# Eggs keep molding over- What am I doing wrong?



## Androgynoid (Sep 3, 2020)

Hi all, 

In my hour of frustration I'm turning to you folks, I feel like I have to be doing something wrong here.

In short, I've just stumbled across the 10th or so moldy clutch of eggs from my R. Uakarii and I'm unsure what tweaks, if any, I should make or if this is within the range of "figuring it out" from mom and dad. Apart from the first (known) clutch, I've left them all in the tank or stumbled across them after they'd already gone bad.

Once a month, they're getting Vit A, with Cal+ at every feeding. Typically, instead of finding eggs I'll find moldy jelly smeared on one of the broms. The past few times, they've been laid in a near empty film can down in the leaf litter. 

Of the 4 eggs from the current clutch, 3 have turned white (I last checked/freshened water in the film cans on Friday), but the 1 furthest from the opening is black. As of now, the jelly remains clear and the film canister is staying in the viv. Should I pull the "bad" eggs and leave the 4th? Leave the whole clutch where it is?

Furthermore, if anyone has _any_ insight as far as why the clutches are consistently going bad I would greatly appreciate it.

Thank you all for your time


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## fishingguy12345 (Apr 7, 2019)

For my uakarii, I regularly check the film canisters in the tank, and when there are eggs I remove the film canisters and place the film in a deli cup with just enough water on the bottom to come up the lip of the film canister. This way the humidity stays at a reasonable level while not soaking the eggs.


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## Androgynoid (Sep 3, 2020)

Thanks for weighing in @fishingguy12345, do you think I should do so with the whole clutch or should I try and separate the 'good' egg from the rest?


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## fishingguy12345 (Apr 7, 2019)

Androgynoid said:


> Thanks for weighing in @fishingguy12345, do you think I should do so with the whole clutch or should I try and separate the 'good' egg from the rest?


I've only ever done it with the whole clutch but I pull mine pretty early.


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## Androgynoid (Sep 3, 2020)

The clutch cant be more than 3 days old... I'll pull em and transfer to a deli and hope for the best


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## eMCRay (Mar 24, 2020)

You could add less water (so it just touches the eggs in a small puddle) and also consider rinsing (very very gently) in methylene blue and adding an indian almond leaf.

Edit - just on re-reading the methylene blue should be highly diluted as per the application instructions. Don't use the pure stuff and totally ok if some of it stays in the puddle of water.


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## Kmc (Jul 26, 2019)

It might be good to wipe out the brom of opportunistic residual. detail it carefully like a dashboard.


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## Woodswalker (Dec 26, 2014)

You might also consider increasing your Vitamin A+ to twice a month, in addition to the other good suggestions offered here.


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## Androgynoid (Sep 3, 2020)

Yeah so the final egg has begun to turn white, a lil less than half of it I'd say. This is so nerve wracking. 

I've gone and wiped down the brom with a paper towel. Its rooted in pretty well so I couldnt pull it for something too intensive, but some lovely green gunk came off the leaves (and the last lil white patch of presumably jelly).

I'll look into acquiring some methylene blue, and try upping the Vit A. 

Thank you all for your suggestions.


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## 2 tincs bakhuis (Jul 8, 2021)

Try adding an Indian almond leaf they contain lots of tannins.


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## SpaceMan (Aug 25, 2013)

When I first started pulling eggs, I was losing a lot of them. I think the main culprit was 1) lack of ventilation and 2) lack of a fungus inhibitor. 

These days, I put my eggs on a pitri dish without the lid and surround them with enough tadpole tea (RO water boiled with some Indian almond leaves) so that they are wetted but not submerged, and I top off as needed. This acts to provide moisture as well as some fungus inhibiting properties form the tannins. I then keep the pitri dish in a plastic shoe box that is ventilated.


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## Androgynoid (Sep 3, 2020)

Success!

I doubled up on Vit A, so once every 2 weeks, and pulled this latest clutch as soon as I saw them and placed it in a lil Tupperware with just enough water to touch the eggs. Of 7 eggs laid, 5 went bad the first week and were carefully pulled out with a turkeybaster. The remaining 2 had obvious signs of development, but one of them succumbed to mold maybe 3 days ago or so. 

Sometime in the last 48hrs, the last egg hatched out! I was expecting small, but I can't get over how ridiculously tiny this tadpole is.

Thank you to everyone who weighed in with advice. I was kind of panicking trying to track down methylene blue (that didn't have other weird additives like malachite green?), but thankfully it doesn't seem to have been warranted.


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## Androgynoid (Sep 3, 2020)

I hope it's okay to necropost in my own thread.

Several months on, I can say that there was _initially_ helpful, but results quickly petered out with increasing Vit A. I've had maybe 5 or 6 tadpoles in the time since, but all but 1 were a very light grey color with deformed heads and ultimately perished within a few weeks. The 1 that "looked right" has been OOW for 3ish months now.

There have been a few clutches that I know of since then, but none have resulted in viable tads. The clutch in this photo was laid yesterday and already appears to be going bad and I am just about at my wits end. Yall should know by now I'm horrible with a camera, but there appear to be 6 eggs in this photo and the only one not turning white is smack dab in the middle of the rest.


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## Socratic Monologue (Apr 7, 2018)

Have you tried leaving the parents to care for the eggs and try to collect tads after deposition? That's my preferred way, since I get terrible hatch rates when I intervene.


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## fishingguy12345 (Apr 7, 2019)

I don't ever pull eggs from any of my frogs. My uakarii will deposit the tadpoles into a water holder (never the water dish I want them to use though)


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## Androgynoid (Sep 3, 2020)

Socratic Monologue said:


> Have you tried leaving the parents to care for the eggs and try to collect tads after deposition? That's my preferred way, since I get terrible hatch rates when I intervene.


Funnily enough, I have only pulled two clutches and one of those gave me the current froglet. Within a few days the clutches generally turn white and mold over. I try to be in their space as little as possible. Water changes once or twice a week, and a heavy pruning maybe every 6 weeks on the plants. My imis and fants do just fine with the current routine, but I can't figure out why the uakarii are struggling.


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## Androgynoid (Sep 3, 2020)

Someone elsewhere suggested that the male may have a Vitamin E deficiency, and to try swapping to dendrocare instead of repashy for the main supplement. @Socratic Monologue would you be able to weigh in on this train of thought?


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## Socratic Monologue (Apr 7, 2018)

It looks like hypovitaminosis E causes sterility in male animals pretty reliably, but what you're describing is something slightly different. It is sure worth a try, though.

Repashy Calcium Plus has 2,000IU/lb = 4,400IU/kg; Dendrocare has 10,200mg/kg = 6,834 or 9,180 (if natural or synthetic Vitamin E) IU/kg


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## Androgynoid (Sep 3, 2020)

Well I'll go ahead and order some then and report back when/if there's anything worth noting


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## Socratic Monologue (Apr 7, 2018)

Please do report back. And yes, continuing your own thread at a much later date is encouraged. The necrobumps that aren't tend to be the ones that ignore the fact that a discussion has long since been resolved; only you know when your own project is resolved, so you be the judge.


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## Androgynoid (Sep 3, 2020)

Ooo I think I finally figured out why I'm often only finding egg jelly (I believe this was mentioned separately upthread separately from white eggs). It appears I have some sort of predatory worm feeding on the eggs, caught the little jerks in the act during water changes. Yesterday I thought that there were less eggs than there should have been and chalked it up to being moldy, but now they're all gone.

I'm hoping we can try for an ID/ treatment procedure in this thread to keep everything contained. Thankfully a guest happened to have a macro lens on hand. I'll still be trying a new supplementation routine, but I'm fairly certain dealing with these worms will solve most of the issues.

Edit: I am curious where they could have come from, I've been pretty particular about making sure I process my plants. Thankfully they seem contained to this viv, because I haven't been having issues with the others. They might have ridden in on the hardscape or substrates?..

Edit 2: I'm making my way through the archives. This thread discusses a similar issue with nematodes targeting bad eggs, but they look pretty different from the small pink worms in my pic. This one  lacks pics, but mentions nematodes eating enough bad eggs that it causes the whole clutch to go bad and reccomends a remodel... well shoot.. I was planning on giving them an upgrade when I move in October but I really don't want to wait that long now


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