It’s ALL about timing
We’ve had some new arrivals in the garden here at Sheepskin Towers – our goldfish felt suitably happy enough to lay eggs into this home made breeding mop, and by a stroke of luck we were lucky enough to catch it after the males had fertilised the eggs, but before all the adults had eaten the eggs – something they can do very quickly.
How to feed newly hatched goldfish
These little fellas are so small they need a liquid feed, but before you rush out and buy some especially, just boil an egg. Take a pea sized amount of the hard boiled yolk and mix it with a pint of water, squirt some food in each day and keep the mix in the fridge. You’ll need to make up some more liquid food after three days because even baby goldfish have standards.
Goldfish eat ANYTHING small enough to fit in their mouths… including newly hatched goldfish
Don’t put newly hatched fry back in with the adults until they are too big to fit in their parent’s mouths! Honestly, one wonders how these things survive in the wild?
I’ll keep these little fellas separate and re home them in bigger tanks as required, for now they don’t need particularly clean water, in fact they prefer a little green algae and plenty of places to hide.
How do you get goldfish to lay eggs in the first place?
Goldfish lay in response to changes in their water coupled with an increase in the daylight hours. You’ll find specialist advice here, but generally speaking sunlight had been hitting the barrel for sufficient time each day to make the fish ready for spring and summer, whilst also being well fed – not over fed.
At the same time a big change in water quality made them think the snow on the mountains were melting. Basically, I watered the garden using nearly half the barrel. When I refilled the barrel with cold water this triggered the fish into breeding.
Persuade your fish to breed by slowly warming the water, then cool it down as though the mountain ice has melted
The sudden change in water quality and temperature lets the fish know that spring is really underway, the light level was good, the food was sufficient, and the fish started displaying mating behaviour, nudging each other, chasing each other…
Tie wool together to make a breeding mop
You needn’t buy specialist breeding equipment, our breeding mop is simply a bunch of wool. All the goldfish need is a safe place to hide, to rub themselves through, and to lay eggs on. The males follow the females and fertilise the sticky eggs with sperm. As soon as you think this is happening you should remove the mop and put it in a container with some of the water from the parent’s tank.