We have had goldfish in our various backyard ponds for over 20 years. They all originated from a dozen small goldfish I had bought for bait. I used 4 of the goldfish without luck and had 8 left over. Thinking I might try again, I put the survivors in Nancy’s 35-gallon lily pond and was severely reprimanded when the illegal aliens were discovered. But Nancy began feeding them. They came eagerly to greet her and I was strictly forbidden to use them for bait.
Nancy’s 8 pet goldfish lived for many years, then suddenly baby goldfish about the size of a skinny peanut appeared. Eventually, the 8 original goldfish went on to the Great Pond in the Sky, while the 2nd and 3rd generations continued to propagate. This spring, however, we were down to 4 goldfish, and I was worried.
About a month ago, we saw three of the goldfish chasing one around the pond. They were obviously males after the sole lady goldfish. They bumped into her side until she dropped her eggs which were immediately fertilized. The results of the goldfish chase are in, and we have at least one baby, hopefully more.
As in past years, the tiny fish immediately hide beneath rocks and come out only briefly to feed. We saw one doing just that this past week.
Goldfish begin to breed around their 3rdth year, and a female can lay up to 2,000 eggs as many as five times during a summer. Most, obviously, are gobbled up by the goldfish themselves and no frog alive would pass up a tasty baby goldfish swimming by. But some make it.
In the past, we had so many babies we had to give some away. I’m curious as to how many we’ll have at the end of this summer.