Dendrobates azureus courting and Egg Developement - Pics

[Philsuma]

I'd leave them there.

[joneill809]

Thanks Phil. I left them in today and performed my normal viv maintenance (poop power wash, glass wipe, FB drain) and everything was back to normal. Frogs look as good as ever after a big feeding this morning. The male is less bold than the female. Here's this morning's shot of LittleSpot:
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And BigSpot looking quite rotund...
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And I had to add this one. LittleSpot always retreats to a semi-safe location when I am around while BigSpot hangs by the glass. You saw him hopping away in the previous shot - he retreated to a brom about 3 inches away, turned around and glared. Here's where he ended up:
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Enjoy the photos, let me know if either of the frogs looks ragged after the breeding session. Overall they seem fine; had I been at work yesterday I would have not had any idea that there were eggs in the viv. I'll start posting a picture a day of the eggs in the brom to see if they start to develop. Hopefully they will choose the petri dish next time! Thanks for everyone's help!

[DianeCarter]

When you said LittleSpot retreated to a brom, turned and glared...I scrolled down....LMAO!!! That is indeed a glaring frog!!! Great photos!

[joneill809]

Thanks! I've thoroughly enjoyed jumping into this hobby and learning about these little critters. Tiny animals, big personality! I've said it before in other posts, but sometimes I get the feeling they are watching us more than we are watching them. Their viv is in our playroom on a 12" custom built pedestal at "kid height" for easier viewing, but when we are in the room not paying attention to them they usually both end up sitting out front right up against the glass just looking out. Hopefully I can get an updated shot of the eggs today!

[joneill809]

Eggs day two. I can't see much of a difference. I have posted a slightly larger image (1920x1280) if anyone would like to make a call. I'll keep checking on them each day. Four confirmed eggs, and I think there is one further back in the brom behind the left most egg (just a guess) but I don't want to tug on the brom any harder to get a better view.
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EDIT - upon closer review there is a change. Good or bad, I don't know...
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[Philsuma]

...ehhhh....hard to say. 24 more hours should tell the tale....if you see cleavage (not Megan Fox) then you'll be good.

[joneill809]

Heh - thanks Phil. Got a good laugh from that one. Another pic tomorrow.

[Rusty_Shackleford]

Ahem, egg cleavage and Megan Fox cleavage are both on my cleavage top ten list.

[joneill809]

Alright the frogs laid the eggs on Saturday throughout the day. It's Thursday and today was the first day I could see a significant difference in the eggs. I'm not sure I'd call it clevage, but there is a change in shape and maybe a line forming. I suppose the front right egg looks ok? Is the white on the egg on the left fungus? Or is this normal?
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Is there anything else you would recommend that I do at this point?

[Philsuma]

looks like fungus. I never remove or excise fungus eggs from good ones. Most fungus only grows on 'bad' eggs - it doesn't spread like an epidemic.

Try for steady temps of @ 75F....plus or minus is ok....you just don't want big swings of + 10 or - 10 degrees, for example.

Keep general humidity in the tank high.

Not much more than crossed fingers.

[joneill809]

Thanks Phil. The viv is a steady 77 (best I can do in the summer) with about 80% humidity. I'll leave the eggs as is. There is one all the way down in the brom that is all white - the other 4 seem to be ok except for that one out front that has the bit of white on it. Appreciate the advice!

[joneill809]

I switched to a thumbnail summary of daily photos of what looked like the most promising egg. I've posted the higher resolution images to my website where I'm tracking the eggs, but I thought I would post a screen grab of the thumbnails. Not sure how well you can see the details, but it looks like the tail is developing on 4/5 of the original eggs. One of the 4 is turning white but still developing.
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I think one of the frogs may have dislodged the eggs slightly as they entered / left the brom on 7/21. One of the eggs (the most promising one) was further out on the brom leaf. They all seemed to be less "sticky" moving around the leaf more easily than in the past. I have left them alone for now. I'll continue to periodically drop the daily thumbnail egg tracker here. Full resolution will be clickable over on my site if you want all the details - I find the thumbnail view more interesting
http://www.oneillscrossing.com/2012/07/14/laying-eggs/

[joneill809]

So the male keeps going back into the brom and he has dislodged the eggs. I am not sure where they are but there is one teetering on the edge of the brom that I think I should remove. Any thoughts or recommendations here? I had 4 good eggs to start, I counted three last night, now I can only see this one. A bad egg is still down in the brom. The remaining good egg "wiggles" when I move the leaf, so it looks ok still.

So would the consensus be to cut a straw shovel and transfer this egg to a petri dish?

[Philsuma]

You could try to scoop it with a straw and transfer it....why not.

For future reference, try to keep water up to the edges on eggs on petri dishes. Do not overflow / cover them or they will drown.

Good luck.

[joneill809]

It was easier to just remove the brom and transfer the eggs outside the viv. I recovered all 5 and it looks like the one I had been tracking most closely slipped below the main leaf along with three others. None of them seem to be developing. The wriggler didn't wriggle at all following the transfer, so I'll see if I ended up doing more damage than good:
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And Phil, you were spot on. I pulled the petri dish I parked in a dark cave in the back of the viv and bang:
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I made sure the eggs were not fully submersed in the dishes. I have the covers on the petri dishes and they are just out in the room (76 to 78 F). My daughter looked at them and said "Daddy how many more eggs are we going to get!?!" Glad I bought a 20 pack of petri dishes. Thanks for all the continued advice!

[joneill809]

Quick update - 1/5 eggs from 7/14 is developing. I got a decent picture of the embryo tonight now that it's in the petri dish. If you look closely you can see the eyes and gills. Pretty cool.
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Here's an updated grab of the development progression on this batch of eggs.
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The 7/23 batch of eggs seem to have 2/6 developing; 2 others are turning white on the outside (probably fungus) and I'm not sure the other two were fertilized.

[joneill809]

Amazing how quickly these guys develop:
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Here's an update to the progression thumbnail chart.
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[Philsuma]

Such an excellent thread Jim. I linked it on our Facebook and it's getting a lot of looks.Thanks again for such a well done and comprehensive thread.

[joneill809]

Thanks Phil! The progression has been fun to put together.

I'm a bit concerned today - the developing tad has flipped over and he's belly up - been that way most of the day. In other threads I read on tad care this seemed to be something of a normal event. I'll post a ventral shot tonight - cool pic of the mouth. Hopefully the tad is still developing. Looks like one egg from the second clutch is still progressing. Fascinating stuff!

[Philsuma]

I've had a few that looked twisted or upside down and they morphed out fine.