Black Moor Eggs

Question
Hi I came in this afternoon lite up my tank and noticed a bunch of little white dots all over the fake plants in the tank so I'm guessing these are eggs I have already put the fish in another tank and wanted to know if I need to put the plants with the eggs on them in a hatcher or something of the sort or just leave them in the 40 gal tank where they are? What should I feed them once they hatch? I have had fan tails and black moors for a long time now but never had them breed before thanks for the advice Bryan

Answer
Hi Bryan,
Congratulations on the eggs!!

It's recommended that you keep the goldfish eggs in water that is no deeper than 6 inches. You could probably use your 40 gallon if you lowered the water level to roughly that. And you should be able to run a sponge filter on the tank as well with that lower level. A sponge filter is best anyway for them. A better alternative might be to move the eggs (put the egg covered plants in a container underwater and try not to expose them to air) into a smaller aquarium like a 10-20 gal. The eggs will typically hatch in about 3-4 days but it depends on temperature. Try to remove white and fungus-covered eggs as you see them.

Once the eggs have hatched, the fry will be feeding off their yolk sac for another 2 days or so. Once they start free-swimming they will need to be fed. Usually the fry will eat just about anything that will fit in their mouths. Newly hatched baby brine shrimp is excellent. You'll have to be sure and have this food prepared ahead of time before they become free-swimming. It's no trouble at all to hatch brine shrimp. Goldfish fry are also eager to eat crushed yolk of a hard-boiled egg. There is also a specially-prepared baby fish food at most petstores that you can also feed them.

It's important with baby fish to feed them a little bit at a time and siphon (with airline tubing) any leftover food.

Goldfish are fairly easy to raise. Just keep their water clean and feed them several times a day, small frequent meals are better than just one or two big meals.

As they grow you will have to of course, upgrade to larger living conditions and possibly have to divide them up between several tanks depending upon how many you actually have hatch out.

Best wishes and I hope this helps!
Karen~