Need some help figuring out how to get peacock gudgeon eggs from tank

[PattysAquatics]

Hello Nerms, 

I have a pair of peacock gudgeon in a 20 long and they keep breeding but the male keeps eating the eggs after days of caring for them. I know this is common but I wanted to give them a while to see if they would by chance let them live. Unfortunately it hasn’t happened so I want to try removing them. The problem is the male decided his breeding spot would be a nook on top of my big piece of mopani wood. I have a pleco cave and piece of pvc in tank hoping they would breed in there but that apparently would be to convenient for me . So if you are familiar with peacock gudgeon eggs the female has them on like a spider web type material . So what I did today was used a long wood skewer and tried to scrape them off but they did not stick to the wood so I had a pipe cleaning brush with plastic bristles and tried that and I got a few of the eggs off with it so I put that in a Aquarium co op specimen container with water on the inside of the tank with an airline with just a slow drip of air for circulation on the eggs. Does anyone have a better idea of getting the eggs out that doesn’t involve removing the wood? Any suggestions would be appreciated 

[CalmedByFish]

Maybe you could stick the end of a large syringe near the eggs, pull the plunger back slowly, and see what you get. (That works for me to pick up fallen medaka eggs, but I can see the eggs when I do it.) A turkey baster might be easier to buy than a syringe.

[Tihshho]

Best thing you can do IME is place a few 3" long sections of 1/2" ID PVC. From there when they spawn and the male is guarding the clutch of eggs, you can remove the tube and the male will slide out. Don't cap either ends. From there, I angle the PVC with a stone and feed a bit of air from the base of the tube so there is constant water flow going through the tube. Doing that has provided me the best hatch rates.  

[nabokovfan87]

On 5/1/2022 at 12:45 PM, Grizzly said:

I have a pair of peacock gudgeon in a 20 long and they keep breeding but the male keeps eating the eggs after days of caring for them.

Something Dean said about his rams/angels (pretty sure rams), but they will eventually learn to not eat the eggs. Give them a few attempts and then try other methods.  In his eyes, it's better for the parents to care for the eggs. Entirely up to how you wish to run it, but just giving you that bit of advice.  It's something I have done for my breeding projects.

[tolstoy21]

Dan's fish just posted a video on removing gudgeon eggs from a tank the other day. The eggs were laid on glass, not wood. But maybe this can give you some indication of how you might accomplish the task.

 

[SJ fishing]

Mine always lay eggs in 1/2” pvc pipes, with a cap on 1 end.  Once I can see eyes in the eggs I pull them out with a pipette (cut the tip so the opening is bigger) and put them in an egg tumbler.  Once hatched I move them to a breeder box.  Maybe remove the wood and see if they will try the pipe.  I also keep 3 or 4 pieces of pipe and move them after a spawn as they seem to like to try new locations.

The fry need small food like golden pearls for 4-5 days until big enough to eat baby brine shrimp 

[Fish Folk]

Advanced move:

Move out the adults. Leave the eggs. 

😎

[PattysAquatics]

@SJ fishing

i put a 1/2 piece of pvc in the exact spot of the log they keep breeding on in hopes they would go in it but decided to squeeze right behind it and do it on the log like usual lol. I scraped a few of the eggs off last batch with a pipe cleaner and put it above an air line and they hatched in a 2.5 gallon I bought so I scraped a large portion of these and am currently doing the same thing. I don’t want to remove the log cause it takes up almost half the tank . 
@Fish Folki thought of that but don’t have extra tanks to place them. At least not any it would be easy to get them back out of 

I think I will get a few more pvc pipe caves made and keep trying to block their current breeding spot in hopes they go into a cave. 

[SJ fishing]

On 5/9/2022 at 12:55 PM, Grizzly said:

@SJ fishing

i put a 1/2 piece of pvc in the exact spot of the log they keep breeding on in hopes they would go in it but decided to squeeze right behind it and do it on the log like usual lol. I scraped a few of the eggs off last batch with a pipe cleaner and put it above an air line and they hatched in a 2.5 gallon I bought so I scraped a large portion of these and am currently doing the same thing. I don’t want to remove the log cause it takes up almost half the tank . 
@Fish Folki thought of that but don’t have extra tanks to place them. At least not any it would be easy to get them back out of 

I think I will get a few more pvc pipe caves made and keep trying to block their current breeding spot in hopes they go into a cave. 

Hopefully that works for you!  And in the meantime you are still getting some fry which awesome 

[PattysAquatics]

Well my pvc trick worked this time . Got them to breed in it by sticking in in the woods crevice they were breeding in. So I will pull them in a couple days . I have a 2.5 gallon with probably 20 fry from the last 2 spawns that I scraped some off the log with the pipe cleaner. 🥳

 

Edited May 16, 2022 by Grizzly

[Tihshho]

When you pull the tube, you can just angle it in a hatching container/tank and let air run through it from either an airstone or a weighted line. I'm actually in the process of developing a 'tumbler' of sorts for species that breed in tubes that us hobbyists pull. 

[Brian]

At time I would place the pvc spawning tube inside my egg tumbles I used for my African cichlids.  Same principle I guess….

[Tihshho]

On 5/16/2022 at 9:45 AM, Brian said:

At time I would place the pvc spawning tube inside my egg tumbles I used for my African cichlids.  Same principle I guess….

Great idea, but I don't have a tumbler. A vertical tube in tumbler means I can't periodically look in the tube without getting in there and pulling the tube to check it which will disturb the eggs.