During the school visit pond dipping sessions two schools accidentally caught fish eggs. Adult fish, such as Rudd, often lay their eggs in a clump which sticks to a rock or similar object. It looks like a few fish thought that the wooden structure beneath the pond dipping platform was a safe place to lay their eggs.
While we put the first clump of eggs back in the pond, there was a big chance that some large creature might now find them and eat them.
So the last clump that was caught in a net was carefully transferred to a small tank and we allowed the eggs to hatch.
The eggs hatched about 2 weeks later.
The video below shows the eggs developing and then the newly hatched fry. To give you an idea of scale - the fish fry were filmed using the digital microscope, the fish fry were in a plastic teaspoon.
