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.
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:
