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I have a trio of breeding albinos in a tank all by them selves. The females rugularly have eggs and the male does fertalize them but then he pushes them out of his "log" and out into the tank. I have been lucky the last few times and scooped them up and put the eggs in an egg "tumbler". It has been working somewhat well but no where as good as when a male looks after the eggs himself. Any idea's as to why he does this? Any suggestions to help stop it?

Thanks Mark

I'd say he is still honing his technique. Fine tuning.

Mine did that the first few batches, Once was all of them next was partial batch. They just need to practice fanning and how much and how hard i guess.

Is there a way to raise up the end of his cave/log a bit so they cannot roll out so easily? Just a tad? Safely that is, wouldn't want it toppling over.

Mine use caves I bought from zcliff. He should have some threads here in wanted and for sale.

Yeah, he's probably just being "clumsy". Helping, by either having a cave with some sort of "lip" - some people, I think it's Larry (apistomaster) is one of them, uses two terracotta saucers stuck together, the one on top being upside down and a notch cut for the opening, the bottom one is "uncut", so it forms a bit of a lip to prevent anything from trivially slipping out.

My male uses just an upside down terracotta saucer with no real difficulty - occassionally an egg or six gets "kicked out", but generally not.

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Mats

Thanks for the replies, it is only the third time they have bred so I think you may be right on the "rookie" thing. As for the terracotta pot idea I like it and have seen some pics of them, I think I may give it a go, guessing they are just siliconed together?

Mark

You can use silicon, or you could do something like stick on a few "tabs" on the inside [using silicon or similar] so that they can be taken apart - as long as there isn't much of a gap.

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Mats

MarkN wrote:Thanks for the replies, it is only the third time they have bred so I think you may be right on the "rookie" thing. As for the terracotta pot idea I like it and have seen some pics of them, I think I may give it a go, guessing they are just siliconed together?

Mark

Hi Mark,

I am the one who uses the terra cotta drain pans for Bushy Nose breeding caves. I make the notch in the top piece only and simply hold them together with a couple of strong rubber bands. I have never had any eggs or larvae ejected from these caves. The rubber bands require replacement every 4 months or so.

apistomaster wrote:I am the one who uses the terra cotta drain pans for Bushy Nose breeding caves. I make the notch in the top piece only and simply hold them together with a couple of strong rubber bands. I have never had any eggs or larvae ejected from these caves. The rubber bands require replacement every 4 months or so.

And I stole Apistomaster's technique and have never lost eggs over the lip since. Though my rubber bands sometimes don't make it four months.

I have found that some will prefer a larger or smaller cave, so I use 4" and 6" saucers in the same tank. Now if I could remember to wear eye protection while playing with the angle grinder to cut the notches...

Jeff

jeff@zina.com wrote:

apistomaster wrote:I am the one who uses the terra cotta drain pans for Bushy Nose breeding caves. I make the notch in the top piece only and simply hold them together with a couple of strong rubber bands. I have never had any eggs or larvae ejected from these caves. The rubber bands require replacement every 4 months or so.

And I stole Apistomaster's technique and have never lost eggs over the lip since. Though my rubber bands sometimes don't make it four months.

I have found that some will prefer a larger or smaller cave, so I use 4" and 6" saucers in the same tank. Now if I could remember to wear eye protection while playing with the angle grinder to cut the notches...

Jeff

Ok outside of an angle grinder how else can I cut these things without smashing them to bits?

Mark

apistomaster wrote:

MarkN wrote:Thanks for the replies, it is only the third time they have bred so I think you may be right on the "rookie" thing. As for the terracotta pot idea I like it and have seen some pics of them, I think I may give it a go, guessing they are just siliconed together?

Mark

Hi Mark,

I am the one who uses the terra cotta drain pans for Bushy Nose breeding caves. I make the notch in the top piece only and simply hold them together with a couple of strong rubber bands. I have never had any eggs or larvae ejected from these caves. The rubber bands require replacement every 4 months or so.

How do you cut your notch out of the terracotta? I don't really have allot of powertools, can you do it by hand without shattering the whole thing?

Mark

I think you can make 2-3 cuts with a hack saw then snap the piece(s) out with padded needle nosed pliers. Keep the material wet while you cut it. You can do the work under water in a plastic dish pan. Cut only the sides to where the apex of the curved side meets the flat bottom. The material isn't very hard to cut. Use some tape or something so the metal isn't bare. This should lessen the chances of random stress fracturing.

I had access to a rock saw when I made mine so it was easy. several kerf cuts produce more predictable results than making only 2 cuts.

Yes, hacksaw on wet terracotta works really well. Or, if you have a power-drill, you can get a tile diamond drill-bit (you need to keep it wet here too), which cuts through terracotta nicely - but it's probably just as easy to cut the edge with a hack-saw, and then use sand-paper or a file to remove any roughness on the edge.

As an alternative to rubber bands, a cable-tie may be a good option that should last a while longer.

A tile-cutter for bathroom/kitchen/floor tiles will also work well, if you have one of those.

And a small angle-grinder isn't very expensive, here in the UK they are about £15 in the local DIY shops - you will need a "stone cutting disc" too, but for a few terracotta plates, the cheap and simple cutting discs are fine, you don't need an expensive diamond blade. It is also the least safe of the above described tools, as it is the most powerful tool of the ones discussed in this post.

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Mats

I used a tile saw, works great but not a normal DIY item, then a Dremel tool. The Dremel was fine but slower. A hacksaw also works fine, again just slower. Angle grinder was, for me, the easiest and quickest, using a masonry blade. But I wouldn't buy one if there's no other use for it. You can also "nibble" a notch with just a pair of pliers, just don't try to take big chunks out.

Jeff