Egg Fungus

[CJs Aquatics]

So, I pulled some eggs too soon, I’ve never hatched eggs myself but I think this will be a good learning experience. My question is, how do I keep them from going bad from fungus? Currently I have the cave with the eggs in it in a ziss breeder box in a more established tank with the airstone running in front of the cave entrance and some catappa leaves in it as well. I’m concerned since the bubbles are going up that it’s not creating enough flow going over the eggs to keep them from getting fungus, anyone have any better methods? 

[nabokovfan87]

you can adjust that ziss ever so slightly.  The goal is that you want the eggs to have circulation around them.  If you have some shrimp it is alleged that most neocaridina will groom the eggs for you. 

Cross your fingers. It happens.

The best defense is to pull bad eggs as they show up, then to go ahead and spread them out as best you can to improve circulation (and reduce spread of fungus).

[CJs Aquatics]

@nabokovfan87 can you describe what you mean by adjusting the ziss? I have shrimp available I was wary of putting any in the box bc I’ve heard they eat eggs I’ve also heard they clean them so I wasn’t sure which way was safest. The eggs are red lizard whiptails again, wanted to try to get a better survivability rate as well as be able to isolate them but pulled the cave at the egg stage and the male left. That being said I was Ill prepared but wanted to still try to hatch them I’ve heard 

-shrimp

-peroxide

-leaves/ botanicals 

- methylene blue 

- flow
- tumblers 

I honestly can admit idk what I’m doing lol 

[nabokovfan87]

I think the one you have is the breeder box.  You would just spread the eggs out as best you can and then check on things as they change day to day.  The ziss breeder box should come with an airstone which you would adjust up prior to the eggs hatching, then turn it down once you have fry.
 

 

On 4/30/2023 at 3:32 PM, CJs Aquatics said:

-shrimp

-peroxide

-leaves/ botanicals 

- methylene blue 

- flow
- tumblers 

leaves (IAL/Catappa leaves) and botanicals would be beneficial as they are used to treat fungal issues.

Methylene blue is the common one, but I tried it and still had fungus develop on the eggs.  It could've been algae as well.  It's a method, but not necessarily a guarantee.  I would however suggest doing baths as a method.  that might provide a better result.  Especially in a breeder box you can easily dip the eggs for a few minutes each day.

In terms of flow /circulation you can see bentley's video above to get a visual on specifically how to setup the tumbler.  You want it to gently wiggle the eggs, which should prevent the fungus.

Tumblers allow you to control the circulation / movement above using that specific tactic.

[CJs Aquatics]

I suppose step one would be removing the eggs from there cave and spreading them in the breeder box 😅

[Comradovich]

I've had good luck recently with methylene blue. I had some spawns of pitbull plecos. First two batches I went a bit light on the MB, only 7 out of 60 hatched for me with fungus really taking over most of the spawn. (This was separated out individually in a breeder box, mind you). Next batch I probably overdid it with a shade darker than Mountain Berry Powerade. It was only a nine egg spawn, so I really wanted to get most of them going. All nine hatched. Just dipped them in a specimen cup full of MB while I collected them up. Longest dip in there was probably five or so minutes? Then I split them up again and transferred to the breeder box. Eggs were slightly blue tinted by the time they hit the box, so I know the shells absorbed some of the dye. First batches lacked this tint, so maybe that was my point of failure.

Dunno if that helps. I was also doing a pimafix treatment in the main tank at the same time as the MB, so maybe a combo was what did it for me by the last batch.

[AllFishNoBrakes]

Methylene Blue is my go to. It won’t stop non-fertilized eggs from fungusing, but it will definitely stop the fungus spreading to fertile eggs. 
 

For this reason, I hatch my Angel eggs in a 2 gallon tank and use Methylene Blue. For Cory eggs, I use a Ziss tumbler and try to spread the eggs around the tumbler so the fungus can’t reach the other fertile eggs. 

[CJs Aquatics]

Update: The eggs grew fungus so I split them into 2 different places, I figure they are no good but I put some in with shrimp we will see what happens, lessons learned anyway so not a total loss