Receiving Annual Eggs
I have found that these days with aging eyesight I find it difficult to see the developed eggs amongst the peat, especially with South American Annuals, so I have adapted the following procedure in order to keep a careful eye on developing eggs.
When packets of eggs are collected and kept in my new fishroom, then I get a consistent development and can time quite accurately when to wet the peat. Though with purchased eggs, especially from overseas, when the package has been subjected to a slight pressure reduction in flight, then the eggs can be ready to hatch in a lot less time than normal.
When packets of eggs are collected and kept in my new fishroom, then I get a consistent development and can time quite accurately when to wet the peat. Though with purchased eggs, especially from overseas, when the package has been subjected to a slight pressure reduction in flight, then the eggs can be ready to hatch in a lot less time than normal.
To reduce postage costs the eggs are transported in only small amounts of peat. Now this is not enough for long term storage, so more peat/coir needs to be added using a new bag, or alternatively.
I have started using small plastic containers for all my purchased eggs, though I still use bags (for convenience) for my own collections. The container is partially filled with a mix of peat/coir, with half of the container nearly empty, and the other half filled nearly to the top with a relatively flat surface. The purchased eggs/peat are placed on a white surface, and normally I use a piece of kitchen towel for this, as it makes seeing the eggs easier.
I then start to sift through the peat and collect as many eggs that I can see and place them onto the flat surface in the container. Once I have collected as many eggs as possible the remaining peat is placed into the nearly empty half of the container. This makes checking the eggs very easy, and when they are ready to hatch then all or part of the contents can be wet. For wetting I use my normal hard tapwater, to which some salt has been added in order to stop velvet disease occurring in my fish, especially Nothos. When it happens to young fry then the whole batch can be lost before noticing that there is a problem. Thankfully these days with this preventive measure I have not seen velvet in my new fishroom at all.
Finally the container is correctly labelled, and then I only need to check on a regular basis for the eggs to be "eyed-up".