help determining embryo development stage

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G'day,
My name's Andy, and I'm currently doing honours at the university of
Melbourne in Australia. I'm studying the spawning ecology of a native
minnow, Galaxias maculatus. Part of my research involves looking at the
effect of temperature on egg development rate. The details of the
development stage appear to be similar to the zebrafish you guys work on.
I am having trouble staging the eggs, finding it to be much more time
consuming than I had expected. I was hoping you guys might have some tips
on how I could become more efficient in staging the eggs. Do you guys use
any stains to help distinguish between stages, or maybe lighting
techniques? Or have any other tips that reduce the time spent fiddling
around with the eggs, getting them into the right orientation etc.? It's
a bit embarrassing to admit this, but it takes me a while to tell the
difference between around stage D in the gastrula period, and the early
stages of the segmentation period. Any tips to make these differences
stand out more, for these and other stages? I need to stage thousands of
eggs and so would love to reduce handling time by learning some tricks of
the trade. I'd really appreciate any feedback,
Thanks very much for your time,
Cheers,
Andy.
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