Babies in the egg

[pip walters]

Just thought I would post a couple of pics of fish eggs from my fish farming days.

This one is the egg of a tench, Tinca tinca at the 8 cell stage.

I took the picture with an Olympus Camedia 50/50 camera held against the eyepiece of a monocular microscope. A lucky capture you may think, but this was the best of 82 photos!

 

[pip walters]

This is a larva of the common carp, Cyprinus carpio. 32 hours old.
Another hard earned lucky pic

 

[tarpon]

wow, life forming in action. thats crazy you were able to get it to look that good through a microscope lens

 

[pip walters]

I know!! Very lucky shots.
I cropped in camera and enhanced on Photoshop, but was amazed with the clarity of the tench one.

It is a second hand camera I bought some years ago, but takes fantastic pics... or at least it did. Started getting issues with the on/off button and now it is just about unusable. May try and get it fixed one day. It takes fantastic macro shots with the ability to get within 3cm of the subject!!

Thanks for viewing and commenting

 

[Delapool]

Nice - amazing, thanks for the pics.

 

[pip walters]

Your welcome.
I bred Cyprinids for around 14 years and still every year I would get a few eggs out at different stages to have a look.

What is most amazing is the speed. At 23C the eggs of carp will hatch in 2.5 days! To see the cell splitting after a couple of hours, then come 1 and a half days later and see the eye forming is mind blowing.... and many tropical aquarium fish hatch even quicker!!

Also, when the larvae hatch, they have no mouth, no gills, no digestive system, no internal organs... just basically an eye and a brain. Three days later they are eating baby brine shrimp in vast quantities and are swimming around!!