This forum has been so bereft of anything of late, i thought i'd announce that I have yet another batch of fertilised eggs from my goldfish.
Clean water, ph around 7, variety of foods, 4 foot standard tank - bare but for some driftwood and a bit of spawning moss - water is warm because my pleco is in with the goldfish.
once the eggs are laid, i take the moss to which they have attached out and put it into a smaller tank - goldfish will eat their eggs - I wait a few days for the eggs to hatch, then a couple of more days to absorb the egg sack before i start feeding with 'green' water and boiled crushed egg yolk and then powdered dry food and more egg .....
after a couple of months the fish start changing colour from olive green to yellow / gold.
i put the last batch in a tank outside - they are surviving but i think the cold weather is stunting their growth - probably 2 - 3cm at 2 months old.
i guess that i'll have to part with them soon .......... or i could build a pond in the front yard ........ gotta check out the pool regs with council .... an ornamental pond in the front yard with a pool fence just doesn't cut it does it ........ concrete or PVC lining over earth ..... hmmmmm
ok, all the viable eggs have hatched - siphoned off the infertile ones that were rotting.
so i got hundreds of wrigglers - look like mosquito larvae. feeding on green water and egg as described above - love it when they eat the egg as you can see it in their guts. I'll do a really careful 1/3 water change tomorrow.
the wrigglers are no longer hanging off the glass vertically but swimming freely and resting in a horizontal position. now eating powdered fish food (flake food and floating pellets ground to dust). I'll be putting them into a slightly larger tank (2 foot std) on the weekend with a foam filter.
ok they are in the 2 foot tank and doing well enough with the foam filter. i probably fed them too much so there is a bit of sludge on the bottom of the tank. siphoned it off and collected a couple of the fry with the sludge. emptied the lot into a 4 foot tank that i keep outside (only water and duckweed in it) and i'll see how the fish go there as a comparison. probably need to put a heater in the 2 foot tank and get a couple of bristlenoses in there to collect the uneaten food.
bottom line is that the fry are doing well - key issue going forward will be water quality.
filters other than sponge filters will wind up sucking the fry in and siphoning off is tricky for the same reason.
i'll probably put in another sponge filter so i can wash one out at a time and be a bit more careful with feeding.
OK the latest is that the fry are still alive and eating. Some of the larger ones are starting to take shape as fish. Water cleared up and still feeding on powdered food.
Clean water, ph around 7, variety of foods, 4 foot standard tank - bare but for some driftwood and a bit of spawning moss - water is warm because my pleco is in with the goldfish.
once the eggs are laid, i take the moss to which they have attached out and put it into a smaller tank - goldfish will eat their eggs - I wait a few days for the eggs to hatch, then a couple of more days to absorb the egg sack before i start feeding with 'green' water and boiled crushed egg yolk and then powdered dry food and more egg .....
after a couple of months the fish start changing colour from olive green to yellow / gold.
i put the last batch in a tank outside - they are surviving but i think the cold weather is stunting their growth - probably 2 - 3cm at 2 months old.
i guess that i'll have to part with them soon .......... or i could build a pond in the front yard ........ gotta check out the pool regs with council .... an ornamental pond in the front yard with a pool fence just doesn't cut it does it ........ concrete or PVC lining over earth ..... hmmmmm
ok, all the viable eggs have hatched - siphoned off the infertile ones that were rotting.
so i got hundreds of wrigglers - look like mosquito larvae. feeding on green water and egg as described above - love it when they eat the egg as you can see it in their guts. I'll do a really careful 1/3 water change tomorrow.
the wrigglers are no longer hanging off the glass vertically but swimming freely and resting in a horizontal position. now eating powdered fish food (flake food and floating pellets ground to dust). I'll be putting them into a slightly larger tank (2 foot std) on the weekend with a foam filter.
ok they are in the 2 foot tank and doing well enough with the foam filter. i probably fed them too much so there is a bit of sludge on the bottom of the tank. siphoned it off and collected a couple of the fry with the sludge. emptied the lot into a 4 foot tank that i keep outside (only water and duckweed in it) and i'll see how the fish go there as a comparison. probably need to put a heater in the 2 foot tank and get a couple of bristlenoses in there to collect the uneaten food.
bottom line is that the fry are doing well - key issue going forward will be water quality.
filters other than sponge filters will wind up sucking the fry in and siphoning off is tricky for the same reason.
i'll probably put in another sponge filter so i can wash one out at a time and be a bit more careful with feeding.
OK the latest is that the fry are still alive and eating. Some of the larger ones are starting to take shape as fish. Water cleared up and still feeding on powdered food.
