Hi,

New to the forum, so please bear with me if I'm asking something redundant, but I took a very gravid Danio female (red Glofish) and two normal Zebra Danio Males and put them into a small, 2.5 gallon breeding tank with a mop and they spawned! I put them in on July 26th, and when I turned on the light in the morning (~6 AM) they started courting. I left for work and returned at noon to find a trillion tiny white specks throughout the tank. I immediately separated the parents by returning them to their old enclosure.

It's now been about 31 hours and I haven't seen any hatching...also, I'm nervous that the eggs might all be infertile. They're mostly uniform and whitish/clearish, but really more on the whitish side. I can't see any of the little black things people say should be there, but they're awfully small and I'm not sure I'd be able to see them without a magnifying glass, anyway. I read that females usually won't spawn unless males are courting them--they'll just reabsorb their eggs rather than laying infertile eggs. Is this a myth?

Does anyone have experience with this, or advice? I'll try to have pictures of the eggs up within the hour, but I'd really appreciate someone's help! Am I just too anxious? Will this situation look different in another twelve hours?! How do you clean the water in a tank full of tiny eggs that aren't hatched?! *sighs*

Thanks in advance,
Jake

Here are the picture links; sorry the quality isn't higher...





Please let me know if you can tell whether these are fertile eggs! Remember, they're about less than or equal to 31 hours old in this picture!

bump

Sorry, can't tell from your pics whether they are fertile. When I kept zebra/leopard danios, the eggs usually took about 2-3 days to hatch. I would say, if the eggs are white (opaque) they are infertile. With the fertile ones, they should be clear. After a day or two you can just about see a black dot developing inside and wriggle very occasionally.

If you are not sure, give it another day or so.

Hmm...so it takes a day or two before you can start to see the little black embryo? That gives me a bit more hope, since it seems like some of these are more clear-ish and some of these are a distinct white. It really looks more like there are white things inside the eggs that I can see with the magnifying glass--do the embryos start out white and turn black?

Also, are these eggs sensitive to light?