Re: [RML] shipping blue-eye eggs overseas

Gary Lange (gwlange at mindspring.com)
Sat, 28 Jul 2001 10:02:16 -0500

Have you been successful sending other eggs, (large rainbows & other
blue-eyes) in vials around the world? If not it might be the method that
needs adapting. Ron Bowman and I have both been pretty successful in doing
so. I think one of the tricks to P. furcata might be making sure the eggs
you are sending are actually fertile. In my hands those fish often only
threw 1/3 fertile eggs. The other infertile eggs will spoil and destroy the
shipping water unless you remove them before shipping. Gently "pull" the
eggs without squeezing them from the mop and put them in a shallow tray of
fresh tap water. AFTER you are through picking add just a drop of methylene
blue. The water should be slightly dark but not real dark with the dye.
The live eggs will exclude the dye, whereas the infertile eggs will suck up
the dye. (this works with all rainbowfish eggs) I usually pick the evening
before I'm going to send the eggs but you can see which eggs are excluding
in about 3 hours or so. If you put in too much dye all of the eggs are
going to be blue. Then you have to change all of the water and wait about
an hour. The live eggs will then exclude the dye again and not be dark like
the infertile eggs. Using an eye-dropper place the fertile eggs onto a
brand new, freshly wetted, (with tap water) 5 cm piece of yarn. If you
don't add too much water in the process of putting them onto the yarn they
will stick to it. Keep pulling off excess water as you go. Once you are
through you can pick up the yarn, (and the eggs ride along) with a tweezers.
Place them into a clean vial. You can use something the size of a film
canister, I am currently using something about 1/2 that volume. Don't get
too overzealous and try and put 50 eggs in a vial, especially if they'll be
in the container for more than 2 days. When shipping long distances I top
out at about 25 eggs. Use another container for more eggs. Also don't send
really eye-up eggs that are ready to hatch. The change in cabin pressure
(in the airplane) can cause eggs to hatch sooner than you would expect.
Although the fish will be healthy if they hatch too early they will die and
end up polluting the vial and destroying the rest of the eggs. You can put
a bit of meth blue back in the water but don't stain too heavily. It is
absolutely important that you fill the vial only half way with water. Eggs
need air to breath too. Tape the top up tightly, one tape from bottom top
and another around the seal. If going overseas, ie through customs,
carefully label each vial too. You might include a small piece of paper
which lists the species on it. (ie., Pseudomugil (was Popondetta) furcata -
rainbowfish, domesticated) or something like that, to avoid an inexperienced
customs agent from holding your eggs for too long. If you can convince the
shipper to try this I'm sure you'll get a good shipment of eggs. They might
even go through the motions and then just carry a "test" vial around for a
day or two to show that everything is going ok.

The two main reasons for failure, as I've seen it was 1) shipping infertile
eggs which destroy the entire load of eggs and 2) filling the vial up
entirely with water.
In all cases use only tap water, especially if your tap water has some
chlorine in it. That will keep any bacterial load to a minimum if one of
the eggs does turn out bad. Of course if you are shipping shorter distances
just send the mop but for furcata I would again pick the eggs (and vial
them) to make sure how many are actually fertile.

Hope this helps. I've shipped or hand carried over 500 vials packed in this
method. From the emails and return trips I hear back that many people
successfully hatch the fry. If they follow the fry raising info they
usually raise the fry too.

Gary Lange
gwlange at mindspring.com
Rainbowfish Study Group of North America
www.rainbowfishes.org
--------------------------------------

I have tried twice now and both times have failed... All
I got was a very smelly container.

Any thoughts?
Tyrone Genade