Baby Goldfish For Dinner

The goldfish eggs hatched about 2 days after we discovered them.  My brother and I had done a pretty good job of rescuing the eggs from the goldfish tank and moving them to the baby goldfish tank; the water was soon densely populated with new born goldfish clinging to the glass walls and other places.

 I was sooo happy about having another batch of goldfish to attempt to raise.

 Unfortunately, a new problem was revealed: the newborn babies were small enough for the bigger two goldfish babies to eat.

At first, it wasn't obvious that the bigger babies were eating the newborn babies.  They did chase them, but the babies would dart away and it seemed like a harmless game.

But then the bigger goldfish started to have black coloured waste, and they seemed to be chewing on something a lot.  What are they chewing on all the time?

All the old egg sacs disappeared, there were no dead babies on the floor, and yet the numbers of babies seemed to be less.

And then it happened.  I dropped in some raw egg yolk for the babies to eat and I watched in horror as the bigger goldfish baby chased a newborn baby and ate it whole.  Then it started to chew for a long time.  Even as it was chewing, it would chase other nearby babies.  

Uh oh.

One of the bigger goldfish hunts at the top, the other bigger goldfish hunts at the bottom.

Maybe thanks to all this extra meaty food, these two bigger goldfish have almost doubled in size since I put the babies in. 

 I'm not sure what to do.  I have run out of spare aquariums and space.  My family thinks maybe I should just let Nature take its course.  That maybe two goldfish left is enough (if all the babies get eaten except these two big guys).  Erg!

 Meanwhile, this new batch of babies is much faster and sharper than the last batch.  They started eating the day after they hatched even though they supposedly eat the yolk sac and don't require food yet.  I am reluctant to let the bigger two goldfish babies eat them all as this new batch seems healthier and better developed than the last batch.

 Also, I estimate that all the babies will be eaten in about 3 more days.  These two bigger goldfish seem to be picking off the babies rapidly.

 I considered moving the bigger baby goldfish over to the guppy tank since they are too big for the guppy mother to eat now.  However, these big goldfish babies might be big enough to eat my baby guppies.  I can't risk losing those too.

 Nature is so cruel.

Have a great weekend.