Successful spawn taking has to be a well orchestrated procedure. Once the physical conditions are met i.e. protection from the sun and separation of ripe from green females, the timing of each step becomes crucial. The time the eggs are first stripped into the pan until they are rinsed should not exceed 3 minutes. The number of eggs that go into the pan depends on the stripper. The life of the sperm depends on its exposure to water and in my opinion, that time frame is about 20 seconds. This brings up another important factor. The pan ,of course is wet, but there should be no standing water in it at the beginning of the stripping procedure. This would shorten the life of the sperm and thus produce a negative impact on fertilization. It is advisable to mix the sperm into the eggs by hand to assure that all the eggs are exposed to the sperm. Then the eggs are rinsed and placed in containers to water harden. The hardening process takes about one hour. The eggs should be transported to the hatchery as soon as possible after they are water hardened. Remember, the water hardened eggs are beginning to get tender and should be handled with care. I prefer to transport eggs in a sealed container filled about half full with eggs and the balance with water, leaving no room for air in the top of the container. This keeps the eggs from sloshing around during transportation. When the eggs reach the hatchery they should be put in incubators and not handled until they are eyed up. The reason for this is that the eggs go into a tender cycle when any physical movement to dead eggs will also kill live eggs. This is a vicious cycle that can result in a high loss of otherwise good eggs. Experience teaches that eggs with less than a 10% pick-off produce higher quality eggs. Situations where the pick-off is 30 to 50% or more usually result in very poor egg quality in the surviving eggs and on through the hatching process.