Goldfish Fry Development

  • Get the NEW AquariaCentral iOS app --> http://itunes.apple.com/app/id1227181058 // Android version will be out soon!

GuppyLure

AC Members
Oct 4, 2007
17
0
0
Recently, flaringshutter has had success with breeding goldfish. A very similar, very exciting experience has been unfolding in my fish tanks as well. I wish I knew all the factors that trigger spawning in goldfish, but this time around it caught me by surprise. It's fall not spring!
I have purchased 7 feeder goldfish for 12cents each over the past year and a half. Each fish was just about 1 inch in length when I first brought him or her home.

Meet the Parents

My largest male, now 5in

Purchased at Petco

My largest female, now 3 1/2in

Purchased at Petsmart

There are a few things I did differently in the days before these two fish spawned. For a week and a half prior to discovering eggs, I had been opening a large window above my tank to let in sunlight. I did a few more frequent water changes. About four to five days before they spawned, I fed the female goldfish six feeder guppies. The day before the goldfish spawned, I didn't feed my goldfish anything. Does anyone know which of these variables might have triggered my fish to spawn?

Here are the eggs

Look closely. The white spheres are unfertilized eggs. The yellow-brown eggs have tiny developing fry inside. You can see their yoke sacks which look like big round yellow bellies. You can also see black spots where their eyes are forming and you can see a tiny mouth on a few of them.

To give you an idea of the size of the eggs, the goldfish peeking at the eggs in the picture below is the small size of feeder goldfish. He really wants to eat those tasty looking eggs.


Fortunately for me, I had a net breeder contraption with 5 guppy fry in it hanging inside my tank. I was so surprised when I saw eggs all over it. The few eggs lucky enough to stick in-between the net breeder and glass are the only ones that weren’t consumed by my goldfish.
I was able to lift the entire net breeder out of my goldfish tank and carefully lower it into a 10 gallon tank filled with about six inches of water. I got a couple lines of air pumping to aerate the water, added a heater, and the nursery was ready.

2 Days Later on 10/14/07...

It's Finally Fry-Day, Yahoo!!!

As soon as I woke up on Sunday morning I glanced inside the 10 gallon nursery and gasped. I hadn't removed any of the white unfertilized eggs as most breeders advise, and now all the eggs were white! I thought fungus had infected all the eggs and I’d lost every one of them. However, closer examination of the tank brought me my first ever look at a minuscule goldfish fry. All the babies had hatched out!

Look How Tiny They Are


Here's a magnified view of one of my newborn fry.10/14/07

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Below are two of my fry 1 day after hatching.10/15/07



-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Here are my fry as seen today, at 2 days old.10/16/07



I plan to photograph the fry every day for the next few weeks and I will update this thread with more progressive photos. I hope it will give anyone interested a glimpse of goldfish fry development.
 
Last edited by a moderator:

GuppyLure

AC Members
Oct 4, 2007
17
0
0
Here are the pictures of the fry from the last few days.
The baby goldfish look more like :frog: tiny tadpoles than :goldfish: fish to me.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
The goldfish fry at 3 days old.10/17/07



-----------------------------------------------------------------------
The goldfish fry at 4 days old.10/18/07


-----------------------------------------------------------------------
The goldfish fry at 5 days old.10/19/07

The fry got their first taste of baby brine shrimp, they loved it!



Up until now, the fry's stomachs had always been off-white in color. I had been feeding them First Bites fry food.
I snapped this picture right before I fed them the brine shrimp.


Just look at the difference!
A plump pink-orange tummy packed with delicious brine shrimp.
He's about to gobble up another one.


This was the first time I got to see their predatory instincts kick in.
They really seemed to enjoy hunting the little critters.


-----------------------------------------------------------------------
The goldfish fry today at 6 days old.10/20/07

Plenty of pink poo from yesterdays meal of brine shrimp.
 

Buckdog

Comet with an attitude problem.
Jun 2, 2007
191
0
0
So.Cal. Inland
That is great. Nice pics too. Please keep it coming - I'm sure a lot of us goldsfolks have never seen this before. Thanx for the thread.
 

GuppyLure

AC Members
Oct 4, 2007
17
0
0
Here is another update on the baby goldfish. They are growing fast.
Some are developing a tad faster than others so the fry now vary in size by the tiniest bit.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
The goldfish fry at 8 days old. 10/22/07


Here is a comparison of a newborn fry and a fry at 8 days old.


-----------------------------------------------------------------------
As the fry develop organ systems, their bellies change from translucent to opaque.
I can no longer clearly see their stomach contents passing through.

The goldfish fry at 14 days old. 10/28/07


-----------------------------------------------------------------------
The goldfish fry at 17 days old. 10/31/07


-----------------------------------------------------------------------
The goldfish fry at 23 days old. 11/06/07

Less Developed Fry



More Developed Fry
 

Aoi_Goldfish

Blue fish and love for wildlife
Sep 10, 2007
36
0
0
37
TN
Wow that's a good job raising the fry. I hope you have good luck with them. I'm interested in spawning my own goldfish, and this is very informative for me. Now all I need to do is get some info on spawning them. Keep the updates on the little guys a coming. :)
 

GuppyLure

AC Members
Oct 4, 2007
17
0
0
Wow that's a good job raising the fry. I hope you have good luck with them. I'm interested in spawning my own goldfish, and this is very informative for me. Now all I need to do is get some info on spawning them. Keep the updates on the little guys a coming. :)
I'm glad you enjoyed the information about my goldfish. Be sure you share any success you have with spawning yours. I need to learn more about triggering spawning myself. If you do try some things to encourage your fish to spawn, I have one tip that could help. Try leaving the light in their tank off for a day and don't feed them during that time. The next day if your fish are chasing each other they just might spawn as long as there is some sort of media the females are comfortable with releasing their eggs on. Each time my goldfish go into spawning mode it has been after a 1 day fast. My largest goldfish becomes so adamant about spawning that many of his scales are scraped off as he franticly swims past a large ornament. I would be interested to know if what I described above works with another person's fish.
 

martialtheory

my hands are never dry
Oct 14, 2007
160
0
16
i don't get it? why was my post deleted?
 

Aoi_Goldfish

Blue fish and love for wildlife
Sep 10, 2007
36
0
0
37
TN
Sorry I haven't been on in a while, but I will try your technique and let you know what happens. If I do have success with spawning them I will post pictures. The spawning though will have to wait a while. I need to get some tanks open to devote to spawning my goldfish. But if there are any updates to this thread, by all means keep the little fry updates coming. :)
 

caitylee

Yup....
Mar 12, 2008
484
0
0
42
Florida
I am curious to know if you had success with your fry?
 

GuppyLure

AC Members
Oct 4, 2007
17
0
0
I am curious to know if you had success with your fry?
Thank you for your interest in my lil’ goldfish. I stopped posting about the process when some of the links to pictures I had posted in the thread were broken and I became frustrated that I could not edit my post to fix the issue. Ok, enough thinking about computer problems.


To answer your question, I’m still raising a baby from that batch of fry. I made the mistake of moving the young to a tank with too strong an intake filter, too soon. So, all but the strongest and biggest of the fish didn’t make it. I learned a lot though and come time for the next spawn I am confident a large and healthy group of baby goldfish will result. I can then stock my outdoor ponds with the little cuties. It is very amazing to watch a goldfish grow that you cared for from egg to juvenile and into adulthood. :] Good luck with your fishes!

P.S.
I will try to get a picture of the surviving youngster posted soon for you to see. :)
 
zoomed.com
hikariusa.com
aqaimports.com
Store