My three goldfish fry - three month old survivor update

[KLKelly]

Adding to the non-classified post count

I am a big fancy goldfish addict.  They are not very hardy - are highly susceptible to buoyancy problems, and are not as easy to take care of than most people think.  I am diligent about their water quality and water changes and nutritional requirements. Most of my goldfish in five various tanks are hand fed with home made gel food.  I love everything about them.

A month ago (Dec 13) we saved some goldfish fry (eyelashes with eyes literally) from the AC110 filter and two that were stuck to the glass in the tank.  Three of the six made it past 48 hours.  They are now over a month old.  I wouldn't normally raise goldfish fry (I let them do what goldfish parents do best - eat the eggs).  But once I knew there were surivors I did my best to save them lol.

The parents are a female orange fancy and either an pearlscale or orange fancy as the father - the only three fish in the 54 gallon.  They all seem to have single anal fins and all three have double tails (fancies).  The fantails in the 54 gallon both have single anal fins and the pearlscale has double.  I wonder why and will find out from a goldfish breeder.

This is the ten gallon fry tank.  It now has a corner filter with the biomedia and mechanical media in the redsea nano.  They are still in the breeder net but get out for the rare swim with filters off.



Once they were big enough I did name them too.  Lolly (the fat one), Moxy and Whimsy.  They really do start off as eyelashes with eyes.  So removing them from the breeder net for good pictures wasn't an option. They just looked too delicate.

First Picture and video of them on January 4th eating gel food in a 1 cup measuring cup:





Just over a month old (this past week) - ammonia alert card for comparison:  I am concerned about the gills of the one in this picture.  Redness is even under the chin it seems.


Because goldfish are highly susceptible to hard to kill gill flukes, the fry have been treated with prazi with no ill effect.  Flukes are one of the big reasons goldfish fry die.  My first attempt at raising six goldfish fry over two years ago - all six died within six weeks.  They failed to thrive or grow past 1week/2week old goldfish size.  The parent tank had never been treated for flukes at that time either.

I'm excited because unlike cichlids, I won't know what these guys will end up looking like for quite a while.  Even what colour they will end up is unknown.  The mom was dark black up until a couple months ago.  I admit they are mutts.  All fancies are mutants.  I actually hope these will avoid the problems that the 'purer' types do.

I will post more on their breeding, fry food, care, and even some pictures from a professional photographer on the GAB board of goldfish fry in their first days including in the egg.  I will ask her permission first.

It has been fun.  I tried to hatch my own baby brine shrimp and gave up.  It was too hard to keep the shrimp eggs out of the mix even with the hatchery I bought.  The eggs can and do kill baby fish if they ingest them when they are too small.

[RoxyDog]

Awwww...that is cute!  Good luck, I hope they live long healthy lives.  Goldfish certainly ARE harder to keep than people think!

[charlie]

Nice , thanks for sharing.

[dan2x38]

KL thanks loved the picks those guys are cute. Hope they survie. If you want can show you my BBS hatchery it works very well.

[Nerine]

Good job!! I am not a fan of goldfish, but yours are cute!

[KLKelly]

Thanks guys.  Its what I'm focusing a lot of my time on so I thought I would share.  And there is only three of them.  I can't imagine raising hundreds of fry like some of you do.  I think its cool that I can tell all my fry apart 

Does your brine shrimp hatchery seperate all the eggs - my eyes aren't focusing on things that small. Its hard to fish out the shrimp without the eggs.  My husband had to help get the fry they were so small.  I saw the movement and then lost them : )  I bought BBS from big als. Frozen though.  I can't even tell if they can eat them.  The two small fry I need to fatten up. I notice they don't eat the ground up flakes - they try to.  So I'm back to supplementing with smaller food in case they have a mouth deformity I can't see or are just too small.

[dan2x38]

I use a 2 litre pop bottle upsidedown it is clear plastic. There is an airline at the bottom. I place a light there b/c BBA are drawn to the light they group there. I have a small valve connected to the airline. When they hatch I remove the air pump then drain the BBS into my net. The unhatched and shells float to the top and stick to the sides. maybe i will make a thread and post the pics. Hope this helps.

[KLKelly]

Please.  I think you should start a separate post on it in case people don't open my goldfish thread.

I'd be willing to give it a try just to see if it works.  Brand new vial of eggs and all : )

And I never have pop bottles here but I happen to have an empty one on the stove.  I'm too lazy to dig out the recyling bin and the back door was frozen shut.  Meant to be lol.

[woof99]

So cool!!!  I keep hoping that I end up finding a survivor one day, I can see myself doing just that but mine have yet to fully mature.  I hear it is 2-3 years, so have a while to go.
My Oranda has the white dots along his perctoral fins but nothing on his cheeks..  don't know if he ever will.

The others are still too small especially my new babies!

Well congrats on the babies, they are so cute!!
I am expect monthly pics from now on, here or on GAB!!

[kennyman]

Pretty cool. I didn't know that about flukes. I have never done anything that got me into dealing with parasites like that.

I use a bbs hatchery where the napuli swim up out of the hatchery into a separate container. It does not make very many at once but it does make separating them from the gunk easy. It's the Sanfrancisco type. I got it for nothing in a box full of stuff from someone getting out of the hobby. You could probably make on easily enough if you wanted to.

[KLKelly]

Thanks.  I have two of those hatcheries too.  I thought if I bought a second one i could have them all the time but when I tap the top to get the air out the eggs go through.  If you can solve that for me I'd love it.  It works really well for a small amount of fry otherwise.  I just found out about the tiny eggs if they get through can kill small fry.  Mine are probably big enough to process them now.

[kennyman]

Thanks.  I have two of those hatcheries too.  I thought if I bought a second one i could have them all the time but when I tap the top to get the air out the eggs go through.  If you can solve that for me I'd love it.  It works really well for a small amount of fry otherwise.  I just found out about the tiny eggs if they get through can kill small fry.  Mine are probably big enough to process them now.

I know what you mean about the eggs going up into the bottle. I started keeping my box a touch fuller so that the water was up in that ring. When I put the bottle on the top I didn't have to tap it more than once (lightly) and that kept the bottle from exchanging water with the box. I found If I kept tapping it water was moving out of the bottle into the hatchery and eggs were floating up into the bottle.

[beowulf]

Very nice, I actually find the two feeders I bought for my pond this past summer to be very hardy.  They are currently in the garage in a big rubbermaid bin and with the cold snap last week the garage got cold enough to have a fairly thick piece of ice (2 inches maybe) and I could see them below slowly moving around.  I have made sure to keep the ice open and they look no worse for the ware.

[aussie_shep]

Beautiful babies!  I can't wait to see what they look like in a few months

[Laura]

They are so cute!!
I have microworms and white worms if you want to try other live food.  You are welcome to starter cultures if you like.....

[Fishnut]

Very cute little guys!!  I once had baby goldfish but they only lived a couple of weeks .  Way to go!!

[KLKelly]

Laura I'll pm you.

Well they are still alive and the big fat one is getting bigger but the other two seem to be lagging behind.  I'm not sure why.  I wonder if its genetics.  They are too small to see if they have mouth defects. (Too small for my eyes to focus on anyways - I've even tried zoom with the camera).  So I'm continuing to feed more tiny foods like Hikari first bites for the small ones.

They are now out in the main tank all day with just the corner filter on for biofiltration.  I have to baffle the outflow of even the red sea mini to prevent them from really taking a plunge with the current if they go near it.  So I'll break up the current of the outflow.

Since they are out in the 10 gallon all to themselves, they spend 100% of their time hoovering for food on the bare bottom of the tank.  No rests at all like the big fat adults.  They are always active.

And they never go near the top for some reason.  Its full of floating wisteria (spelling).  For some reason I'd thought they'd feel threatened by the hugeness of the tank and hide in there lots.  If they went near the top I could start training them to a feeding ring because they are so small its hard to make sure they'd get enough.  I am putting them in the breeder net at night for my comfort.

So my biggest question so far on fry rearing is why the vast difference in size (and fatness) of the one fry?

[sas]

They are cuties aren't they!
You are doing a fantastic job for sure.
I'm no expert on raising fry but I'm pretty sure just like other living creatures, some fry can be smaller and not as robust.
This is a little off topic but I raise meat goats and have been caught culling small, fragile does, to only see them later and they have matured into massive, highly productive animals. My loss and an expensive one to boot. So maybe the little one just needs time?
  No sites to quote but isn't the cull rate really high when breeding goldfish? Not a nice thought definitely.

PS Laura has great live food cultures .

[dan2x38]

No Golide knowledge except they are cute and get a bad rap and treated poorly. I respect your efforts and others who raise them like other fish!

Can't see they are that much different than other fry except mouth development b/c of type. But usually in my fry tanks I see dominate ones when feeding. They always grow fastest. The others survie but are smaller until adult then they catch up. If your near Laura or coming in I too can give you some Walter Worms same thing but a little smaller and live longer (it's claimed) than common MWs. I think white worms might be to fatty to much protein for Goldie fry. IMO just guessing.

[KLKelly]

Thanks again guys.  It really is a great experience.  Fancy goldfish are fun and heartache all in one.  I sometimes wish my first goldfish adoption was a comet or single tail

Now that they are out free in the tank the big fat one picks at gel food and the little ones go around picking up the really tiny food (hikari first bites, baby brine shrimp and crushed up freeze dried brine shrimp) on the bottom and stay away from the gel food chunk.

I would like to take one of you up on the offer for worms.  I have to pick up my cats pain medication from the glebe apothocary.  Dan I can bring you some of that java moss.  I think protein is best for growing fry though - I'll ask on the goldfish forum. Is their a big difference between the worms?  I really want those to small ones to start thriving.  They seem so fragile compared to big fatty.  I don't know if she is big or they are small though.

Dumb question regarding the worms, but if I put microworms into the ten gallon, what happens if the fish don't find them?  The thought kind of freaks me out.  Will the corner filter be full of them?  Or should I put them in a tupperware to feed this to them?