Any ideas?

[Azazel]

Hi guys, it's been a while since I posted anything in this forum. So here goes. My levis and wheeleri eggs kept dying on me at full terms. They would grow normally and then fail to hatch. Only the juice came out but not the babies. I have had 6 clutches (3 from each species) died since November 2010 until now. My question is this - what do you think is the probable cause? Weak genes? I only have two bloodlines in my collection that I have been criss crossing to avoid such incident. But I only know the true origin of one bloodline and not the other one. Since they all have been purchased from CA area, they could all be related.

Anybody has experienced such incident before? If so, care to share your experience? Thanks in advance.

Regards
-f-

 

[SFgeckos]

Sorry to hear about your misfortunes. Can you provide additional information about your setup- temperature/incubating substrates/humidity? Average day of incubation length?

Without knowing all the details of your setup it may be difficult to determine the exact cause, but my best guess would be high humidity during the last trimester of incubation. Remember that in your region, the "room humidity" is much higher than say the average humidity of the Western Hemisphere or European regions. Thus, using the same ratio of water to incubation substrate would be detrimental to your eggs. I would try starting with a lower water to incubation substrate ratio to see if that helps. It is much easier to save "dry eggs" by adding water later during the incubation period, than to try and save "oversaturated eggs" by trying to reduce humidity. Also lack of air circulation and high incubation temperatures could also be other possible factors (or genetics, but very unlikely in my experience).

Good luck and let me know it goes!


Jon