Two to four days, depending on temperature. Then the babies will
cling to the sides of the pond, rocks, plants, whatever for two or
three more days before they start swimming freely.

when I have had pond spawnings I have moved the plants to a separate
tank. Mine spawned in Anacharis or in string algae.

Moving the plants also moves a mass of micro-bugs, aufwufs, protozoa
and other things that serve as food for the very young fish.

My observation is that when the fry are clinging to the sides of
things they are still subject to predation by the parent fish. When
they start swimming normally the parents will leave them alone, but
they are still preyed upon by any previously hatched young fish.

Fry isn't quite the right word, there are about a half dozen names for
various stages the fish go through before being classed as fry, but
that is of more interest to the purists.



Your fish will likely spawn again in a few days, I had a trio that
went through the motions about every four to five days until August
when I got tired of watching them and threw them back into the pond.
they were shooting blanks a lot, and the female pursued the males on
the off days.



On Sat, 13 Mar 2004 18:45:57 -0800, "Bill Oertell"
wrote:

The fish are in a pond, not aquarium, so getting the eggs into another place
isn't quite feasible. I guess some of our fish have laid eggs. Some of them
had pretty big bellies, and now they're normal, except one. I guess that means
they've laid their eggs. How long before they hatch?

"Charles" wrote in message
.. .
On Fri, 12 Mar 2004 19:19:15 -0800, "Bill Oertell"
wrote:

Do goldfish in a pond lay eggs or give live birth, and should anything
special
be done to assure the hatchlings survival?


They lay eggs. The adults will eat all the eggs they can find, so you
won't get too many babies.

If you want to save the babies it is best to take the spawning medium
out and put it into a separate aquarium. don't try to more the young
after they have hatched, they are very delicate for the first month or
so.

Use a sponge filter to keep the aquarium water moving and feed baby
fish food, not too much.


--

- Charles
-
-does not play well with others


--

- Charles
-
-does not play well with others