Moldy eggs

[mike72]

G'Day fokes. Just wondering if anyone has any ideas why healthy, fertile eggs could all of a sudden turn moldy?

I have a couple of bearded dragon clutches in the incubator set at 31 degrees, vermiculite was set up at 1:1 by weight with water, humidity in the high 90's, eggs have been expanding slowly as per usual and now at about day 40 I have noticed a few of them turning moldy.

I have been breeding these guys for years and have never had this problem before, does anyone have any ideas why this could occur?

 

[LiasisKing]

hi there,
i havent had experience with this myself,
but someone on here (i think rocket, but dont quote either of us) told me that you could wipe it over (VERY GENTLY) with vinegar or F10 if you have some, just dilute it 50:50 with water,

 

[gregcranston]

Do you have holes in the container or is it sealed?
It could also just be a bad batch of vermiculite.
Gee 31 is pretty high, but if it works for you, fine. I usually have mine at around 29 degrees.
Shame it took you over 2 weeks to get any response, how are the eggs now?

 

[cris]

You can treat mould with anti-fungal powder sold at chemists to treat tinea. It could be from condensation or an infertile egg may take that long to get moldy and then could contaminate the rest.

 

[mike72]

Thanks for the help guys. Lemon juice and/or vinegar did nothing, the mold just kept coming back every 12 hours. The moldy eggs were separated, none of them hatched, in the end I lost about a third of each clutch. I have since got a new bag of vermiculite to use with more recent clutches, so far so good. Fingers crossed.

 

[candycaine]

hey I had the same problem but unfortunitly I lost all in the incubator before I got someone tell me that you should boil the vermiculite and the container in hot water. to kill all traces of fungle spores then dry the vermiculite out completely and start the mixture all over again also clean your incubator with diluted bleach and water and air it out then place them back in after incubator has reached the heat it should be at before putting eggs back in...

lemon juice didn't work for me ether. I replaced vermiculite/water mix and same thing kept happening till I lost all eggs.

good luck

 

[AUSGECKO]

Im in the process of trying a couple of aquarium products on a couple of my eggs that have a bit of mould starting to form, I`ll let yous know how i go.

 

[snakelady-viper]

Hi
I know what you mean by bad vermiculite now I spray mine with top of decent two weeks before the eggs go in This seems to be ok. I use listerine on a cotton tip to wipe over the mould has worked for me so far. Good luck with the new vermiculite

 

[marcmarc]

Hi
I know what you mean by bad vermiculite now I spray mine with top of decent two weeks before the eggs go in This seems to be ok. I use listerine on a cotton tip to wipe over the mould has worked for me so far. Good luck with the new vermiculite

Good thinking! My thoughts are that this is from contaminated vermiculite, might be worth using a fresh lot everytime. Just my thoughts each to their own etc.

 

[Pythonking]

You can treat mould with anti-fungal powder sold at chemists to treat tinea. It could be from condensation or an infertile egg may take that long to get moldy and then could contaminate the rest.

heya mike go with what cris said just be sure you don't buy the one with anti-bacterial aswell