the tank, they were hatching. Way kewl! One egg got to about two inches from the substrate when the fry guy broke loose and swam to a near by leaf of a sag.

I would probably have to say it's about 50/50 from good to bad. There are fry guys all over the tank and eggs still waiting to hatch. I'm still astonished as to how many total eggs there are in this tank. I think tomorrow I'll be able to start removing all the bad ones.

Here's a few more shots from today:

This is a pretty good developmental shot:


And a couple of new fry guys:

 

Thanks.

The syringe or dosing dropper or what ever you want to call it, ;o) , has nice big opening. It's one of those 5ml dosing dropper thingies that you can get at Wal-Mart for kiddie meds. Has came in very handy and the opening is just the right size for retrieving eggs and small fry. Good point on the turkey baster too. I've tried them before but found just too bulky to try and manuever around in the tank.

 

Nah..much bigger...we'll call it a minature turkey baster...how's that?

 

The Oto Journal - Update 26-Nov-2010

Hope everyone had a nice Thanksgiving. Morning check of things was promising and yet strange at the same time.

Yet another spawn taking place right now in the holding tank. [scratches head]. Two females engaged in this one that I observed. Here's the interesting part of it. While the tank parms are showing ok, the tank itself is not all the great. Zucchini that was placed in the tank two days ago has fuzzed over and of course it's a bit on the messy side with the feeding of the new fry. Found a few roaming around this morning, so at there are some survivors from last spawn.

I'm still going to do a large, well...25% water change today. Hopefully won't disrupt things too much. There are still some bad eggs in there from last spawn that I wanted to get cleaned out.

That's the good thing about research. Just when you think you have a grasp on things...they can change in the blink of an eye. ;o)

 

Looks like I'll start moving some of the juvies over the holding tank today. They are pretty nice sized at this point. Did a 25% water change in the tank yesterday. Didn't see any of the eggs this morning. Interesting. I'm starting to wonder if there may be some snarfage going on in there.

 

Another spawn in the holding tank. And as the pattern goes with the past few spawns....more non-viable eggs. Can't quite figure this one out. {scratches head}. Removed (8) bad eggs. Hopefully I won't find any tomorrow but that seems unlikely.

Still need to remove the juvies from the main tank. I have to at least thin them out this weekend regardless.

 

As expected, I found more non-viable eggs. Hmmmmm....puzzleing. I will be doing a water change and some cleaning in there tomorrow. Have to figure out a time when I can split the Java Fern. I'll make a big swing at when the fry allow.

My plan is to pull the big fern, replace with a smaller one and add a snippet of 'Trident' as well. Then I'll add some additional stems for more grazing area.

 

Could be something to consider. However, not all the eggs go sour during the spawn. Just a majority of them. This only started the last few spawns. Hopefully they will snap out of it. But then again, I'm getting ready to move another large batch into the tank so the spawning may just stop all together for a spell. With winter setting in, I'll have to try and find homes locally for this group to avoid shipping under winter conditions.

 

Just let me know. Didn't you get some plants from me not too long ago? CapitalOne right?

 

Thought so. Glad they are doing well for ya.