Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Cool Yellow Perch Egg Pictures

A willow bush branch I weighted down with a brick and tied a rope to so I can pull it out, got a deposit.



I'm pretty much 100 percent sure I have no males but to play it safe I still place the branches in as a form of birth control and periodically dump the eggs on the bank. My fish are hatched in a separate pond.

I also think it's possible the females may stress and reabsorb their eggs if they don't find a suitable place to put them. Don't know for sure but the name of the game to produce large fast growing healthy fish is to reduce stress. So if there is a even the slightly possibility of stress with no structure to drop eggs I will add something for them to put their eggs on.

If you look closely at the first photo the eggs have white spots which means they probably weren't fertilized and are dead.

Here are some freshly dumped on the bank. They have the consistency and appearance of clear tapioca.

Very cool Cecil! Can you elaborate on how one can determine if a strand has been fertilized? Are dead or unfertilized eggs just a little more milky white colored - less transparent? If so, I think I can determine that in your first photo...but my eye is untrained.

According to Dr. Perca you can see white specs where the eggs are supposed to be which means dead tissue.

BTW I can only see one egg strand in my perch spawning cage. It may be I'll have very few perch this year or some large ones. LOL How about you?

You told me to quit looking and leave them alone, so I'm leaving them be, though it's a struggle daily! Unfortunately checking on strands requires me wading out to the cages and lifting them up and out of the water as my algae bloom has visibility pretty low. I just don't know what I should/shouldn't do at this point. I'm dying to know, but don't want to ruin anything. Last I checked there was one strand in one cage...that was it.

I figured you'd look anyway.

I can check on mine without disturbing them by just creeping to the end of the pier and carefully looking into the cage. My water is not that clear either though, but most likely iron after I refilled the pond just before adding the cage and broodfish. It could be some algae as I did fertilize last Sunday. Supposed to get some cottonseed meal tomorrow to add.

Yeah, you figured right - but I've even surprised myself with the restraint. I think it's that I've just been too lazy to put on the waders, frankly.

My chest waders are a PITA to put on. I also have to tape tightly the bottom of my pants before putting then on or they ride up the pant legs and the top of wader boot inside the wader chafes my calves.

TJ,

I believe these are dead unfertilized eggs. Each white spot is an unfertilized egg.



A closer look:

Interesting, thanks. I would have thought that reabsorbing the eggs would be a good thing for growth.

Most literature I have read says it's stressful on the fish. I've heard of rainbow trout actually dying from it, and Bass Pro Shops told me they had to perform surgery on a smallmouth to remove the eggs or she would have died. Said they had a lot of trouble with female smallmouth bass in this way.