Goldfish Babies One Month Old And More Eggs

The gold fish babies are now 1 month old

 

They look a lot more like fish, but they still have no goldfish colour aside from the greenish brown coloration and pale belly.

 Sadly, only 4 babies remain.  There are two big, fat ones and two skinny, small ones.  I refer to them as clones since the pairs look eerily similar to each other.  Perhaps the Matrix felt sorry for me when all the babies started to die and they create two copies of the last two fish for me to stare at every day.

 It seems that the toxicity of the water was building up rapidly as the drops of raw egg yolk began to decompose in the water.  I suddenly noticed at least 8 baby fish dead one day and I immediately changed the water.

I thought maybe I could save a couple goldfish babies from the toxic water by moving them to the guppy tank, but it was a bad idea.

I discovered that the baby goldfish don't swim very well since the baby tank has no real current.  So they kind of half swim, half float in the guppy tank.  Also, they are very pale coloured compared to the guppy babies so they stand out.  Within minutes, a fat momma guppy spotted the goldfish baby and chased it.  The baby's swimming skills were sadly lacking and she swallowed him down in three gulps.  It was horrifying.

 By that time, only five babies were still remaining.  My brother tested the chemical balance of the water and found that the ammonia level was still too high, so he has since changed an even larger proportion of the water.  Now four babies remain. 

 Meanwhile, the parent goldfish tank also benefited from double water changes.  I also planted new artificial plants since they had demolished the original live plants.

This prompted some mating behaviour and we were shocked to discover a new batch of eggs on Sunday morning.

 I knew they could lay eggs twice a year, but I didn't expect it so soon.

 There were eggs everywhere!  Not as many probably as the first time, but still a plentiful amount.

I moved any plants with eggs into the goldfish baby tank, and my brother vacuumed any visible eggs up and transferred them as well.

 You can see that the baby goldfish is wondering what all the small round balls are.

I pushed the contrast of the image so that you can see the eyeballs of the babies and their curved bodies.  The white egg is an unfertilized egg.

There are quite a few unfertilized eggs noticeable as they start to turn whiter.

Even so, there are so many eggs that there will definitely be lots of babies.

This egg is stuck to a plant, but the floor of the baby tank is actually covered with lots of loose eggs that we vacuumed off the plastic plants, gravel, and filter from the parent tank.

Meanwhile, Frog the Goldfish doesn't care.  These are not his kids.  He is just taking a nap by the new plants while he waits for his next meal.

Have a great day!

Goldfish Babies Day 24

It has been approximately 24 days since the goldfish babies hatched from their eggs.

As you can see, they have changed a lot.  Their bodies are starting to round out more, and you can almost see all of their internal organs enlarging in size since they are still quite see-through.  The picture seems to show the upper body as orange, but it is just the work of a shadow.  

They are mainly a whitish peach/pale grey colour with a bit of pinkish red where the internal organs are.

There are very large discrepancies in the fry sizes despite being born within a day of each other.  Some of the babies look fat and meaty.  Some of the babies look anorexic.

 Here are some photos for you to enjoy.

 They look funny when reflected on the surface of the water.

 

 

 The babies with bent/crooked spines have all died off naturally.  This particular baby shown is starting to form a deep dip in the spine.  He is currently lying upside down on the gravel so I think the anomaly is having an effect on his health. 

 

 

 

Have a great weekend!

The Goldfish Eggs Are Starting to Hatch

I just checked on the new tank I started and I noticed that the water looked frothy at the top.  I am not sure why.  However, it looks like some baby goldfish are starting to hatch!

Here is one newly hatched baby goldfish.

 There are little straight goldfish fry that are still attached to the egg.  They wave in the current.

 Can you see them?  They have fat little egg yolk sacs around their body. Over the next day or two, these babies will not eat and they will not move around much.  They will just absorb the yolk sac.  Around the third day, they will start to swim around and they will need food. 

  Apparently I should use some water from a well planted tank, add a piece of lettuce and some algae wafers and place it in a brightly lit (not sunny) spot.  This will encourage the infusoria (algae, amoebas, euglena, paramecium, rotifers, stentor, and vorticella) to grow.  I am supposed to feed some of this water to the babies about 3 times per day.  I can also give them newly hatched brine shrimp, cooked egg yolk, and finely powdered fish food in small quantities.

 Some babies have detached from the egg and are on leaves or on the floor.

I am excited to see how many more will have hatched by tomorrow. I wonder why the eggs in the new tank are hatching first?

Have a happy day!

Operation "Save the Mini Sea Beasts"

I read on the Internet that goldfish will tend to eat all the eggs in the tank.  I also read that it only takes 4-7 days for goldfish eggs to hatch.  I'm already at day 3 or so.  I figured I would give the eggs on the plants a chance to at least hatch without being eaten so I started up my old Explorer fish tank.

I used a mesh to cover the water intake tube and stuffed some aquatic seaweed like plant there to reduce the likelihood that the babies will be sucked up into the filter.  I removed the filter stuffing too so that the water just gets sucked up, aerated, and then spit back out again without having anything caught.

 The forums say that you should actually keep the eggs in the tank that they hatched in and remove the goldfish, but I don't have a tank big enough to put the goldfish into. 

 Instead, I just used water, gravel, and plants directly from the original tank.

 I notice that there are eggs all over these plants, even in the root areas.  The goldfish tend to pull up and eat all the leaves off, so the plants are never properly planted anymore.

I hope they will hatch soon and that they will survive in this tank.

 When they are big enough, I can put them back into the big tank.  There is plenty of room, although these goldfish seem to get bigger and bigger all the time.

 Meanwhile in the big tank, the goldfish have noticed that something is missing.

 They are curious about what it is.

 Oh, exposed rock (with eggs on them).  These were previously protected by the plants I put into the new nursery aquarium.

Om nom nom!  (Very tragic indeed...) 

Nothing escapes the large chomping mouths of these sea beasts.

Have a happy week!

More Pictures of Goldfish Eggs and Other Aquarium Friends

I managed to zoom in to see one of the eggs a little closer.  It definitely looks like a little baby fish with very big eyeballs and a curved body on side view.

You can see them clustered in a small nook by the filter.

 So small. 

 They are clustered under leaves.

 You can see the curved body shape in the top right egg in the above two photos.

 

 

Meanwhile, in my guppy tank, the population is also expanding.

Baby guppies!

 

I think there are may be just under 20 baby guppies right now.  At this point, most of the guppies are hybrids of endlers and the traditional guppy.

There are also some other friendly little critters - Amano shrimp!

I'm waiting for the two female Amano shrimp to have eggs.  I have been reading about how to hatch the Amano shrimp eggs and it is a very difficult process.  I still want to try it though.

Have a happy day!