Goldfish Breeding Tips and Information

The Chinese have been breeding goldfish for one thousand years. Learning how to breed goldfish is easy, doing it is a lot harder than it looks. Doing it right the first time could make you and expert goldfish breeder.

First of all, for goldfish to breed, they need to be at least one year old. The best age for breeding goldfish is at 2 years or, how many goldfish breeding experts say, 3 years for better results. Breeding season runs from April to August, when it is warmer outside. Temperature is a very important factor that stimulates breeding.

You really have to be ready in breeding season. If you are not, you might get up in the morning and see your aquarium filled with hundreds of eggs laid by the female goldfish. If you do not move the eggs into another tank, at least 10 gallon, your goldfish will eat the eggs.

How can you tell the difference between male and female

The easiest way to distinguish goldfish sex types is in breeding season. If your look carefully, you will notice the following differences between the goldfish:

- males: have breeding tubercles(while color) on their gills and pectoral fins. When they are ready to spawn, the vent becomes much longer than usual.
- females: if you look from the top, you will notice they are more rounded(ovaries filled with mature eggs). When they are ready to spawn the vent become protruded.

Signs your goldfish are breeding

The male per female ratio is at least 2 to 1. The males will become aggressive and "chase" the female. When you notice them bumping into each others bellies, that means the male is encouraging the female to lay the eggs so that he car release the milt. But be very careful. If the males chase the female for more than one week or so, the female will become stressed and get hurt. So it is best to remove the female when you see this happening.

Females will start to lay up to 1000 eggs, from which few will hatch and become adults.

How to breed goldfish

These are a few steps you need to follow when breeding goldfish:

- increase the temperature with a heater (70 degrees F). Make it so that it is warmer in the day and colder in the night
- feed the goldfish rich protein food like blood worms or brine shrimp
- do a 25% water change every day
- sex the males and females
- separate the males from females for a few days in different tanks so that you create the desire to breed
- reintroduce the goldfish in the same tank as before

To collect the eggs and have no problems when moving them to a separate tank, you should create a spawning mop. Also make shore you have an internal filter because the external ones may suck up the eggs. With these in mind, you should have no problem when it comes to "how to breed goldfish". Good luck!