A portable freshwater closed-system fish egg incubation system

To identify fish eggs collected in the field to species, a portable closed‐system fish egg incubation system was designed and used to incubate and hatch the eggs in the laboratory. The system is portable, small in scale (2.54 × 1.52 × 2.03 m), and affordable, with the approximate cost of the system being US$8,300 (2012). The main tank is 678 L and holds a battery of up to 21 (egg) incubation jars. The system includes three independent water pumping systems to (1) provide aerated water to hatching jars, (2) filter and sterilize incubation water, and (3) provide temperature‐controlled water in the main tank bath and the incubation jars. The system was successfully used to incubate freshwater fish eggs to raise resulting larvae to the post‐yolk‐sac stage for three seasons (spring 2012, spring 2013, and fall 2013) over two consecutive years, at two different locations, enabling us to identify fish eggs to species by providing identifiable fish larvae from incubated fish eggs.