Are my goldfish breeding?

[Nabbig2]

I have 2 very large goldfish in a 29 gallon tank, atleast 8 inches long. They also live with 3 cories, a gold opaline gourami, and a bichir.

Somebody got me the bichir, so it was not expected, but I don't regret getting it a bit.

For at least the past two years or longer, one of the goldfish has chased the other one around the tank for quite a bit. I hear this is how goldfish breed, but so far, I haven't seen any eggs or anything. I can't sex them, but I know that one has turned completely white over the years, and the slightly larger one has a larger tail fin in comparison. Thanks for any help.

 

[me_wee_todded]

OH GOD
That is way way overstocked.
My help and advice to you is get another tank or get riid of some of the fish.
I doubt they are breeding the tank is to small

 

[davo]

You are also mixing tropical fish with coldwater fish. That would be a good basis of where to split the tank up.

 

[Nabbig2]

Heh...I know it's not a very well stocked tank. Trust me, I really would love to get a new, larger tank, but I hardly convinced my parents into getting this 29 gallon tank.

 

[me_wee_todded]

then what you can do is get rid of the gold fish
and cut down severly on the amount of other tropical fish

 

[Tongue33]

As for the QUESTION>>> Look to the face of each fish the male will likely have pimples of a sort on his gill plates.. The other Fish will not.. If this is the case and you want to attempt at seeing eggs.. You will want to ad some ground cover that none of the fish can get to the eggs that are dropped..

Goldfish are horrible parents and scatter eggs one way and on the next pass will eat them... And from what I've read and experienced myself they are not real easy to breed and raise the fry.

 

[Nabbig2]

As for the QUESTION>>> Look to the face of each fish the male will likely have pimples of a sort on his gill plates.. The other Fish will not.. If this is the case and you want to attempt at seeing eggs.. You will want to ad some ground cover that none of the fish can get to the eggs that are dropped..

Goldfish are horrible parents and scatter eggs one way and on the next pass will eat them... And from what I've read and experienced myself they are not real easy to breed and raise the fry.

Oh, okay, thanks.

 

[fishdance]

Sounds like breeding behaviour to me. The male will stick his nose right under/in the tail region and follow her relentlessly. If they start spawning you will really know since at 8 inch size a conditioned female will have 5000 eggs (literature usually states 2000) and the male will cloud the tank with milt. There will be eggs everywhere including tank lids since they writhe and splash a lot.

If the female is in good condition and you do want to spawn, just drop the temp about 5 degrees Celcius. The easiest way is to throw in a block of ice and the next day you should see spawning behaviour. They will spawn even in small tanks if female is ready and once they start they dont get distracted. I have even had them lay eggs on my hands as they get so excited.

You will need a seperate tank to hatch and raise fry. Newly hatched fish are quite small.

 

[Nabbig2]

Sounds like breeding behaviour to me. The male will stick his nose right under/in the tail region and follow her relentlessly. If they start spawning you will really know since at 8 inch size a conditioned female will have 5000 eggs (literature usually states 2000) and the male will cloud the tank with milt. There will be eggs everywhere including tank lids since they writhe and splash a lot.

If the female is in good condition and you do want to spawn, just drop the temp about 5 degrees Celcius. The easiest way is to throw in a block of ice and the next day you should see spawning behaviour. They will spawn even in small tanks if female is ready and once they start they dont get distracted. I have even had them lay eggs on my hands as they get so excited.

You will need a seperate tank to hatch and raise fry. Newly hatched fish are quite small.

Okay, thanks for helping. However, I think lowering the temperature by that much will harm the other fish. As much as I'd love to see baby goldfish, I think I'll just hope that they lay eggs, and in that case, I will take care of them.

 

[Aquaman_95]

I am going to be nice about this. Why not just give away the Gouramis. Put them up for sale. And get a 50 gallon tank for the Goldfish. Becasue even though their bodies grow to the size of their tanks the Internal organs do not. That leads to Well they literally bust well sort of.