My Bn Eggs Are Swimming Away!

[Ludwig Venter]

I've seen them hatch before... and I've seen them leaving the nest before... Normally at a reasonable free-swimming age and size....

The batch I have atm.... 3 eggs with a wee tail (and eyes) are clinging to the side of the pond (wriggling) near the surface..... these are s'posed to be wrigglers still... yet they are out of the tunnel (nest) and moving around......

I wonder what caused their premature decision to leave parental care.... The male is still inside the container with the rest of the brood.....

 

[Fish Guy]

They may have just slipped the eye of the male perhaps. I have seen it happen with cichlid fry, though not sure if it may apply to BN's.

 

[Cazgar]

That must look really weird seeing eggs with tails moving around, hope they survive

 

[xingumike]

As above they have probably just fallen out of the cave.

Unless there are any potential preds in there I would rate the chances of survival pretty high.

 

[TwoTankAmin]

You can return them to the cave. I find a turkey baster works great for this.

As to why they came out, often a dad (especially newer ones) will accidentally fan them out or they will sometimes roll/bounce out on their own. One way to minimize the ocurance of this is to elevate slightly the front end of the cave so the tendency is for the eggs to stay in the back of the cave.