pond fish pregnant?

Hi all, I am in England an have had a garden pond for three years with
goldfish but never had babies. I have noticed this morning that one of
the goldfish looks pregnant and is constantly followed by another. Does
this mean she is pregnant and if so, how do I stop the babies being
eaten as I guess this is what will happen???? Or, do I separate the
goldfish so the babies cant be eaten??

garyjohn_99 wrote, On 29/04/2006 13:20:
Hi all, I am in England an have had a garden pond for three years with
goldfish but never had babies. I have noticed this morning that one of
the goldfish looks pregnant and is constantly followed by another. Does
this mean she is pregnant and if so, how do I stop the babies being
eaten as I guess this is what will happen???? Or, do I separate the
goldfish so the babies cant be eaten??


First, the mummy fish and the daddy fish have a special cuddle as the
mummy fish lays thousands of eggs round the pond. There are no babies at
this stage.

I doubt you will have much luck fishing out the eggs, they are pretty
tiny. Once the fry are hatched you will find it equally difficult to
fish them out without a very fine net. Spawning tanks are used when the
eggs/fry are to be collected for growing on, all a bit involved for
goldfish. Probably best not to get too attached to the little things at
this early stage, you might get luck and find a few survivors later in
the year. Everything that size gets sucked up and minced by the pump in
my pond.

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DavidM

"garyjohn_99" wrote in message
oups.com...
Hi all, I am in England an have had a garden pond for three years with
goldfish but never had babies. I have noticed this morning that one of
the goldfish looks pregnant and is constantly followed by another. Does
this mean she is pregnant and if so, how do I stop the babies being
eaten as I guess this is what will happen???? Or, do I separate the
goldfish so the babies cant be eaten??


Since goldfish are egg layers, it would be hard to see any swelling from
being egg laden. Look at the fish, see if possibly is dropsy. There are
plenty of websites on goldfish dropsy, so a few minutes of googling will get
you all the answers.

-S

In article .com,
"garyjohn_99" wrote:

Hi all, I am in England an have had a garden pond for three years with
goldfish but never had babies. I have noticed this morning that one of
the goldfish looks pregnant and is constantly followed by another. Does
this mean she is pregnant and if so, how do I stop the babies being
eaten as I guess this is what will happen???? Or, do I separate the
goldfish so the babies cant be eaten??

An egg laden fish can can get bigger. I doubt it is any sort of
disease as the male fish is encouraging the female to deposit eggs by
bumping her.

I had one female who died from this process, way to aggressive fish beat
the crap out of her and I did not catch it in time.

This said, you should start seeing white foam on the top of your pond.
This is the eggs (fertilized?). In the wild the eggs would get into
thick clumps of grass and start to develop.

In a pond there are lots of pressures and without a great hiding system
setup the fish will probably not develop.

I know people who create tanks for all of this to happen,but that is way
too much work. Let nature sort it out for me ;-)

Hope this info helps.

Carl

--
--
http://www.cobaltbluefilms.com

On Sat, 29 Apr 2006 09:38:58 -0700, Carl Beyer
wrote:
In article .com,
"garyjohn_99" wrote:

Hi all, I am in England an have had a garden pond for three years with
goldfish but never had babies. I have noticed this morning that one of
the goldfish looks pregnant and is constantly followed by another. Does
this mean she is pregnant and if so, how do I stop the babies being
eaten as I guess this is what will happen???? Or, do I separate the
goldfish so the babies cant be eaten??




An egg laden fish can can get bigger.
^^^^^^^^^Now this is really an understatement if I ever saw
any.........and how did you come up with this brilliant deduction?
Inquiring minds want to know.



I doubt it is any sort of
disease as the male fish is encouraging the female to deposit eggs by
bumping her.

I had one female who died from this process, way to aggressive fish beat
the crap out of her and I did not catch it in time.

This said, you should start seeing white foam on the top of your pond.
This is the eggs (fertilized?). In the wild the eggs would get into
thick clumps of grass and start to develop.

In a pond there are lots of pressures and without a great hiding system
setup the fish will probably not develop.

I know people who create tanks for all of this to happen,but that is way
too much work. Let nature sort it out for me ;-)

Hope this info helps.

Carl

Koi-Lo....
Frugal ponding since 1982.
Aquariums since 1956.
Some assholes Pond & Aquarium Pages:
http://tinyurl.com/9do58
*Note: There are several *Koi-Lo's* on rec.ponds.
But, I am the one and only original Koi-Lo.
~~~ }((((o ~~~ }{{{{o ~~~ }(((((o

On 29 Apr 2006 05:20:17 -0700, "garyjohn_99"
wrote:

Hi all, I am in England an have had a garden pond for three years with
goldfish but never had babies. I have noticed this morning that one of
the goldfish looks pregnant and is constantly followed by another. Does
this mean she is pregnant and if so, how do I stop the babies being
eaten as I guess this is what will happen???? Or, do I separate the
goldfish so the babies cant be eaten??

To raise babies you need a low stocked pond with lots of plants and well
fed fish. I got my largest amount of fry in the lily pond when I only put
3-4 (fantail type) goldfish in it. Last year I had about 8 and never did
get any fry and this pond is 1000 gallons! There were 4 juveniles (1 yo)
and they were small enough perhaps to get to them, plus I don't feed this
pond, another reason. ~ jan
--------------
See my ponds and filter design:
www.jjspond.us

~Keep 'em Wet!~
Tri-Cities WA Zone 7a
To e-mail see website

On 29 Apr 2006 05:20:17 -0700, "garyjohn_99"
wrote:

Hi all, I am in England an have had a garden pond for three years with
goldfish but never had babies. I have noticed this morning that one of
the goldfish looks pregnant and is constantly followed by another. Does
this mean she is pregnant and if so, how do I stop the babies being
eaten as I guess this is what will happen???? Or, do I separate the
goldfish so the babies cant be eaten??

There is such a thing as a spawning mat. In the spawning process the
fish brush up against plants, mats sides, anything in the pond. It's
purpose is to allow the fish eggs to be deposited in the mat and the
mat removed to a pond without adult fish. Actually lots of plants
that provide hiding places for the fry works well. If there is
hiding places, there will be lots of eggs and lots of fry from one
spawning and you will have plenty to overpopulate your pond (Maybe?)
if part of the eggs or fry aren't eaten.

Regards,

Hal