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.

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 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!

Baby Goldfish Day Four

The baby goldfish are now four days old.  (I hope you'll excuse the lousy photos.  They are getting faster and harder to photograph.  I end up with a lot of blurry photos.)

The main change in development today is the addition of a white line that extends from the full white belly towards the back.  I think this is the food moving from the belly outwards to the anus.

I suppose this means that the babies are eating and pooping.  There are also more babies swimming about.

 I have been feeding them the green water (which is looking worse each day.  It is sort of grey-green now).  I also experimented with feeding them raw egg yolk today.  I gave them one drop and expected it to disperse in the water.  However, it dropped to the bottom fairly intact.  I had to use a long chopstick to stir and break up the yolk.

The babies did eat the yolk once it was broken up, but it made the water look kind of gross.  I let them eat for about 5-10 minutes and then I removed one cup of water and replaced it with one cup of water from my well-planted tank.  I don't know if this is good enough, but I figured they would have the benefit of some cleaner water plus some organisms and good bacteria from the well-planted tank. 

 Something else I noticed is that the babies all hatched within 1-2 days of each other, but they look very different in terms of development.  Some of them are swimming around with full bellies and the white waste tube.  Some of them are swimming around with just the air bubble in the midsection.  Some of them are small and skinny and they dart about the gravel.

 So it seems like the babies are not the same at all.  Somewhy, I expected them to be like clones or something. 

 I am guessing that some of them are healthier than the others. 

 Or that some of them have birth defects.  I know for sure that some of them died after hatching as I saw a few dead babies after day one.  I read that some are born without a swim bladder so they end up drowning.

As each day goes by, I find an occasional dead baby here and there.  It is very sad and I removed whichever ones I found today.

  Another sad tragedy is that some of the babies were small enough to fit through my filter mesh.  I found a whole bunch of dead babies in the filter area today.  I have since densely packed the suction pipe with floss so that no babies can possibly make it through.  I rescued any live babies I found in the filter area.  Hopefully they will be fine.

This has not been a perfect process, but it has been a good learning experience so far.  I am glad that there are still many babies for me to continue to watch in development.  I hope I will have the chance to see some of them grow up.

Have a great day!

Baby Goldfish Day Two

The baby goldfishes are two days old now. 

About 8 of them are now darting about the tank.

 

They seem to have sucked up some air from the surface and now have a tiny air bubble in their midsection.  I think it is the swim bladder.

These mobile babies tend to dart to the surface and sort of bob up and down as though they are picking at something on the surface.

You can see two babies swimming about in this picture.  

Most of the time, they do not swim horizontal.  They are still often vertical with their heads facing the surface of the water.

You can see one baby attached to the side of the glass.  They seem to rest in this way.  You can see how the air bubble kind of makes the body want to be horizontal now.  

This baby is quite vertical.  I feel like their body shapes are changing.  They are less like a stick with a yolk sac in the middle.

Some of them hang off of the plants.

The rest of the babies are all spread out on the floor. 

 They are a bit more alert than yesterday and dart about along the ground.

 Some of them look a bit awkward.  Some attempt to swim, but don't get very far before sinking slowly back down to the bottom head first.  Some of them attempt to swim near the current from the filter and they get tossed about before making a sad sink back to the bottom. 

 I think these bottom dwellers will be swimmers tomorrow.  For today they are still working on it.  Some of the eggs that did not hatch at first hatched the day after.  So some of these babies are only 1 day old.

This is Pa Chow Cho (Shy Grass).  I looked up at the big tank and he was glued to the glass like this.  Odd fellow...

Have a happy day!