I can't wait to get my four lil' guys!!

What color do you think those greenish gold ones will be? I really like the speckled ones! Do you think any of them will be lemonheads?

the greenish ones are the same colour percy was when he was little. SO i imagine that they will look just like him when they grow up, which is like a dark chocolate color with gold undertones.

As far as them being lemon heads, i think i remember from on of the topics i posted that the true lemon heads cant have dark eyes, and all of mine have dark eyes.

So, im not sure at all! I know alot of them have that lemon colour in the head region though. :-D

When you pick out mine, please one of those chocolatey ones! Wow! Real Pretty! Well, you just pick 'em out, obviously you have great taste in goldies cause yours are beautiful!!

I can't wait!

(Oh yeah, put on here or send me a link to pics of both parents. They should be the 1st pics in my baby goldie record!!

YOur photos are amazing! I wish I had your eye!

Your babies are also amazing - a literal rainbow of colors. Their fat little tummies are sooooo cute.

I truly hope that we will be able to see these babies grow and develop - no matter where they end up!

Well, even though I did not want to.. I did what any respectable breeder would do and culled the ones with S-Spines and severe tail deformities that resulted in problems with swimming.

Dont worry though, my guy with absolutely no tail is still doing wonderfully.

I have kept the best of the best so far and havent had to cull in about a week.

In order to find out who is doing best I have slowly increased the current in the tank so that now, all of the fry are easily able to withstand the currents of a penguin biowheel 350B within their 20gal long tank. Quite a large filter for the tank, but with alot of fry. very needed.

I currently have fry in the 20gL that are 60 days old and 49 days old.

I have 9 that are 60 days old. that would be 4 chocolate and 5 calico.
3 chocolate go to Jeana and 2 of the calicos go to her on friday!!!

Of the 49 day old fry there are maybe 6.
2 chocolate and 4 calico.
these however have much longer tails than the 60 day old group.

But, I thought I would post some excellent shots I took of these little guys, I have photos of Jeana's 2 Calicos and of 1 of her Chocolates!
Plus 2 of the ones I will be keeping.

Jeania's:



~~~~~~~~~~
here are some of my favorites:

Here are some of the 49 day old fry:
1 calico:


1 chocolate:



1 that i have to watch because it has what looks like a deformed tail, even if the head markings are lovely. :


Here is The one without a tail, you can see it has healed completely and he moves around very well. He has to try alot harder in current but is still able to do well and does tire sooner than the others, but does not avoid the situations at all. None of them pick on him either:

Oh Le Ann they look wonderful! I alway's look forward to your new piccy's. That lil guy with no tail is sure cute. Do you think he will be fine that like for his entire life then? From the sounds of it he seems to be adapting just fine. He's gonna be a special one for you I bet.

I just love your chocolate fry, I bet he's gonna turn out really cool looking.

thank you della!!! I miss you on myspace

But i think the lil guy with no tail is going to be just fine, he doesnt have any spinal problems just seems that his tail was cutoff when he was teenie.

Well he's sure cute! He's gonna be fun I bet too.

Awww Sorry about MySpace hun-I still have my AIM screen name in my profile.

Good Luck with all those babies-You sure have a handful there. heheh

Thank you for taking the time to update us on your wonderful fries! Excellent pics as always!
What camera do u use?

I'm using a Cannon Power Shot a610

You should see my wildlife photos, they are insane.

I would like to see ur wildlife photos! Maybe u could post it in the chatter box?

Does ur camera allows u to set the shutter speed manually?

Yea, i can do that i think. and yes it does.

That's the feature I need the most sadly my digicam doesn't have it

What shutter speed u shot ur fish pics at?

i actually did not need to change the shutter speed for my fish. there is an option for fast moving objects and then you combine that with the option for close objects less than 24" and it works out very very well.

Here we go guys, an update!
I have 4 including my chocolate with no tail and 3 calicos that are now 84 days old and 2 calico, 1 chocolate, and maybe 1 blue who are 73 days old.

Here are two from the 84:



and one from the 73:

Oh oh they are so cute.. . little fatties...

WOW........ this is the most unbelieveably GOOD documentary on goldfish fry I've ever seen........ anywhere!! THey're soooooooo cool too! I wish I was closer, cuz I'd take one in a heartbeat, I really really would!!

Such cool litte guys, and how wonderfully they have developed thanks to your excellent care, Sorsha! I just had to re-read the whole documentary again, its so wonderful!
What a blessing a good camera can be! THe first time I saw my fry clearly on a picture was at about 3 weeks...

i have a question, my fry about 20 or so are about 3 weeks old but they still look like the ones in the day 6 pics, why are mine so small

what are you feeding them on? diet has a lot to do with the growth rate of fry. high protein foods such as freshly hatched brine shrimp or daphnia will result in faster growth rate and deeper bodies.

i have to say, that is some FANTASTIC camara work there! lord knows ive tried taking decent pics of the fry but theyre so small my camera barely picks up on them. takes skill to get some good pics!

crushed hikari lionhead, liquidfry and egg yolk. I live in Aus, unfortunetely haven't find any of those live stuff around.

agreed on the pics.

thank you for the compliments on the photos!

Mellowr,

Since you do not have access to live foods. The next best thing will be freeze dried foods. If your fry are still as small as my 6 day old fry you should feed them freeze dried daphnia, they are still a little small for bloodworms, but if you break it up that will also help. High protein diets will help your fry to grow deeper bodies and also to be healthier.

You can also take algae wafers to feed them. because as these wafers expand the fry are able to tug on them and get additional nutrients.

Also, you should know that if you have too much salt in with your fry they will also not grow as quickly. I encountered this with my 4th brood.

I will send you a PM if i can and send additional information and check on your set up :-D

Mellowr, email me at Sorsha02@aol.com

ok, thanx, appreciate it.

Time for another update!
This one is first, getting close to 6 months now and has developed his breeding stars:



This is my favorite little girl from the second at 93 days today:


This is my favorite little guy from the third at 82 days today:

about how big is the 6 month goldfish

he is about 5" long from nose to tip of tail

They are still SO CUTE LeAnn Your doing such a AWESOME Job with them..

PS-I'm SO SORRY bout the picture that I was gonna get off of you hun! I totally spaced getting back to you about all that. If you still have some just PM me when you get a minute, Iv'e been being naughty on E-Bay so I'll have to check with Hubby...

Whoa Sorsha! That 6 month-old is already 5"???? Goodness me what r u feeding him He's come full circle now ready to mate and give you another 500-1000 little babies to take care of lol.

Oh and I looooooove the girl wonderful colouration!

thanks for your responce Diary Of Raising Fry W/ Photos is brilliant. congrats of your healthy fish

i wrote a little post before but nobody really new the answer.

the goldfishes ive seen at the local goldfish store are usually 2 1/2 inches. are there any gf breeders here? when you raise a fry how old are they when they're about 2 1/2 inches?

http://www.kokosgoldfish.invisionzone.com/...showtopic=45353

I think everybody has answered your question in the other thread quite clearly . It's very hard to tell how old a fry is based on the length cos there are a lot of factors that affect their growth.
As for gf breeders here, Sorsha is one, so is koko,and there are a few others also, but mostly incidental or for fun, not commercial.

yea, i already answered that question as best I could... It is really hard to tell without knowing the conditions the fry were raised in. It isnt really important how old the fry are anyways when you are purchasing. You need to pay close attention to their swim patterns, body colouring, and how it is holding its fins. Even if it is smaller, if it is healthy and you give it plenty of room, then it will continue and be beautiful.

hi d_golem

thanks for replying to my other post. i thought IMO meant you didnt know for sure what normal fish growth is. im really interested in growing a monster sized fish. then again monster sized goldfish could be abnormal. i guess

ive never had a goldfish larger than 3". we could keep it alive but it never grew there was one post that i read saying fish really slow down in growth or stop after 160 days. im really trying to learn how to keep a good tank for optimum growth. that way if im doing everything right and the fish still isnt growing to its max+ maybe i should try another fish.

I have an oranda that is about 7-7.5" in length from nose to tail tip and about 3.5 inches wide... I have seen them slow down growth after a length of 5 inches but not really along any sort of day by day schedule.

thanks Sorsha that helps me not focus so much on how many days old a GF is.

Hi, I was just asking for help on what to feed my baby fish from the pond, and I started serfing this website and your diary was very helpful. Now I have to go out and try to find the shrimp you used for your fry.
This was very helpful. Thanks alot for the insight. Blondie

Just thought I'd pop in here & show off a couple of the babies that were from Sorsha's "Diary of Raising Fry"!!





Mine are about 2 1/2" long (not counting the tail). I am soooo glad that Sorsha shared these beauties with me!

they are looking wonderful jeana!!!! and you know what? soon ill post photos of the guys I have from the same group AND ill post how my lastest set are doing, they are right now only about 5 days old. :-D

After having left this forum for a long time (internship in Africa etc) I returned today and just had to read your wonderful diary! Its amazing, especially the pictures. Thank you very much for posting them!
I arrived back from Africa on friday and immediately went to the pond. My parents told me there werent any fry but I know not to trust them on that and started scooping anyhow.
And yes, over 20 fry saved from vicious parents :-)
Two seem to be a little older already but most are around 1-5 days old, with some still have the egg sac.
So I'm right behind you on this new batch! :-)
Please let me know how this newest lot is doing.

Anyhow, I quickly went and prepared a tank with a little pond water, since in my experience they do better in that than treated tap water. Unfortunately I dont think my camera will take such beautiful pictures as yours but I'll give it a try anyhow.
I also paid a visit to a friend of mine who received the offspring of 3 years ago. He had some SERIOUS illness in his pond with 80% dying but funnily enough mine seem to be immune. They are now about 10cm with 1 being completely white except for the tail being red, 1 is red/white/black/orange and 1 has the copper/brown colour.
Its amazing to see how such small eggs can deliver such big fish :-)

HELP!!!! Last month I've got a fry (one) and it died...don't exactly know why but I think it's probably I put some methylene blue in the water. Then, last week...I had around 30-35 fry (I did not put any methylene blue anymore)...some died on the third day and there were 4-5 left that looked strong enough to live but "stupid" me tried to put them together with their mommy and daddy (in a plastic container that has really small holes on them...which they went through!!!!) and of course, mommy and daddy ate them all. Saved some but they did not make it...I felt like a real mad woman crying my eyes out for being so stupid.

Today...I've got myself about 100+ eggs. I've put them in a plastic tub about 14" x 14" and had asked my husband to get some live plants for them.

Now...can someone out there please tell me what I should do next? Apart from reading this extremely helpful website, I am hoping someone out there will stick with me on a day to day basis to tell me what I am doing wrong and what to do right.

I really want to keep some of these fry alive.

Anyway, this is my first time to look after gold fish and luckily I have them now for more than a year already (I've got six..and they are all of different kind of gold fish...).

Looking forward to some help from anyone.....Thanx...Hope28

Your an awesome care taker for goldfish any updates on this gold fish? how big is he/she now? is he/she 11 months now? It'd be sweet to see an updated picture of him/her now.

Hi, Although I do not intend to have fry, reading your article was super interesting and VERY informative. Just wanted to say congrats on a fine job! You Rock!

wow awsome pot...thx for sharing..i too am hoping to be a grandma soon
i can wait.anyway congratulations!

Awesome photos!!!

By any chance, do you have any more photos of the fish missing his/her tail?? I am absolutely IN LOVE with that fish!!

Ps, what is that fish's story? Does it have a home? Are you keeping it (wouldn't blame you), because if it's looking for a home... I'd be more than glad to give it one. Lol, thanks hope this isn't to off topic!!

I would love to see a video of how a fish with no tail swims. Gorgeous photos!!!

You have given me all the information that I have been searching for - thank you thank you thank you.
I'm also sure that others have found this very informative as well!!!

I kept the one with no tail, and he is still doing rather well, considering his handicap. Ill post photos of him later on. So far, he is still quite small, about the length of your thumb, while his brothers and sisters are now about 6" long not including the tails.
I think that it is good for him to grow really slowly but i think a large part of that is because he has to put forth so much more energy to get anywhere. Since he has trouble eating I have to feed him flakes or very very small sinking pellets.
but no worries, he is still happy and healthy!!!

Wow Sorsha! I'm hoping my fry will grow to 6" in October they're about 2 inches now with tail (short tails though)

this is an awesome thread! i can see why it was pinned!

can't wait to see more pix of yor little ones!