Incubation of Walleye eggs in Petri dishes

Eggs of Walleye Sander vitreus are typically incubated in upwelling jars. The relatively large number of eggs required for efficient and effective incubation in each jar, along with the difficulties in accurately quantifying egg survival to fry hatch, inhibits the replication needed for the controlled experimentation of Walleye spawning procedures and egg development. In addition, the use of production-sized incubators for experiments can be problematic because of the risks associated with potentially hazardous treatments on large numbers of eggs. This study evaluated the technique of incubating small numbers of Walleye eggs in Petri dishes.