Breeding the perfect goldfish

Goldfidh is a cyprinid—soft-finned mainly freshwater fishes typically having toothless jaws. These fishes lay adhesive eggs that stick to aquatic vegetation. The fry emerge from the eggs within 48-72 hours. It takes the fry about a week to look anything like a fish and then a year before they develop the goldfish color.

Right nutrition and plenty of water (with good oxygen content), help the goldfish to attain sexual maturity. These fish breed after a change in temperature, usually in spring. Goldfish breed themselves if left alone. You must, however, separate the egg as the adults eat their own eggs.

The brreding itself is an interesting process. The male chases and nudges the female to release eggs and then fertilizes the eggs released be her. Some modern breeds can no longer breed on their own owing to their strange shapes. Artifical breeding called ‘hand stripping’ can be used to breed these fish but it is a delicate process and can be dangerous for the fish.

Choose the quality
The idea behind breeding is to develop a breed that is of high quality or should posses certain traits. The choice of the breeding usually depends upon:

     - Health of the fish
     - Finnage, color, size
     - Age of the fish. The younger the better but they should be at least 2 years old.

Culling is done several times to weed out defects from a breed. Its first done when the fish are 6-7 weeks old.

Spotting the fish ready to breed
As eggs begin to develop, you will notice a general swelling in females. The males exhibit tiny bumps (tubercules) on the leading edges of the pectoral fins and on the gill covers. The fish color also looks brighter close to spawning and fishes swim in groups. Sometimes, especially in natural environment like a pond, the fish spawn without any indications but in aquariums, spawning indications can be spotten on careful observation.

When do the fish spawn
Goldfish have been observed to spawn very early in the morning, before sunrise. The factors that trigger spawning are:

     • Rainfall
     • Drop in water temperature
     • Partial water changes
     • Moon (full)

A female goldfish will lay thousands of eggs at a time and the spawning last for several hours. For the first few days the fry feed on the attached yolk sack. They remain attched to the hatched surface for about two weeks and as soon as their swim bladder starts functioning, they will swim at various levels of the water body.

Once the fry starts swimming, they have to be fed. Initial diet may contain infusorians or newly hatched brine shrimps. In the first few weeks, the fish need to be fed 3-5 times a day. When they are few weeks old, you can feed them crumbled flake food. Keep a watch on the quality of water as food can dirty the water.

To breed goldfish, you have to plan a year ahead in spring when you can buy the goldfish cheap and healthy. Feed them and keep them healthy and clean for a year and prepare them to breed. Good variety is not incidental, it is bred carefully in aquariums and pool that need proper care.