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!

Sculpey Creations Completed

The sculpey creations that I have been working on are finally complete!  Here they are in all their glossy goodness:

Sapelli the rabbit

 A reddish orange pumpkin

 A green and brown acorn

 A whole gang of hedgehogs

 Roly, Pip, and Sally the hedgehogs

Dewbert the mole 

 Irko the monkey

 A yellowy orange pumpkin

A reddish brown acorn

 Petunia the pig

 Hermione the sheep

 A small orangy red pumpkin

 A tall squash pumpkin

Meero the tiger

Ta da!  All done!  Now you can find them in my shop.

Have a happy day!

Lots of New Goldfish Fry Babies

Last night the goldfish babies started to hatch out of their eggs.  Today, the walls and floors of the new baby tank are covered with SUPER tiny baby fish.

They can be found in clusters in the corners of the tank.

 Can you see them?  Look for the reflective metallic eyeballs.

 They are so small that it makes my eyes go crossed trying to see them.

 They dart about once in a while. 

Some of them dart to the surface to get air.

 So many tiny fish eyeballs!

I have started a clear class jar with water from a well-planted tank.  I labeled it "Infusoria" and put some spirulina algae tablets in along with a few leaves from the well-planted tank.  I'm supposed to use a lettuce leaf, but I think the leaves from the tank probably have more tasty bacteria and other aquatic micro-organisms already eating away at them.

 

I put the glass jar in a brightly lit, but not sunny location.  The organisms should flourish in the jar and hopefully be ready to feed to the babies in 2-3 days when they start to look for food.

There are lots of leaves and roots and gravel from the original tank so there should be lots of food available for the babies for the first while.  In the first 2-3 days they won't be eating anyways.

 

The baby goldfish are so small that I can't even imagine them as goldfish yet.  They look nothing like fish.  They look more like insects.

 

 I can't wait until they become more fish-like. 

 Eggs that were not fertilized are turning white and fuzzy.  I should remove them so that the white fuzzy fungus doesn't flourish.

 I will keep you updated on the progress of these little guys and gals.  I am glad I started a baby tank.  I put eggs in the well-planted guppy tank, but I have a feeling the guppies ate them since I don't see a single one anywhere.  I can't see any babies in the original goldfish tank either.  The goldfish probably had some tasty snacks or the fry got sucked up by the filter.

Have a happy day!

Operation "Save the Mini Sea Beasts"

I read on the Internet that goldfish will tend to eat all the eggs in the tank.  I also read that it only takes 4-7 days for goldfish eggs to hatch.  I'm already at day 3 or so.  I figured I would give the eggs on the plants a chance to at least hatch without being eaten so I started up my old Explorer fish tank.

I used a mesh to cover the water intake tube and stuffed some aquatic seaweed like plant there to reduce the likelihood that the babies will be sucked up into the filter.  I removed the filter stuffing too so that the water just gets sucked up, aerated, and then spit back out again without having anything caught.

 The forums say that you should actually keep the eggs in the tank that they hatched in and remove the goldfish, but I don't have a tank big enough to put the goldfish into. 

 Instead, I just used water, gravel, and plants directly from the original tank.

 I notice that there are eggs all over these plants, even in the root areas.  The goldfish tend to pull up and eat all the leaves off, so the plants are never properly planted anymore.

I hope they will hatch soon and that they will survive in this tank.

 When they are big enough, I can put them back into the big tank.  There is plenty of room, although these goldfish seem to get bigger and bigger all the time.

 Meanwhile in the big tank, the goldfish have noticed that something is missing.

 They are curious about what it is.

 Oh, exposed rock (with eggs on them).  These were previously protected by the plants I put into the new nursery aquarium.

Om nom nom!  (Very tragic indeed...) 

Nothing escapes the large chomping mouths of these sea beasts.

Have a happy week!