Help -- Goldfish fry

[archea]

Hi,

I'm seeking your advice on how to care for goldfish fry.

I have a few hundred fry. This is my third batch in as many months. Despite my best efforts, none of the earlier batches survived and I hoping for success this time around.

Found the eggs on Sunday morning on a large artificial plant. Moved them to a 10 gallon aquarium a few hours later. Put six inches of new water treated with methylene blue -- last time I used 50% from the main tank. Added a heater (temp 21C), small air stone and small filter (low flow).

The fry started hatching on Wednesday and on Thursday night I removed the unhatched eggs.

Today is Saturday and I'm trying to figure out what to do next. Should I start feeding them now and what should I use?

For the previous batches, I used First bites fish food and cooked egg yolk (small amounts mixed to a paste).

Each time I've had hundreds of fry but within a week or two they are all gone. I've spend hours on line reading everything I could find. Also been asking around at the pet stores.

Figured I would come to the experts this time!  

Archea

[exv152]

Have you tried feeding them baby brine shrimp? That's usually what most fry eat after the yolk sac has been used up, on the second to third day after hatching. And you'll want to feed them several times a day and keep the water clean, and you can switch to baby GF pellets as they grow large enough.

[archea]

Forgot to mention that I bought some brine shrimp eggs last night and setup them up. Hopefully they will hatch within a day or two.

[bergenm]

PM a member named 'Toss' - check if he has any walterworms for sale. They are a good food for them and stay alive in the water for up to 24 hours...

[bergenm]

The trick I have found to raising koi and goldfish is you need to have a very dirty tank with very clean water...

I tried a few times setting up a tank to raise then and it failed every time. Then I started using established tanks and pond and the babies did very well.

They need algae to graze on, muck on the bottom of the tank for them to pick through and infusoria to grow in. Having pond snails/ramshorns in the tank can also help - they eat food and dead fish and their slime also helps to grow infusoria. Live food is the best for them - walterworms are good since the stay alive in tank t for 24 hours.

Sponge filters are the best, if you don't use them, put sponges on the filter intakes to stop the babies from being sucked up and they will also allow the babies to eat the food stuck to the sponges.

Keep an eye on the water parameters and do regular water changes.

Good luck!

[jetstream]

They need algae to graze on, muck on the bottom of the tank for them to pick through and infusoria to grow in.

That's what I'm going to say. One of my fish friends in Asia is a gold fish nut.  I guess he feeds them with infusoria or green water at early stage. You can grow your green water or infusoria with lima bean, am I spell it right. But I forget the recipe.

Good luck!