Once
your Oscars have laid their eggs they should settle down to look after them.
One or both fish will guard the eggs fanning them with their fins to ensure
that fresh oxygenated water is constantly moving across the eggs to prevent
the eggs form fungusing You will occasionally see the fish move their eyes as
they look down at the eggs. Unbelievably they will normally remove the infertile
eggs picking them out when they are surrounded by fertile eggs. When they are
first laid the eggs are milky white but as they age the fertile ones will turn
brownish in colour as the egg yolk develops. The eggs should be kept at a temperature
between 78-82 degrees. At this temperature they will hatch in 72 hours. If the
temperature is higher than they will hatch quicker than this but there is no
advantage. Nature obviously has a reason why it takes 72 hours so who are we
to mess around with this. Any infertile eggs will remain the milky white colour.
It may be that your pair will settle down to look after the eggs together but
sometimes one of the fish may drive the other away from the eggs. If this happens
then it is more likely that the Oscar left guarding the eggs will eat them.
Presumably it will see the other fish as a threat to the eggs and wont want
to waste all of its energy driving off the other fish. The big question when
you see your first eggs in the tank is: Do i leave the eggs in or do i take
them out and hatch them artificially. This depends upon how desperate yopu are
to have your Oscar fry. When i pair up Oscars for the first time i always remove
the first set of eggs to hatch outside the tank. That way i know straight away
whether or not they are a fertile pair. It makes sense and could save months
of frustation. I mormally dont feed my oscars when they have eggs in with them
and i dont feed them until the eggs have hatched. Whilst the eggs are hatching
you must pepare yourself for when the fry are free swimming. Use this time to
source some good quality brine shrimp eggs or purchase several microworm cultures.
a microwrm culture will take about a week before it is established enough to
harvest the worms. For oscars i have 3 cultures on the go at once so that i
can altenate them. after 72 hours you will see that the slaye on whcu the eggs
wghere laid will be a seething mass of yiny tails as fry attemp yto break free
from the transparent egg case
Please
e-mail steve@bettasplendens.co.uk until further notice
<
oscar
fish fish oscar ,oscar tropical fish,fish oscars,oscars fish,oscar fish
habitat, wild oscar fish,cichlid oscar breeding,fish/oscars,oscar
cichlid habitat,oscar fish cichlid
oscar fish in the wild,oscars tropical fish,tropical breeding
oscars,astronotus ocelletus, breeding oscar fish,buy
oscar cichlids,cichlid oscar