I got more eggs this morning. So far I have found 9 and added the plant pieces to the net with the one fry. The parents are still chasing after a quick stop for breakfast. I will look again for more eggs before heading off to work. This is the first time they have spawned in the morning for me. If the fish are spawning so much that the cycle dosent even show a bump when they do it does that mean their libidos are too high?

I finally figured out what that grey/whitish fuzz covering all my plants is. I've never been able to get rid of it for the last 3 or so months. Its the remains of all the egg casings after the goldies eat them! That had to be a ton of eggs I've missed, the plants are essentially coated with the stuff.

Will there be a problem with the older one eating the new ones? The older one hatched on sunday. I don't think its mouth is big enough to pose a problem to new fry yet.

Secondly, a week from sunday I will be leaving for a week and my grandma has agreed to feed the fish while I am gone. For the 4 tanks with all the "adult/adolescent" fish I am going to set out weekly pill boxes with their food. Only one of those tanks gets fed twice a day because it also has fry, but I am letting them survive as they will in the main part of the tank. So with the goldfish fry that will be 2 weeks old and hopefully about a week old, what should I have her feed them? Currently the one fry gets breakfast and dinner of hikari first bites, with a lunch of bbs. I think the bbs might be a bit complicated for her to do without me there, and the amounts are so small that I could not put them into ziplocks in the freezer. I am letting the tank go a tad towards greenwater so the fry can, and does nibble on the algae throught the day.

I am planning on getting the water in as close to perfect as possible before I go so she shouldn't have to do anything but feed the fish. Currently everything is normal/where it should be and there are only 15ppm nitrates in there.The net collects some stuff from the main part of the tank but I think it should be ok till I get back, as its mostly bits of algae. I really don't want her to have to try and siphon out the net if at all possible.

I shouldn't wory about a less than a week fry eating a smaller fry. But he might try and nibble on the eggs if they are not hatched yet. The egg sac is food.

When you are gone, how about have your g'ma feed the newly hatched some frozen baby brine shrimp. It is so easy and since the hatchery may be troublesome for her you could invest is some frozen cubes.

I have the frozen cubes, thats what I currently feed him. Its just more complicated to have to climb the stairs, get some water into the little bottom piece of a cup, got back down the stairs to the freezer, get a knife and shave some of the cube off and add it to the water, go back up the stairs and put into the tank.
The amounts I am feeding are too small to get a chunk into seperate ziplock baggies in the freezer, for preportioned meals.

The hikari first bites would just be the one trip up the stairs and dip a toothpick into the water then the food and back into the net area.

Hopefully if the fry nibbles on the eggs he picks the unfertile ones. We shall see what happens in a day or three. The temps are still about 74-76 in the tank atm.

I never did all that with the frozen bb. I just wiggled the frozen cube in the top of the water until the warmth of the water melted off some of the bb's. I would feed 1/4 of a cube like that but you can do even less by just wriggling for less time. Try!

Hmm, I would do that when feeding a whole cube at a time. Never tried just dipping it in for a second and saving the rest. Do you stick it back in the tray it came from or in a ziplock after you feed some from a cube?

I just stuck it back in the little plastic tray cube thingy and put it back in the freezer. I didn't even put them in a ziplock as they might spill. Just back in that tiny plastic holder and tried to cover again with the foil thats on top of those. I used the quarter and half finished cubes again next time Mkae sure they're upright and they freeze back fast.

Kewl, I will try that tomorrow. I have to talk to my grandma about the fry feeding anyways so I will see what she is willing to do. Touching the frozen bbs might be out for her, but then again, she might suprise me.

Yeah I can understand she might not want to do that - hopefully she's in agood mood when you ask her and will give it a try. You could do something nice for her like some cleaning or errands in exchange.

He has three little siblings clinging to the net now. They hatched out sometime during the last 4 hours. Looking at the week old one and the newly hatched ones I realize he has at least doubled in size already from when he hatched. I figure it is about picture time.
This first one you can see the oldest fry and even a few of the unhatched eggs. This was taken yesterday.


Another one of the big fry cruising around.


This is my clearest pic of the big guy. Unfortunately there is a bubble in the way of his tail. He definitely has a double tail. Today it looks more like a butterfly tail all flattened out.


This last one you can see one of the newly hatched fry on the net just above the big guy. The new one looks like a bit of plant almost.



Thats about all for now. I see one of the eggs will definitely not hatch but still waiting to see if the last 5 will or not. Tomorrow I will remove the egg remains along with the plant pieces and unhatched ones.

Oh how cute! And you take great pics of them. The little big guy looks terrific cruising around. Hope you get a few more, fingers crossed and Congratulations

Seems like someone was "getting busy" over at your place,and congrats are in order.
Just a note here,Hannibal was only 2 days older than most of his sibs,and somehow he managed to still eat most of them,so never assume that they are big enough. Hannibal grew much more quickly than everyone else(It may have been all that extra protein )Anyway,that's how he got that name.
Good luck,and I hope things go well while you're away.Keeping finger's crossed.

How old was Hannibal when he decided to snack on his siblings?

If my little guy can resist that urge for another two weeks I can arrange for seperate living quarters after I get home. I'm trying to talk my grandma into letting me get another 5 or hopefully 10 gallon tank "for all the babies". Then I could see them properly from the side and not just the top. If I can't get a new tank then I still have one more breeders net I could set up. Or maybe finally move pig into the pond and give the fry the 20 gal rubbermaid. Anyways there are options. I just don't have time this week to be playing musical tanks before I leave.

So we had another storm pass through last night and guess what? More Eggs! So far I found another 9 this time. More were grouped on a single plant, instead of them all being on different plants. If this continues I'm only going to have little bits and pieces of plants in that tank. The parents are still chasing around, but I can tell the female knows it's breakfast time.

I caved in and put the second net into the tank for the new eggs. It seems like only one of the three new fry still live/ haven't been eaten. So with that in mind I'm sure the big fry would find this latest batch a very tasty snack. So now its the big fry and little fry in the one net, and 9 eggs in the second.

The big fry has all of his fins, if you look really close. The little one started free swimming yesterday and shows promise of a double tail, I should know for sure in a couple more days. I can see the difference of speed of development in the two because the tank has been cooler for the second one's first week. The big one developed at almost double the rate of the smaller one for its first week.

The big fry has learned that the toothpick and other objects in the net usually mean food. The little one is still super cautious and darts to the other side of the net whenever something is put into the water near him.

I figure whats one more net to feed while i'm gone if they are side by side. My grandma is the best. She said she would feed whatever/however I think is best for my fish. I hope they all do well while I'm gone. I am already missing them.

I probably should stop collecting the eggs to save them so close to when I leave. But, I'm thinking that if I end up with a bunch of goldfish fry on top of the molly and platty fry I have in the other tank, it might tip the scales my way towards getting another tank into the house. If they lay another batch before I leave I will let those go as I will not be here to remove the egg waste from the net after they hatch.

Now up to 12 eggs in the net. Two were stuck to the airline tubing, and one more found on a piece of moss. The tubing I stretched so the loop containing the two eggs was underwater in the net. One of those two was out of the water when I found it, don't know how long it was in the air for.

Now the water is starting to get the telltale foam at the top. I suppose I will have to check the params later today when they are finished.

I tested the water and 0 ammonia, but .25 nitrites. So I started doing 5 gal changes to lower that while doubling the prime that went into the new water. Total waterchange is 20 gals for today, which would have been close to 50% but by doing it 5 gals at a time in actuality I removed only about 25-30% of the bad stuff.

The fry don't seem to really notice the water changes. Their net is on the far side of the tank from where I am removing and adding the water. And I don't have to jostle the water to get the small siphon started so ther is really not that much more movement than there normally is from the bubbler, or people walking across my room.

I now have 13 eggs from today's spawning in the second net. Two have turned sorta white and opaque but the rest are still clear. Tomorrow I am going to look at some of them with a magnifying glass and see if I can see any deveopment going on. Most of my other eggs, even the ones that hatched, were sorta opaque and white by hatching day. I am guessing based off of the tank temps and hatching days of the last two batches that these will hatch friday, saturday if the weather stays this cool.

Can you do water changes with fry still attached to the sides of the container? Will they move and reattach as the water lowers?

I have very little time left in my schedule before leaving and I have to change the water in my 46 gallon tank 5 gals at a time to keep an inch or two of water in the nets for the fry. I need to know today if I'm not going to be able to do waterchanges after this third batch hatches tomorrow or saturday. If that is the case I need to try and do most of them today.

I am trying to get the nitrates down to around 10 before I leave as it will be 8-9 days before I will be able to do anotyher wc. Hopefully then they will not get above 30-40 tops. Before this breeding stuff was happening the fish were producing about 20-25 ppm of nitrates a week. But with the extra waste that will occur during the week I am gone...

Yes you can do water changes while the fry are clinging. I did many times. They will shuffle down themselves. Just go slow

I am doing the largest changes I can right now daily with my smallest fry in their breeder container. Like you lowering the surface is tricky and you have to watch every second- not something you'd want your grandma or anyone to have to worry over. When they are just a little larger you will be able to move them and do a larger change and then put them back again in the net.

Thanks for all your help Trinket. When the fry are older would they be ok in a couple of plastic cups with water during a larger water change? I think with both of my sisters we could do a 25% change in about 20-25 minutes. Our record is an 80% change in an hour and ten minutes.

I am really trying to persuade my grandma to let me get a 10 gallon tank (or hopefully larger) for all of my fry. I could put in partitions for each size range. Right now I have at least another 10-12 molly and platty fry in my 25 gal tank downstairs. It would be nice to have a seperate tank for them where no one has to worry about getting eaten. Oh, and I would be able to do regular water changes because I wouldn't need to have the nets hanging in any of the tanks.

Sounds like a plan

That's just what I did, put them in a large cup-actually a kinda jug while I did the changes. They didn't seem to mind. If its only 10 mins or less they will be allright without an airstone but watch out for the mailcarrier or unexpected phone calls/cats or kicking the jug with your foot by mistake (which I did once aaargh!!-luckily t was okay!) Here's a pic of mine waiting in the plastic cup jug while I did a larger change the other day:

How old are yours in that pic? They look so big and healthy.

I am guessing that mine need to be preferrably at least a month old before moving them with a net.

Well yes they are older. 7 weeks actually but I have been doing this for at least a month because otherwise
the nitrates rocket . I have no spare tanks right now for these guys so they have to wait awhile longer in the breeder container. I started with a net but then moved them into a shallow plastic basket thing that I attached onto the main tank side with clips and sticky tape. I found the net got trapped dirt and once the fry are big enough not to get through the holes in the basket they went in here. Its nice cos all the poop falls through the holes, but not the fry -so cleaning their space is a synch.