Gravel Vacuuming and Fish Eggs

[Marc]

I was wondering if anyone has tried gravel vacuuming a community tank where they have tetras or other egg scatterers and then just putting the gravel vacuumed water in a tub, bucket or other tank to see if any hatched over a few days.

I've seen neon tetras and other species spawn in my community tank and know they have zero chance of hatching and survivng all the hungry mouths. I just wondered if anyone else has tried to salvage unseen eggs. I'm not sure the eggs would survive with all the mulm though.

[Brian]

Yes I have done this and yes a few times I found a couple eggs and a few have hatched over the years.   Once in a while  I would find some fry.  

[Guppysnail]

I find it easier to use a small terracotta pot liner with a bit of gravel and a bushy plant like moss on top. I make it an attractive place to scatter the eggs then pick the entire thing up.  My hatch rate is good when I do this for my CPD.  

Edited May 6, 2022 by Guppysnail

[Marc]

On 5/6/2022 at 4:17 AM, Guppysnail said:

I find it easier to use a small terracotta pot liner with a bit of gravel and a bushy plant like moss on top. I make it an attractive place to scatter the eggs then pick the entire thing up.  My hatch rate is good when I do this for my CPD.  

Yeah, I breed CPDs regularly and I've tried the same method a couple of times with tetras to no avail. I just found two baby fry in a gravel vac bucket, not sure what they are yet. Hope I can grow them up to find out. It's definitely not an efficient way to do it but I thought I would give it a try.