Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hi all.

I just noticed this morning that I've got my goldies chasing each other around, and what I'm guessing 5 males chasing the fantail female, and a few of my comets in the same boat. So I think they are about to drop eggs on me.

I'll stop off on the way home and get some some wool and make a spawning mop (like making a pom pom), shouldn't be too tricky. I was planning on getting a washing basket, lining it with shade cloth, or fly screen, or something like that, and using a pool noodle or something to float it at the top of the FT, and transfer the fish egg covered mop to the basket.

It's feeding them that I'm not sure about.

I've been doing some research, and places are recommending setting up brine shrimp breeding areas, then making a mosquito breeding area for the second week, and others are saying to make a pea soupy algae area, and releasing them into there. Others saying to boil an egg, and get the yolk, add some water and let the fry eat that. Others recommending a microworm breeding thing.

I'm probably being lazy, but is there just a dry fry food I can buy that'll work well?

And here is a bad video of my goldies getting frisky.

Hello, first off, congrats on the breeding fish
I've raised baby goldfish many times, and I'm just a hobbyist...
from my experience, its best to combine many types of food, both animal and plant based.

here's my setup:
a decent sized aquarium with air driven sponge filter, make sure the current is not too strong for the babies
I put in some floating plants like hornworts or anacharis, for their dense bushy-ness stores a lot of micro food that the babies can pick off in their leisure and provides shelter as well (not to forget providing extra oxygen and filter)

for feeding I let algae grow on rocks and side of glass, I also fed them boiled egg yolk, mushed up and scattered evenly. my tip, is to boil a couple of eggs, store in fridge, and only use when necessary.

you know, there are also liquid emulsion food specially made for young fry, sometimes I use liquifry for my tropical fish babies, but my goldfish was never raised with them and they're just fine
good luck

You should be able to get by with normal flakes ground up into a powder.
Grind them as fine as you can and consider presoaking the powder before feeding the fish, to soften it and make it fall to the floor of their floating cage/basket where they'll find it and it won't just float away on the surface.

Sweet, thanks for the advice, I caved and bought some brine shrimp eggs, they aren't too expensive, and very easy to grow.

I made some spawning mops (green wool strands, with a piece of Styrofoam holding it up.), and they seem to be loving them, the female darts through them, followed by 5 randy males. It's fun to watch.