How do you stop goldfish from breeding?

[ChickenFeeds]

Ok, I know this is a BackyardChickens, but yes, I need help with my goldfish.

Our two fish, Calico and Stripe, are breeding (we think). There are no other fish in the pond, but a few months ago, we used to have two koi and one other goldfish in the pond. We noticed that Calico is rounder than Stripe, (we think that means she’s a female) and they will often chase each other around. (Stripe sometimes chases Calico and Calico sometimes chases Stripe.) (We researched and know that males chasing females is common mating behavior, but the females shouldn’t be chasing the males.) Stripe is more active than Calico, another sign that he’s a male. We also noticed Stripe has two little nobs in front of his eyes, and Calico has a weird big hump on one side of her body (top left). The water in the pond is roughly 60 degrees, and they eat fine. They are 2 years old now.

The thing is, we don’t want them to breed! Even if we gave some away, we don’t have the space for more than one more fish! We’ve done a lot of reasearch, but can’t find any good solutions. Separating them wouldn’t work, because they would get lonely, and it would be hard to keep the water temperature low enough Spring is coming, which means mating season. Does anyone have any advice on how to keep them from having eggs?

 

[ChickenFeeds]

Stripe

 

[nuthatched]

I don't think there's a solution besides removing one.

 

[ChickenFeeds]

 

[ChickenFeeds]

Calico

 

[ChickenFeeds]

I don't think there's a solution besides removing one.

Other than them being lonely, we wouldn’t even have a good place to put the one we remove. I just don’t know what we could do.

 

[nuthatched]

Other than them being lonely, we wouldn’t even have a good place to put the one we remove. I just don’t know what we could do.

Can you make a sectioned off area out of mesh so they're together but seperate?

 

[EggSighted4Life]

The thing is, we don’t want them to breed! Even if we gave some away, we don’t have the space for more than one more fish!

They may eat any eggs/babies before you notice.

 

[NatJ]

They may eat any eggs/babies before you notice.

I was wondering about this, because many kinds of fish do eat their own eggs & babies if they have a chance.

The thing is, we don’t want them to breed! Even if we gave some away, we don’t have the space for more than one more fish! We’ve done a lot of reasearch, but can’t find any good solutions. Separating them wouldn’t work, because they would get lonely, and it would be hard to keep the water temperature low enough Spring is coming, which means mating season. Does anyone have any advice on how to keep them from having eggs?

If they are healthy and live together, there is probably no way to keep them from producing eggs. But whether any eggs hatch, and whether any babies live to grow up, might be a different matter. The eggs might get eaten by the goldfish or by some kind of other creature (for example, some kinds of bugs or snails might eat the eggs.)

As a longer-term solution, maybe find someone else with the same kind of fish and trade one, so you have two males or two females?

 

[JacinLarkwell]

Odds are very few fry would actually live long enough to grow large enough to not be eaten, depending on how many hiding spaces are in your set up. You can also always take them and ask a petatore if you could give them to them.