How Often Do Fry (goldfish) Need To Be Fed? And How Much?

[Mmathis]

Yea! I have babies! I was able to "rescue" a dozen or so babies from the pond -- sizes ranging from eyelashes to the width of my pinkie fingernail (sorry, I'm not good at estimating sizes). I never caught the spawning.....or the eggs.....

I moved the fry to my indoor 20 gal. tank. I'm not doing anything special for them, mainly just giving them the chance to avoid being eaten. I do have a sponge over the filter intake, and I threw in a bunch of Hornwort and Ancharis from the pond to give them places to hide, [and I will siphon the bottom to keep it as clean as possible, but haven't started doing that yet].

I have been feeding them FIRST BITES food several times a day. What I'll do is moisten my finger tip, then touch my finger to the food -- that's the amount I'm giving them each time.

But want to know HOW MUCH and HOW OFTEN I should be feeding them? Whether it's live food or store-bought.....

 

[Waterbug]

To me fry should have food 24/7. It's the one time they can actually starve pretty fast. Plus I don't want to stunt their growth (I like big fish). In a perfect world live swimming food is best because it doesn't rot and is always available. If feeding dead food you really have to be careful with waste. 12 fry in 20 gal are going to miss a lot of food.

I consider raising fry to be a high fish load type deal mainly because of food waste. So cleaning and testing water often is my plan.

They're a lot of fun to watch grow (so fast), change color, and cool watching them eat live food.

 

[dieselplower]

If using "flake food" I like hikari first bites at least 3 times a day. They also love frozen blood worms once a bit bigger.

 

[koiguy1969]

i try to keep food available to my fry all the time...feeding every 2 hours atleast. live foods are best like brineshrimp and such to start... keeping foods over 45% protein... spurilina is a good one at 65% protein. then i switch to 55% protein fry granules and freeze dried brine shrimp cubes. til they hit an inch or so in size then they go in the big pond and just get small pellets rated for that size.
disclaimer: that doesnt mean i get up every 2 hours thru the night to feed.

 

[jmajid]

interesting info - thanks to all...
we are feeding - perhaps overfeeding - but certainly not feeding every 2 hours....
will try the flakes also

 

[Dave 54]

TurtleMommy for a short while they will reply on their egg yoke but when thats gone every few hours, I would feed then a little an often, however you dont want to go polluting their water by overfeeding thats a quick way to be rid of them. try to judge just how much they eact eah time and adjust accordingly as they start to grow.
May I ask just what your feeding them please I've not heard of that brand of fry food before, so I take it its an over the pond food ?
Try to cull off any malformed fry when you get to your first cull "I know but its really necessary for the wellbeing of your fry"

Dave

 

[koiguy1969]

A LOOK INSIDE ONE OF MY FRY PONDS....

 

[Mmathis]

Koiguy, for once I wish I had that nice green water!

Link for infusoria, but my babies will be older by the time it would mature (for this batch of fry, anyway...).
http://m.wikihow.com/Make-Infusoria
I am adding some pond water in the tank.

I have a camping trip this weekend, so don't want to start any brine shrimp just yet -- hubby would freak if I asked him to monitor that & feed the fry. For now, I'll instruct him to proceed with the powdered FIRST BITES every few hours until I'm home (very small portions). I just did a thorough cleaning & siphoning, filter change, etc., so hoping that will hold 'till I get back.

Dave, this is FIRST BITES.

Do places like PETSMART & PETCO carry liquid fry food, or any of the other foods y'all have mentioned? I can run by there quick before I head out this afternoon.

 

[koiguy1969]

I green it up starting with spurulina powder... you gotta get started a couple weeks atleast, before the spawns!!

 

[Mmathis]

I green it up starting with spuralina powder... you gotta get started a couple weeks atleast, before the spawns!!

Gee, I didn't even know they'd spawned, LOL! I watched & watched, looked for eggs..... Then all of a sudden I was scooping out some tadpoles & there were baby fish!!

Where do you get spuralina powder?

 

[koiguy1969]

powder..
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Spirulina-P...622?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item35a45a1c66
flakes..
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Your-Fish-S...510?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item35b08f6246
freeze dried brine shrimp cubes...
http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_sac..._nkwusc=freeze+dried+brineshrimp+cubes&_rdc=1

 

[Mmathis]

OK, back from camping. I have some brine shrimp eggs going. I also took the teeniest of the babies [gee, they grow so fast!] and moved them to a smaller tank -- one of those little 3 gal. cubes with a small filter [incl. a foam cover over intake]. I reduced the amt. of water in the 20 gal. tank and left the larger babies in there.

I'm not trying to breed any of my goldies, but did want to give a try at raising some fry [and these all hatched in the pond] so I could watch them grow and change. ....and any new experience is a good thing....

powder..
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Spirulina-P...622?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item35a45a1c66
flakes..
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Your-Fish-S...510?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item35b08f6246
freeze dried brine shrimp cubes...
http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_sacat=0&_from=R40&_nkw=freeze dried brine shrimp cubes&_nkwusc=freeze dried brineshrimp cubes&_rdc=1

Thanks, and I'll look into this!