I was feeding the fish one evening and noticed 2 little brownish green fish in the shallows. At first I was excited thinking that a couple of my beloved Sarassas Chucky and Sushi's spawn survived. They are the only two fish in my pond that spawned, which was the first morning they were in it. I guess they had to break it in;)
Well last night, only a couple days after my first baby spotting I saw another baby fish. This one was much larger then the other two and was black, but looked like it was turning orange. Do sarassa fry look different from other goldfish? I fear I brought in some more babies on some plants or something because these fish are not the same color or age.
I really don't want these babies in the pond during winter. I want all the oxygen for my koi and large goldfish. I would like to capture them and maybe put them in aquarium or rehome them. Should I wait till they get a little bigger to catch? Now I see why people keep their goldfish seperate from koi...
Babies...yay?
Some fry grow faster than others so they could still be the same age.
That's true. My first fish were 2 feeder goldfish I put in the pond after the rest of the fish because my husband felt bad they were in my container watergarden. Looking back I wish I hadn't they were terrified of the big pond and were more then happy in their little watergarden.
It is amazing how quickly they have grown and now swim with the "big" fish. I wonder if they could of spawned? They probably aren't very old, only 3 inches big or so but aren't common goldfish prolific breeders? Either way I think I will try to pull all the common goldfish out of the pond and find homes for them.
We started out with a mix of both goldfish and koi. The goldfish were breeding monthly from April to September - I could not believe how prolific goldfish are! We eventually pulled out all of the goldfish. It was too much to try to stay on top of all of the goldfish and the fry. I think we got rid of hundreds of goldfish at the time.
Now with just koi, we find they do not breed as much as the goldfish, which is a good thing - however, the koi are more prolific than I originally thought. Everything I have read about koi spawning goes on about getting the eggs from the adult koi or they will be eaten right up. We still had many many baby koi and that was without doing anything to keep the eggs from the adults.
Evesta, separating out the baby goldfish is probably a good idea, as it all goes towards oxygen levels and wastes that are produced, however if your goldfish are breeding, they are not finished and will continue to breed frequently during the remainder of the summer.
Carolyn
We did have an initial spawn from our sarassas but haven't since. I don't know if sarassa breed as much as common goldfish. Most of the babies I think are common goldfish that came in on water plants. Either way I am trying to get all the babies out. I pulled out 7, thought I had most of them but see at least 4 more left in the pond.
I'm going to raise them in a tub till they are a bit bigger and probably give them away. Maybe someone will want them after they grow out of their ugly stage. I'm having fun watching them develop. I am starting to be able to tell which ones are sarassas. Will the green ones turn orange too?
"Within three breeding generations, the vast majority of the goldfish spawn will have reverted to their natural olive color. "
Quoted from Wikipedia, so take that for what it is worth. :-)
That is interesting, thanks for the info. I was wondering if they wouldn't stay green. Most of them aren't green but a few are. The ones that are more black have been turning white or orange or a combination of the two.
A lot of goldfish fry will start out dark grey or black and get their orange color as they start to mature. What you are seeing with some of them is that they are starting to turn their mature color. I have a goldfish pond with feeder golfish from the bait store and another small pond with several koi that spawned for the first time this year. Had a single goldfish that got in there somehow. Managed to get it out but I think I will take out the babies and put them somewhere else. It is driving me nuts wondering if they are some kind of mutant koi/goldfish cross. However some of them are starting to show some color and look like they will be nice looking fish.
wow, your fish have been busy this summer! This is the first summer I finally saw the Koi breed! They just quit 2 weeks ago, the, a few days ago I looked into one of the kiddie pools( I put some of the water plants in after the Koi were done), I just saw a small orangish blip fly past my eyes as I was looking into the pool ! Yep, I brought over a small fish net and after a few minutes I scouped it up. Rats, it is a gold fish baby :( I so wished it was a baby Koi :( Anyway, while I was swishing the net back and forth I noticed something else at the bottom of the kiddie pool? I got it in the net and it is about 2 1/2 " gold fish! the mouth and tail are light orange and the body is black/grey. I put on my glasses to make sure they were gold fish, looking at their mouths :( The first orange gold fish jumped right over my net and back into the pool while I was trying to catch it the second time!! Geesh!
I found another baby goldfish today while working on the waterfall pool. He had to come in via a plant and he was a green fella, but he has a hint of orange so he might turn. He wasn't happy to get removed but he seems to like being in the baby tank with the others. Regular meals, no worring about bigger fish eating you. Up to 8 babies now.
I see a few other baby goldfish hanging out near the bottom drain in the main pond. I'm hoping to turn my external pump on today and get my bottom drain going continuously instead of manually. Should be interesting to see if any little fish end up in the settlement pond. I have a screen so they won't get sucked up into the pump:)
Have you taken any pictures of the lastest babies? I would love to see them :) How large is your pond? I have thought of trying my hand at waterfalls! Perhaps I will get the materials this fall and try next spring?
Post pictures of your babies!
Can you tell me how to tell the difference between baby goldfish and koi?