Goldfish Babies

[Kashta]

For those of you following the exploits of Sprocket (that rascal!), another chapter unfolds. Very soon after his arrival at his new home with my other goldies, Sprocket (that rascal!) caught the fancy of my dear, sweet -- and formerly innocent -- calico fantail, Cassandra. Yes, she's spawned.

I noticed their wildly frantic amorous behavior, but didn't think THAT was going to happen. I'd always heard you had to do certain things in a certain way to get them to breed. But the next day, sure enough... I found literally thousands of eggs scattered all over everywhere. I did the best I could throughout Day #2 (in egg years) to collect as many as I could. I managed to save hundreds of them. Many hundreds, I'm sure. It was impossible to count them all.

This thread isn't going to be all that informative. And it won't be well documented with great photos showing whatever progress or failures are in store for us. But I'll still post updates to let you all know how it's going.

These are rather hard to see, but I wanted to start off with something, at least, to show the eggs we're starting out with.

 

[Kashta]

Day 3 Update

It's Day 3 now and I still have well over 200 goldfish eggs that still look good. I couldn't guess how many I started with and still can't count them all now. I removed about 50 of them yesterday that had turned white, using a long medicine dropper. Today, I expected half of them would be white, but I only had to remove about a dozen of them. I really expected half to 2/3 of these would get fungussy (?) each progressing day because I don't have any of that blue stuff to add to their water. Couldn't find any locally either. I'm keeping the water as clear and fresh as possible.. changing it with new tank water 3-4 times a day. Hoping this will stave off fungus as much as possible. Still.. 200+ eggs is still way too many after three days. Some of these things might actually hatch.

Another blurry egg shot. They've darkened a little and the eyes and spines are quite visible in most of the eggs already. (Not that you can tell from today's picture.)

 

[msjinkzd]

oooo! Neat! Pics of the parents? That naughty Sprocket

 

[saram521]

I second the request for pics of the parents! Very neat, hope to see more pics of the babies when they hatch and start developing!

 

[Flaringshutter]

Hooray for littluns! I can't wait to see the fry. Sprocket, what a rascal. He's a teenager in love, what can I say. Promiscuous little squirt.

 

[crimsonmoon]

how exciting!! lol sprocket sounds like a handful :naughty:

 

[faun]

Sprocket is such a good looking boy no wonder all the ladies can't resist him! Congrats on the unexpected spawn bet the babies will be gorgeous.

 

[irishspy]

Whoever knew Sprocket was a love god? :naughty:

 

[squabeggs]

Woo! have fun with that....sooo many eggs. Little wigglies are fun.

 

[snoopy65]

How appropriate for Valentines! Congrats!