have you ever thought about the way a mother hen does it, she never candles, does not have water in nest to humidify and leaves nest/eggs to eat,drink,other and still hatches out most of her eggs. i'm thinking about just putting eggs in incubator without water,with turner and not candling and see what happens, i've done this and my first chick out of the batch just emerged, hatching seems to be o.k. with this test run. good luck with your candling.