# Spawning goldfish



## Martin steele (24 Sep 2019)

Hi all,
I recently set up a 60 litre planted aquarium in the past I have kept Marines with breeding sucsess.

This time I went back to my roots and picked two fantail goldfish.

They don't have the vivid colours of Marines but they are characters they know when it's feeding time and are bottomless pits when it comes to food.

The other week I noticed him chasing her all over the tank and she was looking fat "probably all the white Worms and daphnia they munch through".
Any way to cut a long story short they have spawned and I have one tiny speck of life isolated.

What I would like to know is  how and when do I isolate my fishes from the main tank in order for them to spawn and save the fry.

I have a date for the last spawning and I believe it's every 28 days Q do I move the fish into the spawning tank a few days before 28 days has elapsed. 

And would the move not throw them of spawning in a strange place ect ECT ECT.

Regards Martin steele


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## mort (25 Sep 2019)

Are they laying their eggs in the plants? I've not bred goldfish for a long time but when I did I added a spawning mop (made from green wool) which was easy to move into a grow out tank. Goldfish are egg predators so it's better to move the eggs earlier if you want a higher birth rate, if you only want a few them I would keep java moss with them and hope for the best.


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## alto (25 Sep 2019)

How many gallons of water and suitable live foods do you have for growing out your GF spawn 
- definitely do some reading on the process and environment/food effects and how they affect developing GF

Your present 60litre tank is about the minimum for 2 GF, recommendation is 60-75 litres/gold fish as your present fish grow (many aquarium GF are stunted)


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## Martin steele (28 Sep 2019)

mort said:


> Are they laying their eggs in the plants? I've not bred goldfish for a long time but when I did I added a spawning mop (made from green wool) which was easy to move into a grow out tank. Goldfish are egg predators so it's better to move the eggs earlier if you want a higher birth rate, if you only want a few them I would keep java moss with them and hope for the best.


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## Martin steele (28 Sep 2019)

Hi they are laying in the plants so it's not possible to move the eggs out without stripping all my plants. What I need to know is how and when to move them to a spawning tank and will it upset his or her ardour.
Regards Martin


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## Martin steele (28 Sep 2019)

alto said:


> How many gallons of water and suitable live foods do you have for growing out your GF spawn
> - definitely do some reading on the process and environment/food effects and how they affect developing GF
> 
> Your present 60litre tank is about the minimum for 2 GF, recommendation is 60-75 litres/gold fish as your present fish grow (many aquarium GF are stunted)


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## Martin steele (28 Sep 2019)

Hi and thank you for getting back to me. The tank is 60 litre but soon to be upgraded. I have microworm brine shrimp and daphnia and white Worms.No problem with space I can set something up in the garden.But for now the spawning tank would be 30 litres . What I need to know is how and when to move mum and dad over to it.Wont moving them from there home disturb there labido.
Regards Martin steele


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## zozo (28 Sep 2019)

The eggs are quite noticable, tiny golden yellow balls in the plants.










It seems 1 ball looks like 1 egg.. It might be i dunno.. But i once did take out and counted maybe 10 eggs and i ended up with over 30 baby gold fish.

Thus its multiple eggs looking like 1 of they are all triplets and twins.


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## mort (28 Sep 2019)

Martin steele said:


> Hi they are laying in the plants so it's not possible to move the eggs out without stripping all my plants. What I need to know is how and when to move them to a spawning tank and will it upset his or her ardour.
> Regards Martin



I wouldn't move the adults but move the eggs to a rearing tank. This is why I'd try a spawning mop as you can simply move it to the rearing tank with gentle flow over the eggs. Doing this means you won't upset the parents and the babies will be in a safe place.
If you prepare the rearing tank before hand you can get some green water and other live foods cultured.


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## zozo (28 Sep 2019)

Baby goldfish are true survivors. I have in my garden goldfish bath tub that has a trickle filter containing +/- 50 litre water, next to it, via vacuum overflow. How it happened i dont know, but when i cleaned out the filter last spring i found a baby goldfish in it from previous year. Likely an egg that got transported into it and hatched. It survived the winter -0 temps, born in May, found in April year later. It grew into a healthy vibrant orange long tail. In perfect healthy shape and proportions +/- 4cm tall.

Obviously it was nurtured sufficiently with sifting out the filters detritus. Don't ask what it was it at, i didn't find any that looked like food, but it did. 

Only thing i know for sure, the tub with the goldfish is th only one of 6 that doesn't grow filamentous algae..  They eat it or poop it into control..


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## Martin steele (29 Sep 2019)

zozo said:


> The eggs are quite noticable, tiny golden yellow balls in the plants.
> 
> 
> 
> ...





zozo said:


> The eggs are quite noticable, tiny golden yellow balls in the plants.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


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## Martin steele (29 Sep 2019)

Thanks for this zozo, it's fascinating to watch them mating.And when you see that tiny little life you just want it to survive.I once remember working as a window cleaner on the national computing centre in mcr one of Harold Wilson's white heat projects. Anyhow we had to ladder an area on the roof and it had a shallow pond in it.Somone had thrown goldfish in there no filters just water and what the office workers threw in out of there windows the remnants of there lunches.
Any way you could not move for fear of treading on these goldfish and the variety was incredible and so healthy.So I take it on board they are survivors.
Thanks again 
Martin.


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## Martin steele (29 Sep 2019)

mort said:


> I wouldn't move the adults but move the eggs to a rearing tank. This is why I'd try a spawning mop as you can simply move it to the rearing tank with gentle flow over the eggs. Doing this means you won't upset the parents and the babies will be in a safe place.
> If you prepare the rearing tank before hand you can get some green water and other live foods cultured.


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## Martin steele (29 Sep 2019)

Hi Mort and thank you for the time you have taken to reply.
How will I get them to spawn in a mop in a densley planted aquriaqum.I really don't want to rip out all my plants sacralidg that's why I thought of moving the fish over to a spawning tank?????.
Regards Martin


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## alto (29 Sep 2019)

Why not move them temporarily over to a 60l (or larger tank), if you condition them in the planted tank and read the signs right, the change to new water will likely trigger a spawn attempt

If not, then the tank can serve as alternate lodgings until they do spawn (you can leave the spawning mop in place)

Once the deed is done, you can move the adults back to their planted home, drop water levels in the 60l for a more manageable fry tank, slowly increasing water levels (& filtration) as the fry grow


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## mort (29 Sep 2019)

Martin steele said:


> Hi Mort and thank you for the time you have taken to reply.
> How will I get them to spawn in a mop in a densley planted aquriaqum.I really don't want to rip out all my plants sacralidg that's why I thought of moving the fish over to a spawning tank?????.
> Regards Martin



Tbh Martin, when I used a spawning mop for goldfish it was in a very densely planted pond but have used one for other fish species in a densely planted tank. You might not see as many eggs as in a bare tank but for some reason I found fish loved to lay in a dense spawning mop (or java moss ball), over other plants. So if you are happy with a smaller amount of fry I would try the mop in the tank but if you'd like more I would go with alto's advice above.


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## Martin steele (29 Sep 2019)

alto said:


> Why not move them temporarily over to a 60l (or larger tank), if you condition them in the planted tank and read the signs right, the change to new water will likely trigger a spawn attempt
> 
> If not, then the tank can serve as alternate lodgings until they do spawn (you can leave the spawning mop in place)
> 
> Once the deed is done, you can move the adults back to their planted home, drop water levels in the 60l for a more manageable fry tank, slowly increasing water levels (& filtration) as the fry grow


Thanks Alto that makes sense and it doesn't have to be a tank a 60 litre Rubbermmade box would do the job.
When you say condition them do you mean lots of live food.
Regards Martin


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## Martin steele (29 Sep 2019)

mort said:


> Tbh Martin, when I used a spawning mop for goldfish it was in a very densely planted pond but have used one for other fish species in a densely planted tank. You might not see as many eggs as in a bare tank but for some reason I found fish loved to lay in a dense spawning mop (or java moss ball), over other plants. So if you are happy with a smaller amount of fry I would try the mop in the tank but if you'd like more I would go with alto's advice above.


Hi Mort and thank you again for your advice. How do I make a spawning mop and are the dyes in wool not dangerous to fish.
Regards Martin


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## Polly (3 Oct 2019)

Hi Martin,,

Coming late to this, you've had some great advice from alto and mort, but I'm concerned about your statement "probably all the white Worms and daphnia they munch through".   It's great that you're feeding them well, but goldfish need vegetable matter as well as live foods for good health - especially Fantails where the body shape is shorter and they can be prone to bloat.

For vegetable matter I fed mine freeze dried Parsley (the herb)  it's ready shredded and they absolutely love it.  It provides the roughage they need for their digestive system to work properly.  It also helps their colours too.  Just a pinch daily was enough to keep them in tip top condition.

Regarding the eggs, like the others I simply cut some of the plant sections with the eggs and put them in a fry tank.   Better to have a small number of eggs and plenty of room to grow the babies on than rescue every egg and struggle to keep the water quality high because of the number of baby fish.  In fact, some of the babies hatched in the tank and were removed when swimming freely, if there are enough plants you may find this happening too 

I've had best result raising fry of different types of freshwater fish when the tank they were raised in had plenty of plants and a working filter along with a sandy bottom. It all helps give nitrifying  bacteria a place to grow.   This along with regular water changes seems to give by far the best results and the healthiest babies 

Good luck with your project, raising fry is a fascinating addition to keeping fish


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## Martin steele (7 Nov 2019)

Hi i have managed to save some more eggs they hatched out last Monday but one about 10 days ago and they seem to be doing fine.Tonight i i looked in my homemade fry trap and what did i see a brand new baby goldfish newly hatched.Q what's the chances of a fertilized egg sitting on the bottom of the fry trap for over 8 days after it should have hatched.
Regards martinsteele1959@gmail.com


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## mort (8 Nov 2019)

I would say that if the other eggs have hatched from the same batch of eggs, that the last egg is unfertilised.  The eggs hatch depending on how fast they develop and it's controlled by water temperature, so you should see very little difference in the time they take to hatch if any. 
Congrats on the babies though. It's been a long time since I raised any goldfish up and I think it was a bit of a failure as one grew monstrously quickly and cannabalised some of its siblings.


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## Martin steele (9 Nov 2019)

mort said:


> I would say that if the other eggs have hatched from the same batch of eggs, that the last egg is unfertilised.  The eggs hatch depending on how fast they develop and it's controlled by water temperature, so you should see very little difference in the time they take to hatch if any.
> Congrats on the babies though. It's been a long time since I raised any goldfish up and I think it was a bit of a failure as one grew monstrously quickly and cannabalised some of its siblings.


Hi Mort it was a purely accedemic Q it was a new .Born fry unfortunately cannibalized now but it hatched out in the same fry trap as it's brothers and sisters.
Hey ho these creatures never cease to amaze me.
Regards martinsteele1959@gmail.com


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