Gold Fish Eggs

[DHol90]

Hello everyone,
I hope this is the right forum and that someone will be able to help me.
Last night, I returned home from a weekend away to discover that my goldfish had laid eggs. I only have two fish and to be honest, the possibility of them laying eggs had never occurred to me because it's never happened to me or anyone I know before.
I've done a bit of reading online and I know the chances of the eggs hatching are slim but I want to give them the best chance I can. I've read that I need to separate the parents, which I'm planning to do today once I buy another tank.
Can anyone give me any additional guidance?
Thank you,
Danielle

 

[Colin_T]

Male goldfish are slimmer than females and have small white dots on their gill covers and edge of the pectoral (side) fins when in breeding condition. If you have a male and female (you obviously have at least 1 female) the eggs will probably hatch and you could get babies.

The baby fish can be fed on liquid fry food, green water, infusoria or powdered fry foods for the first few weeks, then moved onto newly hatched brineshrimp. liquid fry food, powdered fry food and brineshrimp eggs can be bought from pet shops or online. Infusoria and green water take a month or so to get going so they won't be available when the eggs hatch in 4-5 days. Get yourself some powdered fry food and make liquid fry food from boiled egg yolk (instructions on how to do this are in the link below).

Don't overfeed the babies and make sure there is an air operated filter in the tank to keep the water clean.

There's more info on culturing live foods and breeding fish at the following link.

Back to Basics when Breeding Fish

STARTING OUT Make sure you have a pair, (1 male + 1 female). There is nothing worse than spending your hard-earned dollars buying a couple of fish to try and breed and ending up with a pair of fish of the same sex. Let's face it, to reproduce fish you need a male and a female. Two males won't do...

www.fishforums.net

 

[Innesfan]

Welcome.

The sources you are reading aren't providing you with good information. As @Colin_T said, and contrary to what you read, if you have a pair, the eggs will likely hatch. Not sure why it was suggested to separate parents. Remove them, yes, to prevent egg-eating, but there's no need to separate them.

What type of goldfish do you have? And are they both of the same type, i.e. both commons, fantails, comets, moors, orandas...etc? I ask because if they are not both of the same type, you might want to reconsider raising the fry. Most goldfish types do not breed true as it is and breeding two different types can and will produce some strange-looking fish.

You'll need a large tank, or several, lots of food (baby brine shrimp is an excellent fry food) and frequent water changes to raise them properly and not become stunted. And if they are any type other than commons (single short-tailed fish), you will need to cull ruthlessly since all the 'fancy' types not only do not breed true but they also produce young with missing or extra parts.

If you do raise them, have you given thought to what you will do with all those goldfish? Goldfish spawns are huge.

I confess to being surprised you have any eggs at all since goldfish are efficient egg eaters and normally parents are removed right after spawning.

 

[DHol90]

Welcome.

The sources you are reading aren't providing you with good information. As @Colin_T said, and contrary to what you read, if you have a pair, the eggs will likely hatch. Not sure why it was suggested to separate parents. Remove them, yes, to prevent egg-eating, but there's no need to separate them.

What type of goldfish do you have? And are they both of the same type, i.e. both commons, fantails, comets, moors, orandas...etc? I ask because if they are not both of the same type, you might want to reconsider raising the fry. Most goldfish types do not breed true as it is and breeding two different types can and will produce some strange-looking fish.

You'll need a large tank, or several, lots of food (baby brine shrimp is an excellent fry food) and frequent water changes to raise them properly and not become stunted. And if they are any type other than commons (single short-tailed fish), you will need to cull ruthlessly since all the 'fancy' types not only do not breed true but they also produce young with missing or extra parts.

If you do raise them, have you given thought to what you will do with all those goldfish? Goldfish spawns are huge.

I confess to being surprised you have any eggs at all since goldfish are efficient egg eaters and normally parents are removed right after spawning.

Hi,

Thank you so much for responding to my post.

I haven't separated mum and dad from each other, just the babies. Is there anything I can do to prevent or reduce the chances of this happening again?

I've included photos of my fish as I'm actually not sure what type they are. Mum is the gold one (Scoobie) and dad is silver (Danny DeVito).

I've purchased another large tank, which I've moved mum and dad to as I was too scared to try moving the eggs. Some of them are down in my stones and I don't want to damage them.

To be honest, after reading online that my chances of any of the babies surviving were slim I didn't give it much thought but I was looking closely at the eggs last night and a lot of them seem to be fertilized (photo below) so I'm going to have to give it some serious thought.

I wanted to ask about the filter, do you have any recommendations on what I should do with the filter because i don't want them getting sucked it. I've read online about filter sponges for the outside. Do you think those are a good idea?

I'm afraid I really don't know anything about this subject.

Thanks, D

 

[Colin_T]

How many tails do the fish have?
They both look like fantails (double tailed) and the orange one is really fat (possibly from eggs and also the body shape of fantails). The white one is slimmer and presumably the male.

If they both have 2 tails (fantails), then most of the young will be fantails. The babies will all be bronze in colour for the first few months then they start to change colour.

Single tailed fish are common goldfish and comet goldfish. The common goldfish has a short single tail, whereas the comet goldfish have a long single tail.

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What sort of filter is on/ in the aquarium?

You can't have a power filter with baby fish because it will suck them up. Air operated sponge filters are the best option, however the babies will hatch in a few days and that won't be enough time to cycle a new filter for them. You also need a filter in the adult's tank to keep their water clean.

If you have live aquatic plants, you could add them to the baby's tank and the plants would help keep the water cleaner for a while. The live plants will also provide somewhere for the babies to hide and provide some food in the form of infusoria (but only a little bit). The best floating plant for this is water sprite (Ceratopteris thalictroides/ cornuta).

If you don't have an established air operated sponge filter for the babies, then change half of their water each day and replace it with water from the adult's tank. This will help keep the ammonia level down and reduce the chance of the fry dying from poor water quality.

If you have a power filter (plugs into a power point), then put that in the adult's tank to keep their water clean and just do big water changes on the baby tank using water from the parent's tank. Then top up the adult's tank with dechlorinated water.

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There's not much you can do to stop this happening again apart from keeping the adults apart during warm weather. Personally, I would just leave them together and if they breed, they breed. There's a good chance most of the babies won't survive because it's your first time rearing baby fish. Having said that, goldfish can produce hundreds of eggs each spawning so there could be lots of babies and some usually survive. Try your best to keep them alive and see what they grow into. You might get some really nice fish to add to your collection.

 

[Innesfan]

I'm concerned about moving the parents to what I assume is an uncycled new tank. Do monitor the water parameters on that one and do frequent large water changes. Did you jump start the cycle on the new tank by adding seasoned filter media from the older tank?

Speaking of which, how long has the older tank been set up and how new are the goldfish? Goldfish are more likely to spawn right after being introduced to a new environment or after being shipped. They are less likely to spawn in the future without a several weeks long dormancy period with cooler temperature, dropping by at least 15 degrees F.

I agree that they appear to be fantails, one orange, one silver. How big are they-- without tail? And what size tanks do you have?