Quite new to keeping pondfish are my fish spawning?.

[Gingersherwood]

Hi good morning. Been out to see fish this morning and the larger goldfish chasing each other around quite vigorously and what looks like attacking my large plant and running it. Burying there heads by the looks ot never seen this behaviour before is this fish spawning and if so what should I be looking out for ?. Thank you Jackie

 

[addy1]

My guess...................since mine do the same...............the gal got chased, she dumped eggs, the other fish are snacking on the free food.

 

[Lisak1]

Yup. Classic spawning behavior. If you're trying to keep the herd down, don't feed the fish for a few days and they'll eat most of the eggs.

 

[Gingersherwood]

My guess...................since mine do the same...............the gal got chased, she dumped eggs, the other fish are snacking on the free food.

 

[Gingersherwood]

Thanks for replying at least now I know never seen them do this before. I'm more bothered about the beautiful plant I just bought there absolutely wrecking it

 

[Lisak1]

Yup. They'll shred a plant to bits if they're big enough.

 

[CometKeith]

Thanks for replying at least now I know never seen them do this before. I'm more bothered about the beautiful plant I just bought there absolutely wrecking it

Sorry about your plant but the fish are exhibiting their natural behavior! Most people don’t realize goldfish do this if they have kept goldfish in small tanks or aquariums. So for a long time I just had one or two female goldfish and the rest males. The females were chased all the time by the male heard and they received a lot of nicks and bruises from being held against rocks and suffered poor health. After that I always tried to buy female fish to balance things out but it isn’t easy doing that!

 

[WaterGardener]

You can put spawning mops in the pond to help keep the fish off the plants. I tie them to a cord across the pond so the mops hang down into the water and can be easily removed.

I swap the mops out a couple of days after the spawning activity to give the fish a chance to eat the eggs and to prevent their leftovers from developing into more fish. I have too many already.

The fish seem to like using the mops and since they are made of yarn, they are soft and prevent injuries.

Plenty of info online for making them. They are very simple and last for years.

 

[Gingersherwood]

You can put spawning mops in the pond to help keep the fish off the plants. I tie them to a cord across the pond so the mops hang down into the water and can be easily removed.

I swap the mops out a couple of days after the spawning activity to give the fish a chance to eat the eggs and to prevent their leftovers from developing into more fish. I have too many already.

The fish seem to like using the mops and since they are made of yarn, they are soft and prevent injuries.

Plenty of info online for making them. They are very simple and last for years.

Sorry for the delay in reading this. Thats a brilliant idea next time I will try this i ended up lifting this huge plant out what was left of it and wrapped the whole plant with netting this helped a lot they still tried tho but couldn't get past the net after a couple of days I took the net back off as the fish had calmed down. But next time I will try the pop idea. Thank you

 

[mrsclem]

This is why no plants are allowed in my pond! I had some floating azolla in the holding tank above my pond and they ended up in the main pond. Spawning same day!

 

[Gingersherwood]

This is why no plants are allowed in my pond! I had some floating azolla in the holding tank above my pond and they ended up in the main pond. Spawning same day!

If you have no plants in the pond how and where do fish lay there eggs ?. I must say I didn't have any plants in the pond before I introduced a forest of oxygen plants then the fish went bonkers. But what if I hadn't introduced plants what would happen then ?

 

[mrsclem]

They sometimes still spawn and the eggs end up on the liner, pump tubing, pumps and outside the pond! Plants and removal of some fish seem to trigger a spawn, at least in my ponds. Since I do not feed my fish after a spawn, I'm hoping most of the eggs have been eaten so will start feeding again tomorrow.