New tank!!

Ah I picked up the new tank and two new fish today!  It's really big, much better than the other one.  The two goldfish were put in the pond, but the goldfish looked like a dot!  A dot that looked scared and eatable, so we fished it back out and put it back in its tank when it was ready.  The three biggest from the fry were also put in the new tank, although they look very small compared to the goldfish.  The goldfish seems alright with them, but it does keep chasing them round the tank.  At least it hasn't eaten them.

Here's the new tank, obviously.  It came with the ornament in the middle as well, excellent.  It's an Aqua Start 500, so I'm very pleased to get it for free.  The black moor swam off in the pond, it's about half the size of the smallest fish in there.  But here's the goldfish, who I think is feeling very big now and king (or queen) of the tank!

Lovely.  I'm hoping to get some live food for them all tomorrow.  I gave them some freshwater shrimp which they loved.  I've heard that they also like bloodworms and daphnia so I'll look out for those tomorrow.  There are three little fish in the new tank, the other five seemed too small and the goldfish might eat them.  So they're still in the little tank.

Oh dear.  I'll also buy some new plants tomorrow!  I put most of theirs in the new tank!  Oh by the way, there's their little treasure chest of course.

Well I've turned the aquarium lights off for the night, and hopefully everyone will sleep well :-)

New developments

I decided to buy a little ornament for the tank, it's a treasure chest.  I haven't got a photo though, maybe later.  But I think the tank is too small for them.  Luckily thanks to www.freecycle.net I've been offered another tank.  It already comes with two goldfish who are 3cm and 6cm, one black and one gold.  The tank is 14 gallons, which is still not ideal but a lot better than what they're in now.  I'm very excited to see the new tank, we're hopefully picking it up tomorrow!  Perhaps if they all look very squashed we could keep some in the smaller tank they're in now.  I'd really have to see, and of course the new goldfish might look a lot bigger so I'd have to make sure they're not going to eat anyone.

I've always thought I was looking after baby carp, but now it turns out goldfish are silver before they turn gold.  So who knows!  Not that I would mind, I'm not a breeder or anything.

Gravel and tank sizes...

So, I was looking at my little fish swimming about with their new plants.  They seem to really like them.  It suddenly occurred to me that maybe I should get some gravel for the bottom?  The main benefits seem to be it looks nicer, you don't see all the rubbish.  But I don't really mind that...maybe I'm just used to it.  Plus it lets me see when it should be cleaned.  Maybe there's some other, more important reason for having gravel that I'm missing?

Also, little Eye-lene and her friend aren't growing much.  I don't want them to be eaten when the bigger ones get big enough.  I don't know whether the fish tank is big enough for all of them either, there's eight of them, with the biggest one being 2cm.  I know they can only grow as big as their tank, and I don't want to prevent them growing!  But on the other hand I don't want to traumatise them by splitting them up.

Another issue (this is turning into an essay!) are Eye-lene's eyes.  Are they supposed to be black?  I read that could be an infection, so I started watching her to make sure she could see.  She seemed to be finding bits of food alright, so I guess she's okay.  I just don't know why she's got purely black eyes. Birth defect, perhaps.

I shall ponder these things a little longer I think....
 

Finally an update

Sorry I've neglected this blog, life got in the way.  Just some updates on the little babies in the tank.

Firstly, one of the smaller ones died :-(  Very sad.  I came downstairs one morning and noticed it floating underneath the filter.  In a vain hope I fished it out (no pun intended) with the net, and put it in a cup of water.  Just in case it sprang back to life, you never know.  Except it didn't.  Awww.  The mutant things also all died, still not sure what they were.  Dad suggested maybe too much rain water got in overnight.  They didn't develop into fish though, maybe blood-worms.

So then there was eight.  They're getting big now.  Except one, Eye-leen whose eyes are big and black, hence the name.  Hopefully the others won't get so big they eat her.

I noticed the plant we have in with them was shedding all its leaves, which were turning brown.  They were just creating debris in the water, and I couldn't get it all out.  I changed some of the water and got as much of the plant out as possible.  Then today I replaced it with a new one.  I decided to get the same kind, and the fish seem to really like it.  It's bunched up with a metal holder so there's about four strands.  The fish seem to like getting lost in it and eating it, which is good.

The guy in the shop also suggested I squash some peas up for them, and put those in.  Hmm maybe.  I think mine are still too small for peas at the moment, even squashed ones.  I don't want them to choke!

Mutants!

After looking at the mystery creatures swimming round, which apparently aren't fish, I discovered they seem to be growing.  Some of them now have forked tails, and what looks like little feet similar to centipedes.  What on Earth are they...maybe some insect.  Hopefully they'll keep growing until they reach something that resembles a recognizable organism.

False alarm...

Okay so maybe the things swimming round in with the plants aren't fish after all.  They seem to 'swim' sideways, twisting themselves.  Maybe they're bloodworms.  Anyway, we've kept some to see what they turn into.

On the plus side, I just fed the little ones and they now know to come to the surface for food.  Clever fishies.

Exciting developments!

So we cleaned the pond out as I mentioned.  We put all the plants from the pond in containers for the time being, and just left them in the garden.

But, today we checked them, and they had literally hundreds of things swimming round in them.  I assume there were eggs in among the plants that had just hatched.  Aww!  I doubt they're tadpoles, although I suppose that's a small possibility.  I didn't see any frogspawn though, which you would've thought I'd have noticed when cleaning the pond.

The tubs were close to over-flowing because of rain, plus the water was stagnant.  I doubt all of the fish will survive (we'll call them fish for the moment) but I can try.  To prevent them spilling out and dying we scooped them out using a jug, and put some of the water into another tub, the white one there.  There are so many of them that it was easy to scoop a lot up quickly.  Then of course it started to rain, as usual.  But the fish seemed alright in their new tub, and hopefully it'll be better for them as well. Only problem is I've no idea what to do with them all now!  The water really needs to be cleaned, but as my Mam pointed out, they've survived there until now. It's all they've ever known.

 
Just one section of the photo I took, of one small part of the clear tub.  All the black things in the photo are the little fish! Argh look at them all!!
 

My little colourful baby

Here's a rather bad photo of one of the more colourful fish.  I couldn't find the digital camera so it's just from my phone, but I might put some more up when I do find the camera.

Aww. Almost an action shot, swimming happily round with their plant.  Unfortunately you can't really see all the colours because it's such a bad camera, but never mind.

The Baby Pond Fish

Hi all!

I decided to start a blog about the baby fish we found in our pond.  Two reasons - I'm quite attached to the little things, and secondly I realised I don't know much about them! So hopefully by sharing with you all some more experienced people may be to give some advice?

How about some background.  Here is our fish pond.  It has been recently cleaned.

We have koi carp, goldfish and shubunkins.  We're going to add their lovely clean plants soon.  The exciting thing though, and what brought about this blog, is that while cleaning we found some baby fish.  We decided to separate them until they were a bit bigger, so now they have their own little aquarium in the living room.  The tiny baby ones unfortunately died, maybe due to water change or stress.  But nine are still going strong.

Today I gave them a quick clean, because there was some white stuff in their tank on some left-over food.  Maybe the fish equivalent of mould?  Was I right to do this?  Anyway, I shall keep you posted.  It was a very quick clean so the fish were hopefully not too bothered by it, they swam out the way of the net.