All About Goldfish
American goldfish
>Goldfish Age
The average water gardener probably does not want to take the trouble to set up elaborate facilities for goldfish breeding, but some understanding of the life cycle in his pool will certainly increase his enjoyment of it. Healthy fish begin to breed when they are about a year old. In an aquarium, breeding usually takes place in late winter or early spring. Outdoors, goldfish breed in spring and early summer. The female, her body swollen with eggs, will swim rapidly over and through root or leaf masses of submerged plants, rubbing against them as she goes and leaving a mass of perhaps several dozen eggs at each place. Eggs are pale amber, about the size of pinheads.
A male goldfish can be distinguished from a female during the breeding season by the series of white dots which then appear along the side of gill plates. Also the male can be seen scurrying after the female to fertilize the eggs as she lays them. This process-the female flitting about laying eggs, the male in pursuit-is the well known "fish circus" which can often be observed in aquarium or pool. The circus usually begins early in the morning and lasts until around noon.
Nothing will come of the egg laying if the eggs are left alone, for the young fish usually will eat them. But if an egg drops into a crack and hatches, adults will not eat the baby fish as it ventures forth.
If you want to see more of the life cycle, you will have to assist it. Remove the aquatic plants with the fertilized egg masses clinging to them to a tub of warm (about 7o-degree) water and leave them alone. Fish will hatch in five to six days, the original brood consisting of perhaps 300 tiny fish.
Powdery rice flour or Red Dog sifted lightly on the water makes excellent food for the babies, but the first three or four days they are better fed hard-cooked egg yolk forced through coarse cheesecloth. After two or three weeks the fish can eat the soupy, pasty part of boiled oatmeal. A few snails should be dropped into the tub to consume any excess food as soon as the fish have hatched. Put in before hatching, however, the snails will eat the eggs.
You must do a steady job of eliminating the smaller and weaker fish of the brood during the summer. Of the original 300, less than twenty of the biggest and healthiest should remain by midsummer. At the end of summer, the new brood can be moved into the pool with the other fish. The larger fish in the pool will not eat the smaller new arrivals, for most of them will be able to take care of themselves.