Staining forage fish eggs

[MikeBradley]

I’ve been asked to help a local marine citizen science group involved in counting eggs from forage fish (sand lances etc). I’ll be preparing calibrated images to assist in training their new volunteers. I would like to also explore staining of the eggs to enhance visibility against the fine sand background and I’m wondering what stains might be suitable? Samples for experimenting are limited (and precious) so the forum recommendations would be very helpful. Any staining protocols found to work would be very useful too. After the egg counting the eggs are sent for eDNA analysis and not returned to the beach.
Thanks for any advice,
Michael

[MicroBob]

Hi Michael,
I can't recommend you a stain but would suggest that you check the compatability to the following DNA analysis. Som stains might attatch to DNA and influence the results.

What you might consider too: Leave the eggs unstained and stain the rest for better contrast.

Bob

[Hobbyst46]

Two different thoughts, of slight relevance:
1. I recently tried to stain marine foraminifera with common stains - methylene blue, Congo red and others; I will post the results if of interest, the bottom line is that the dye is washed away by water and only a tiny fraction of it is permanent.
2. Easter eggs colors (never did it myself...).