Who laid the eggs?

[colesea]

Okay, I just turned on the light for my tank, and lo an' behold, there are -eggs- in my tank. At least, I think they're eggs. They're roundish, in a cluster (actually I've found several clusters; one on the filter intake tube, small one on the front pane of glass, and one good sized one on the tip of a silk plant. I haven't seen others), white mucus with opaque white center. I didn't think I had anything big enough to spawn in that tank.  

Okay, I'm completely at a loss. I don't know who would lay eggs in my tank. I know who it can't be, so here is the population, and perhaps you all can help me narrow it down.

5 bloodfin tetras
3 sunset thicklip gourmis (2 female, 1 male, not them no bubble nest seen)
3 emerald green cory cats (I believe all 3 female)
3 black skirt (widow) tetras
2 longfin blue danios (not them, broadcast spawners, and I think both are female)
1 green tiger barb (definately not it)
1 clown pleco (certainly couldn't be, could it?)
1 blue gourmi (definately female and not her)
1 sun cat (certainly not that either)
1 white skirt tetra

My guess is it is probably bloodfin tetra, since I've more likely got a ratio of male to female for breeding. The eggs look whitish, so if they're not eaten up by tomorrow, I'll probably have to take them out because they've probably got fungus. Nothing is seeming to take care of them, which makes me more inclined to think they're tetras. I have no clue if they're viable or not.

Anybody else have a guess?
~~Colesea

[Joecavi00]

Do you have snail if i'm not wrong.... it could be snails... i think those tetra's are egg skattering.

[colesea]

No, these are definately not snail eggs. Snail eggs are laid in a gelatenous clump.  I know what the eggs of my snails look like, I wouldn't have freaked over that. Nope, these are not snail eggs, they're too big, they're laid individualized although in a clutch, and they look like fish eggs. I know what fish eggs look like, and these are definately too big to be laid by any of the snails I have (some of them are the size of my snails!<G&gt.  

I don't think they were fertilized, they're turning white and opaque, which I know can be egg fungus. I don't have proper spawning conditions for any of my fish as far as I know *shrug*. I know some species of tetras are scatterers (probably the bloodfin), but I thought others, perhaps the black skirts, did lay adhesive eggs, even if they did not tend nest.

Ahh, I wish they were fertile, then I'd know for sure.  Bet they're some weird bloodfin/barb cross, the green tiger barb I have always schools with the bloodfin.
~~Colesea

[eseow]

Not sure what eggs are, possible cory or tetras. You could place eggs in tap water for 24 hours IF, you wanted to hatch eggs. Clorine in tap water would kill off fungus in that time, actually bleach would keep it safe also for about 12 hours. Anyway, thats from my local fish wholesaler, which I know is true. I hatched silver tip tetras, 6 days after running bleach through tank system for 8 hours to kill gill fluke outbreak, for sterilization purposes. I never knew eggs where in tank till fry appeared at surface a few days later. ;D

[wayne]

Clusters of largish eggs stuck to leaves glass etc. - sounds like the corys to me - how did you sex them?  Did you do anything like a water change , crank up the filtration or drop the temperature - all good things for corys?
 I thought you worked in a shop - check out the textbook there.  Tetra eggs are pretty tiny, and gouramis are all bubblenest breeders.
 What's this stuff with bleach?  What do you mean?  Clean water is one thing but ....

[colesea]

Yeah, I wouldn't use chlorine at all either...I've seen what chlorine does to fish eggs. I'm not worried about the fungus. Let the fish eat them, I'm really not that serious about breeding or raising fry. Besides, I don't dechlorinate my water anyway. So long as it don't smell like a swimming pool in the bucket from the tap, I use it. (I'm a really "bad" fish mommy<G&gt.

But it could possibly be cories.  The reason I thought they were all female was because they always looked plump, like they were retaining eggs.  The way a tetra or female gourmai get gravid and look plump just behind the pecs when seen from a head on view. I couldn't possibly tell if the cories were  gravid or very well fed<G> but since the plumpness stayed even after a two day fast, I figured, had to be gravid.

All three started to plump up just as the weather change. I don't have a heated tank, so perhaps the daily temp fluctuations were enough, since last week was pretty much full of spring storms and drastic day/night temp differerances. I haven't done a waterchange or anything else to the filter or tank for at least two weeks.

I did read somewhere that cories tend to breed right around now, during the spring storm season, and one of the ways breeders tell when cories are ready to spawn is if there is to be a storm the next day or something *shrug*.

I do work at a shop, but breeding has never been my thing so I haven't done much research into it. I've been looking at books, but most say only of care for adults and nothing about eggs, breeding, or fry (except livebearers). The books at the shop are kinda beginner books. But I've been on PlanetCatfish.com enough (I think that's where I read that raind thing), and since most folk here agree it could most likely be the cories, I'll look into them more rather than drain my already exhasted brainpower on twenty different species of fish. <G>
~~Colesea

[wayne]

Sorry to sound harsh.  Planet catfish is a good resource - different cories lay different numbers of eggs, from singles  up to 30 at a go, but I think raising them is all pretty similar.
 Typical tricks to encourage cories spawning are dropping the water temp to 18 -20C, dropping the water depth and cranking up water flow, all to simulate rainy weather so if you've been having storms that's got to help.
 Will you try to raise them - I hope so.  I believe a guy called Ian Fuller contributes to planetcat and he seems to be a very good resource for cories - see what he suggests for care.  You should check out the biotope info for cories (and apisto's, similar locations) too - it's pretty interesting, and possibly not what you think.

[colesea]

yup, it is definately the cories, I caught them at their orgie this morning. Eggs, eggs everywhere! I just did a 6gallon water change on the tank (it's 20), and added cool fresh water, but I truely don't know the viability of the eggs. This has to be their first spawn, and they are only half an inch at most in length.

Planet Catfish rocks. It helped me identify my -Corydoras sterbai- when I had them, and IDed my golden red tail cat.  If the sterbai were spawing, that may be a different story<G>.

Unfortunately I don't have any extra tanks to put eggs in, and the silly cories decided to plaster the majority of the eggs over the glass so I can't remove them. Even if they are viable and do hatch, I'm sure their tankmates would have a feast. The tank is very well decorated, so perhaps some would live. This is the first time I've ever had non cichlid fish spawn on me. It's soo cool.

I'll keep everyone updated, supposedly the eggs hatch in three to four days, so we'll know at the end of the week if I have baby cories or not<G>.
~~Colesea

[eseow]

As for tap water or bleach with fish eggs, it depends on how much 1, and for how long 2.  Tap water will prevent algae or fungus on eggs, if placed there for 24 hours. If bleach is used, about 1-2 tablespoons per 10 gallons, I would only keep it there for 4-5 hours. Now my 25 gallon tank, was bleached for 8 hours, with pump running, then ran for 18 hours, on tap water after draining bleach water. Then declorinated, drained again, fiiled with new water, declorinated & planted. 24 hours later 2 giant danios placed in tank for testing-tank ok. 5 days later 7 fish added, fish ok. 2 days from that, baby fry swimming on surface. I thought it was danios, wrong. They happened to be Silter Tip tetras. Those died 2 days before tank was cleaned. So the eggs had to be in substrate (sand), which went through the bleaching process. Obviously, the eggs survived bleach. My local fish wholesaler told me that he has used clorine to keep eggs from catching fungus, and sure enough, it did in my tank. Only 2 fry survived since then, I was able to get infuseria ready in time for fry. They doing well now in tank. I just released one from breeder net today. The other will stay in till he is bigger. And whats funny is, I didn't even try breeding fish, but they did, I now I have 2 Silver tip tetras to replace the ones that died.

[spacebrat]

I looked at my tank today, I am pretty new to it, and I saw a bunch of silver ball things on one of my plants. Are those eggs? I have
2 Bloodfin tetras
2 corys
1 glo lite tetra
1 black neon tetra
1 red eye tetra
I also have no clue who is female and who is male. A lot of them seem to hang out by my filter. Can someone help me?