Albino Cory Eggs! What to do?!?!?

BridgieB

Hi all! I would very much appreciate your advice!!!!

Yesterday morning i noticed 4 separate batches of egg's in my 10 gallon which housed 3 zebra danio's, 3 albino cory's and a dwarf gourami. When i got home from work later in the day i started researching and found that they are cory egg's!!!!! (So excited) I also read that the parents will eat the egg's and fry, so i moved everybody into my larger community tank. Now the tank is empty besides the gravel at the bottom.

I have spent hours now here at the computer trying to figure out what to do. I did a 20% water change, put my air stone so that it goes over the egg's and i got a mesh bag to put over the filter stem. I do not have a heater in this tank at this time and i'm also kinda broke atm, the temp is around 67, i do not know if this is an issue or not. I do have a breeder container floaty thing, and i see everywhere people scrape the egg's off and move them, but i am wondering do i have to do that being no one else is in the tank? I'm also not really comfortable with that, bc i am afraid i may hurt them . I would love nothing more then to welcome new babe cory's into the family!

Most of the egg's are turning an yellow color, when i first saw them some they looked clear and white. Some egg's i see have a white spot and i understand those are not good, there is very few like that most are changing.

I question what else i can do at this point? Leave them be? Scrape them off and put them in my floater and move them to my larger heated community tank?

I also heard that when a cory pair form's they mate for life, is this true?

Help, Help, i don't know what to do!!!!!!!

BridgieB

I checked the egg's this morning the bad one's look to maybe have some fungus, all around they are not looking as good as yesterday. This is the 3rd day that i'm aware they are there.

I'm still not sure what to do.......

Thoth

Viable/good cory eggs will get darker in color as the fry grows within. A completely white egg or more white that the other eggs means that it has died or was never fertilized. If you can get to the white eggs, I would remove the white eggs that you can get to with out damaging good eggs. You want to remove them so the fungi that grows on them does not spread to the good eggs.

The top three eggs in a row on the left side... the bottom one looks white and appears to be unfertilized.


Pic from:
View topic - how to tell if eggs are in infertile


I would get a heater as soon as you can. Keeping most tropical fish with out one is asking for problems. However, a drop in temperature is what triggered your cories to breed.

The fry will be so small, that you will unlikely see most of them for weeks. I would suggest moving them into the breeding container before they hatch so you can watch them and feed them as needed. I use a metal pie slice spatula to move the eggs because it has a rounded edge. With the thousand eggs I have transfer, I have only destroyed a dozen or so; The eggs are stronger than you think.

Cories do not pair up and will mate with many fish in one spawning.

BridgieB

Thank you Thoth for your advice.....

Exactly how do i scrape these egg's off? I'm guessing i need to drain the water so they don't float off as i scrape them.....

BridgieB

ok i got a net and put it right under where i was scraping, some floated off but i got most of them. However this patch has alot of white and alot that are going bad. When i scraped them they clustered and stuck together. So now i am wondering how do i get them unclustered??

Romad

Do you have an eyedropper on hand? Maybe you can remove the white ones with that and leave the others??

Thoth

I try to scrape them off one at a time when possible. Hold a net in one hand and the scraping device in your other; you will miss a few. Dont worry about them clustering, your eggs should be hatching soon. Clustering is only a problem when it is soon after they are laid and the there is a problem with fungi. This makes it easier for a fungus to spread.

I have tried an eye dropper and it will not pull them off of the glass; not enough suction. The eggs are too sticky.

The eggs will hatch anywhere from 3 to 5 days after they are laid. They will have a fat looking belly when they hatch. This is their egg sac and will provide food for them for the first couple of days. When the sac shrinks, this is when you will need to start feeding them; usually the second full day. The easiest thing to do is crumbly up flake food as small as you can.

Doing frequent water changes during this time will improve fry survivability. Make sure you use dechlorinator. If you do not have any, it maybe better to not do any water changes.

BridgieB

I did have an eye dropper but recently moved and i cannot locate it at this time

The reason i was worried about the cluster is bc it was a cluster of bad and good egg's so i was worried about the fungus spreading. What i did was scrape that one patch of the glass and put them in my floater. Then i took a tube from my air pump and blew them around and around and around (lol) until i could break the cluster's with air....... then i spent a long time trying to pick out bad egg's, there is still a few i could not get. Now i have a large patch behind my filter and i don't know i already have some separated i would hate to dump more in and keep sorting it would take me all night....... I also do not see it possible to pick them off one by one. At this time i don't know if i'm gonna keep scraping and sorting or just leave the rest be......

BridgieB

Oh i have been changing the water a lil each day and yes i have a dechlorinator!

BridgieB

Thinks i'm gonna cry.........

I added water today so i added stress coat and stress zyme and now most of my good egg's are turning white........

I don't know if it was that or if i had something on my hands when messing around in the tank....

It's been a bad week for me and these egg's were my highlight! Holding my breath that a few i had saved and put in my floater that still look okay hatch.... right now i'm only seeing maybe about 5 good ones when i had like 50 earlier.....