Baby Goldfish 2 Months Old - Changing Colours

The goldfish babies from the first batch of eggs are now about two months old.  As you can see, they are starting to change colours.

Both of them were this muddy brownish grey-green colour at first.

But now one of them seems to be losing the brown coloration and patches of a yellow orange are starting to show up.

You can see how they look different from each other now.  The brown coloured one actually is a bit darker now than it used to be.  I'm not sure if that colour will become even darker, or become lighter so that it becomes white.

You see how the dark colouration shows a lot of silver/white when the light hits it.

Meanwhile, there are about 3 babies still left from the second batch of eggs.  I guess they were the fastest swimming babies and are the best at hiding?  They have remained uneaten by the larger baby goldfish, and the larger babies seem to have lost interest in trying to eat them.

This is surprising as the second batch babies are certainly still small enough to fit into the mouth of the larger baby.  See how much bigger the older ones are?  I have since put a lot more greenery into the tank so that the babies have lots of places to hide.  I think that helps.  Also, the goldfish are fed food that is denser than before so they might be less hungry as well.

The babies are now big enough to be fed crushed flake food and guppy pellet food.  They have learned that we are the ones that bring them food, so they swim frantically in front of us when we are standing in front of the tank. 

 This makes it much easier to take pictures of these lovely little fish.  It is still a marvel to me that these fish were hatched from eggs produced by my adult goldfish.  I feel like I sprouted them from seeds and the seeds magically grew fish instead of plants.  It's pretty cool.

Have a great day!

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!

Goldfish Babies Day Nine

The baby goldfish are now 9 days old.  As you can see, some of them have plumped up quite a bit with round little white bellies.

Some personalities or individual characteristics have also started to become visible. 

For instance, the largest and strongest fish tend to stay at the top section of the water.  They get first pick of the egg yolk that I feed them, eating big gulps of it at a time.  As the yolk starts to settle downwards, they follow it down, but tend to still stay towards the top section.

 A few of the babies lurk among the plants.  They tend to be less visible and they tend to pick at the plants or pick egg yolk off the plants to eat.

 On the ground level, you will find the smallest fish.  When one of the bigger fish swim down to the bottom to pick up food, you might notice that the ground-dwellers are almost half the size and much skinnier. 

The ground level is also where you will find some fish with birth defects.  For instance, this particular fish shown above has a spine that is curved in a spiral fashion.  As a result, this fish will actually spin as it swims upwards in a jerky manner.  This fish is not very strong and tends to swim in short spurts and not very far.  Most of the time, it lies on the gravel.  It is one of my favourite fish to look for and watch.  I hope it survives.

There is one fish with a back that is bent less and it is able to swim to the top in a much wider spiral to get food.  It is still much skinnier than the others, but it is clearly much stronger than this one since it can swim all the way to the top.

 Even at the top, there are a few fish that seem unusual.  There is one fish at the top that is very long, but very thin.  It tends to just float at the top of the water, not really eating.  I am not sure if it is sick, if it doesn't store food in the intestines much, or if it eats very little at a time.

It is fun to watch these little fish growing up.  I am still giving them both the green water and the drop of egg yolk 2-3 times per day.  They don't react much to the green water, but I can visibly watch them eat the egg yolk.  I use a wooden chopstick to just poke at a raw egg yolk that I have stored in the refrigerator.  Then I stir the chopstick gently in the water and the egg yolk comes off in tiny slivers.  I can watch the fry chase the slivers of egg and sort of suck it up as they eat at it.  It's pretty neat.

Have a great day!

Goldfish Babies Day Six

The baby goldfish are now six days old. 

Almost all of them are swimming about and have good control of staying still and controlling movement in the water.

 As you can see from the photo, food is clearly moving from the stomach to the intestines and out.

 The swim bladder is still visible as a bubble on the fry.

 The baby goldfish have a more rounded body shape now as the body is starting to fill out.  You can also see fins now!  See the little tuft at the end of the tail?

 From a bottom up view, you can see those little fins on the sides.

 In terms of length, the baby fry are now easy to see compared to when they were first born.  I would estimate that they have doubled in length.

 You see that the spine arches a little bit over the stomach area.

 This fish looks okay, but I have noticed at least two babies that have very crooked spines.  They are bent about 45 degrees or more.  One of them is so crooked that he/she swims in a spiral.  The other one is on the gravel and just hops from one area to another instead of swimming.  I think these are the babies that would normally be culled, but I want to wait and see if they can survive.  The one that swims in a spiral looks well-fed, but the one on the floor looks skinny.

I feed the babies some of the green water and a drop of egg yolk swished about twice a day.  When I am home in the day time, I give them a feeding in the afternoon too.  Their bellies look full so I think they are eating enough. 

I hope you are having a great week so far!