Goldfish fry dying - can you help?

[Alaina]

I am new to this forum, so thanks to anyone who has any expertise to share.

I have kept fantail goldfish for several years. This spring, they decided to spawn for the first time. I was totally surprised and hadn't prepared for fry at all, but scrambled to care for them, buying powdered food, getting a breeder net to separate them from the adults, etc.

I was surprised again when my fish proceeded to spawn again, hatching a whole second round. Now I have a batch of fry in the net together, some about seven weeks and some about two weeks.

For awhile, they seemed to be doing fine - once they began eating I've been feeding them a combo of powdered baby fish food, ground-up adult food, algae, crumbled freeze-dried brine shrimp, and hard-boiled egg yolks. I have been trying to keep good water quality for them, with water and filter changes in the tank. When their net gets messy I remove the babies to a large bowl and clean the net, then put them back in.

But over the last week or so, there's been a noticeable die-off, mostly among the older fry. I don't think they're developing as fast as they could, and some seem to have difficulty swimming before they die. Some, while they still seem relatively feisty, appear to have lost ground, in that their once-growing fins and tails have shrunk. They continue to eat well and most of them are very active.

I am a total novice when it comes to fry. I didn't mean to breed my fish, but now that it's happened, I'm caring for the fry as well as I can, but I'm obviously missing something. I'd like some to make it healthily into adulthood. Is it too late to save the rest? Any advice? Thanks for reading.

 

[Mr. Limpet]

Welcome Aboard!

I noticed in your first post the fantails are male and the comet is female. I'm not sure if that could be considered cross breeding or not, but wonder if that may be an issue you might want to research?

As for feeding, I was told that having the moss balls and plants (eggs were laid on them) in with them is good for the fry to eat and I also let the algae build on the soft sided breeder net since they would eat that too. The only food I added was flakes that I would grind down fairly fine and put some in 3x a day.

Being a first time breeder too, I have 14 Moor fry that are about 2 months old and had quite a bit of die off in the first month (about 1/2 still alive) so it may not be uncommon. Now they're growing pretty fast in a fully cycled 20g tank and seem to be pretty healthy.

Here's a link to my fry that might hve info to help you out.

http://www.aquariumadvice.com/forum...y-are-these-eggs-on-the-moss-ball-145754.html

Good Luck!

 

[Alaina]

Thanks Mr. Limpet.

God luck with your fish. "Going crazy" is definitely the way to describe spawning goldfish. We call it the "Crazy dance" in our household.

I did figure any algae in the net would make a nice snack.

Glad to know there's someone else out there with unsanctioned surprise spawning...when I went to the pet store for supplies/advice, the aquarium staffer said I was the first person she'd ever seen with goldfish who spawned at home.