Complete Ways to Care for and Hatch Goldfish Eggs

As a professional or novice cultivator, you need to complete your cultivation insights. An example of goldfish eggs. This insight relates to how goldfish lay eggs, how many days it takes for goldfish eggs to hatch, to how goldfish eggs are hatched.

In their natural habitat, goldfish spawn at the beginning of the rainy season, where broodfish are more easily aroused when they smell the aroma of dry soil drenched by rain. Whereas in hatchery cultivation, goldfish can be spawned at any time.

Whenever goldfish do spawning, the most important thing is that you understand correctly the characteristics of goldfish eggs that will hatch and how to hatch goldfish eggs.

Check out the discussion here!

Goldfish Laying Process

Before carrying out the process of laying eggs on goldfish, you must carefully choose the best goldfish broodstock. Make sure that the female and male brooders have entered a period of gonadal maturity so they are ready to carry out fertilization.

Ideally, the age for female carp brooders is between 1.5-2 years and has a body weight of 2-3 kg, while the male brooders are between 10-12 months old and have a body weight of 0.6 kg.

Specifically, the following are the ideal characteristics of male and female broodstock for goldfish.

Characteristics of the Ideal Goldfish Broodstock

There are two types of spawning that you can do, namely natural and artificial spawning. In the artificial spawning process, the female sires will carry out the fertilization process through a special injection called the pituitary or hormone injection. Then, the fertilization process will be carried out in vitro.

It should be noted that this method of artificial fertilization is only specifically for fish that are difficult to spawn naturally.

There is also a natural spawning process which is carried out by mating male and female broodstock in one pool. The natural spawning of carp has a variety of techniques depending on the origin of the cultivator, for example the Hofer, Pouch, Dubisch, Rancapaku, Magek, Sundanese and Cimindi spawning methods. 

One of the well-known spawning techniques originating from West Java is the Sundanese spawning technique. Come on, see the steps below:

1. Prepare kakaban or a special container to store post-fertilized eggs. Kakaban is made of palm fiber and attached to float in the water. Its size is between 10-15 cm below the surface of the water.
2. Hook the kakaban with a stake that has firmly stuck so that it doesn't move easily during the spawning process.
3. Save the male and female breeders into the spawning pond together. The ratio of the weight ratio of female and male brooders is 1:1, while the ratio of the number of female and male brooders is 2:1 or 3:1.
4. Release the female goldfish at the ideal time, which is around 4-5 pm. Let the two sires adapt until they finally spawn in the early hours of the morning, from 1pm to 6am.
5. When goldfish spawn, they will chase each other and smell fishy from the pond.
6. Pay attention to the kakaban 24 hours after the broodstock is released into the pond. Normally you will see the kakaban filled with sticky eggs.
7. If you see that the eggs have stuck, then clean the kakaban by shaking it so that the mud is lifted.
8. Move the eggs to a special hatchery pool.

Characteristics of Goldfish Eggs That Will Hatch

After making sure that there are carp eggs attached to the kakaban, clean the kakaban and carp eggs from the mud that has stuck to them. Clean it in the way described above. Apart from that, you also need to look at whether the egg has been successfully fertilized or not. To find out, you can observe the color.

Usually goldfish eggs that are successfully fertilized are bright brownish yellow or clear yellow, while goldfish eggs that are not successfully fertilized are milky white or pale white, followed by an unpleasant odor. The other characteristics of successfully fertilized and hatched goldfish eggs are as follows:

1. Eggs are round
2. Egg weight 0.17-0.20 mg
3. Egg diameter 1.5-1.8 mm

The actual size of the eggs varies, depending on the age, size, and weight of the goldfish broodstock. At that moment the embryo begins to grow in the egg which is ready to be fertilized by the spermatozoa.

How to Hatch Goldfish Eggs

You can use a type of cement tub, aquarium, fiber tub, ordinary pool, or tarpaulin pond as a container for hatching goldfish eggs. You can incubate goldfish eggs anywhere, as long as the container is protected from excessive heat and rain. The goal is to control the temperature of the pool water. 

The time needed for goldfish eggs to hatch is 2-3 days, depending on the water temperature. At pool water temperature between 23-26 oC, goldfish eggs will hatch in 48 hours or 2 days. When the water temperature ranges from 27-30 oC, then it is likely that the eggs will hatch within 72 hours or 3 days.

Note also the circulation and supply of oxygen in the pond. If not, you need to install aeration. In addition, to prevent mold from forming in the hatchery pond, you can mix methylene blue.

After the eggs hatch, goldfish larvae are born. The first thing to pay attention to is the quality of the pool water. You must routinely control the quality of pool water at least until the larvae are 1 week old or have reached 1-2 cm in size. At this size, the larvae are ready to be transferred to the nursery pond to go through the process of growing carp seeds.

If during the process of rearing the larvae you find the pond water is cloudy, you can replace the water using sterile water as much as 50 percent. Let the water run for 30 minutes so the smell dissipates. The purpose of this sterilization is so that the larvae do not die from hydrogen sulfide poisoning.

You don't need to provide food for the larvae because the larvae still have the nutrients they carry directly in the egg yolks. These nutrients can last up to 2-3 days. After that, you can provide natural food to the fish larvae 2 times a day, namely in the morning and evening.

Causes of Goldfish Eggs Not Hatching

Goldfish can produce as many as 240,000-300,000 eggs in one spawning. In one year, goldfish will spawn 3 times. When totaled, in one year goldfish can produce as many as 720,000-900,000 eggs.

However, not all of these eggs are successfully fertilized. There are several eggs that have the potential not to get fertilized so they fail to hatch and die. The most visible feature is the color of the egg which is milky white or cloudy white.

The main cause of goldfish eggs not hatching is because the water temperature is too high. The minimum temperature required for goldfish to lay eggs is 23 oC. If the pool water temperature is below that, goldfish eggs will die.

Apart from the temperature of the pond water, there are several other causes that prevent fish eggs from hatching, including:

1. The gonads of the parent fish are immature, so the eggs in the gonads are immature.
2. The quality of pool water decreases, especially when the water becomes more turbid.
3. Pool water contains too high levels of heavy metals so that the eggs do not successfully hatch.
4. Pool temperature too high.
5. Mold exposed.
6. Eggs enter expiration date. This means that the female parent has mature gonads but does not mate immediately, so that when spawning the eggs are old.
7. Infertility in male fish.