Hard Lesson

[Cheryl P.]

UGH!  My silver dollars spawned on Wednesday and I was able to collect hundreds of eggs and plopped them in an egg tumbler.  It's the first time using the tumbler but everything was looking good.  Last night I forgot to sort out any bad eggs.

This morning I woke up to a moldy mess!  It seems that the screen on the Ziss tumbler got clogged up with moldy eggs and stopped tumbling.  No bueno.  Most of the eggs were a total loss but I did find a handful that looked decent and had already started to hatch.  I'm hoping they make it.

You better believe I will never go to bed before checking the eggs again! 😔

[Fish Folk]

It can be hard to win no matter what. Eggs fungus over quickly in tank water -- especially if they're not properly fertilized. I use either H2O2 (over the counter 3% Hydrogen peroxide) or Methylene Blue to combat fungus. In a flow-through tumbler, that can prove tricky.

Hope you get enough fry going to forget your troubles here!

[tolstoy21]

@Cheryl P. Unfortunately, sometimes, experience is the best teacher.  I make similar mistakes the first time I try something new. Never fun, but if they spawned once for you, chances are you'll get many more chances to perfect things.

[Cheryl P.]

@Fish FolkI do have methylene blue but I read it can crash a cycle so I haven't used it yet. Is it best to move the eggs into a different tank?  I just assumed that the water they were spawned in would be best for them. Should I not use a tumbler?  I've not heard of using peroxide. So many questions!  The good thing is that they spawn easily in my 220g so as long as I'm faster collecing eggs than the other fish I'll have another chance. I'll get it right one of these days. 

[Fish Folk]

I like to build little DIY floating flow-through containers…

I use 1 ml H2O2 every 12 hrs. for 3x doses. (e.g. wvening / morning / evening — done). I don’t squirt directly onto the eggs, just generally in the container. With flow-through, you probably wouldn’t hurt anything if you used a couple mls.

Same plan for M-blue. I’ve never had it crash my cycle.

[Cheryl P.]

On 8/12/2022 at 8:56 AM, Fish Folk said:

I like to build little DIY floating flow-through containers…

Oh man, I totally forgot about those!  I even commented on that thread 🙊

It looks like I need to go shopping for some containers.  I have everything else I need for the setup.

I'm thinking the people that had M-blue crash the cycle used it in the whole tank.  I didn't know you could just dose it (or H2O2) a few times in small amounts.  So much good info.  Thanks a ton!

[nabokovfan87]

On 8/12/2022 at 4:47 AM, Cheryl P. said:

UGH!  My silver dollars spawned on Wednesday and I was able to collect hundreds of eggs and plopped them in an egg tumbler.  It's the first time using the tumbler but everything was looking good.  Last night I forgot to sort out any bad eggs.

This morning I woke up to a moldy mess!  It seems that the screen on the Ziss tumbler got clogged up with moldy eggs and stopped tumbling.  No bueno.  Most of the eggs were a total loss but I did find a handful that looked decent and had already started to hatch.  I'm hoping they make it.

You better believe I will never go to bed before checking the eggs again! 😔

I haven't used mine yet.  *Hopefully soon*

I appreciate your time posting this and it's always so difficult doing something unknown to me in the hobby.  Information is either non-existent or there's 5000 ways to do a simple task.  I will take your technique and advice to heart though!

Hopefully they spawn again for you soon 🙂