Goldfish Breeding

Almost Continuous Supply Of Food

The ideal is to be able to keep up an almost continuous supply of food and this can be done by placing a container over the fry with a siphon drip feed which is kept replenished so that it hardly ever stops. As long as the fry can keep eating they will soon grow. In cold weather it will be noticed that the fry do not feed as well as when the weather is warmer. The fry tank is kept at 70° for the best results. Once the fry are a fortnight old they can be tried with food slightly larger than Infusoria. Small worms, either white or earth, can be well crushed up nearly to pulp and this will form a very good building food. (ed.note: These days newly hatched brine shrimp, micro-worms and commercial fry foods are used for this stage of feeding the fry). It must be realised that Infusoria is of little value once fry are a fortnight old, but during the early days keep the supply of Infusoria going by changing part of the water in the culture each day as otherwise it becomes too foul.

Having dealt with the breeding of fishes in a tank I will give a few tips for those who wish to breed in a small pond. Ponds vary as to their size and suitability and one which is about 6 feet by 4 feet with a depth somewhere of at least 18 inches can be used to breed goldfish successfully. On the other hand if the pond is so large that parts of it are out of reach then it may not be quite as good as the smaller pond for the purpose of breeding. There is no doubt that all types of goldfishes prefer to spawn in shallow water, and where this has not been provided for when the pond was first made it is a decided advantage if a shelf of some. kind is added. If you can arrange for a shelf with the water shallowing away gradually to almost nothing this will be ideal.

Place some bunches of fine-leafed water plants at the shallow end and see that they are anchored to prevent them from floating out into the middle of the pond. Each day wash this weed up and down in the water so as to wash off the dirt and mulm which will form on it. This mulm may prevent the eggs from sticking to the weed when they are laid. If your pond is of a fair size and does not contain too many fishes you have a very good chance of breeding some fishes in the pond without having to take the eggs away. It depends a great deal on the size of the pond, the amount of water plants therein, and the amount of live food which you are able to provide for the parent fish. If your fishes are of a fancy type such as Shubunkins, fantails, moors or veils it will be advisable to remove some of the eggs as above and continue with the treatment described.

If you are of the opinion that the pond is too small to expect much success in rearing fry then you must try to form some sort of a screen to prevent the parent fishes from getting into the shallow part of the pond once the eggs have been laid. This can be either in the form of a partition or just a line of large stones. It must be remembered though that once the fry are free swimming they will swim through very small openings and so reach the older fishes. Another method is to make a fairly large floating screen or sieve so the eggs can be placed inside when they are laid. This will prevent the parent fishes from eating eggs or fry but will allow plenty of Infusoria to enter the screen as food for the fry.

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