We did the same thing a couple of years ago. We lost all but four over the winter. The following spring the four spawned. We had hundreds of babies. We had about 70 that lived and for the past several years this number has been pretty much constant as they live and breed. From experience gold fish are born dark and turn yellow starting about 4 months. They can start breed at some point after that depending on the weather, water temperature, etc. Since you do not know the age of your fish when you purchased them it is possible that they could spawn the first season. The oldler fish may turn white.

I used pond foam (its like Great Stuff but for ponds) to seal my rocks so my water would flow. I have one large flat one on the bottom level. For some oxygen for while you work on the falls I jst used an aqarium pump with an airstone on it. I cut a plastic coffee can to put the pump in to protect it from the weather. We rebuilt our waterfall 5 times!! so have some patience.Your water will flow better after you seal the cracks. Good Luck!

Hi Give him time and he eventually will build a nest. Males will always flare at their own kind no matter the sex lol keep the water in the low eighties and give them lots of food .Live food is excellant but frozen will do. i used a 10 gallon tank half full. kepthe female in a hurricane lamp shade. The glass kind that are open on both ends This way the male can always see but can't harm the female. This way when spawning time comes you can just lift the shade. be sure to remove her as soon as spawning is complete. After the fry become free swimming you can remove the male and begin filling the tank. Be sure to keep it covered to keep the air humid and warm. The fry are very tiny and require microworms or infusoria for about a week. gary

congrats on your first spawning! Sounds like all 3 had fun to be honest - provided your Ghosty came from similar water conditions theres no reason why it wouldn't be "in the mood" so to speak, in fact in commercial breeding they separate the sexes, raise the temp, then put them back together to stimulate spawning, which sounds exactly like what happened! OK - eggs, the truly clear ones and any white ones, will be infertile, the fertile eggs will be an opaque slightly beize colour, which will darken the closer to hatching they become. If you want to raise them the BEST first food is infusoria (they move on to daphnia etc after a few days)you COULD fiddle around spending days in complicated biological preparation for something they'll eat for a week and then move on from, or you could do as ive always done and just spend a couple of quid on the pre-prepared liquid ones you can get - it's not like they'll be on it for long anyway - remember - the first 3-4 days after hatching they dont need ANYTHING as they'll be consuming their yolk sac - once they reach the 10-15 day point i feed them on REALLY finely crushed FLAKE (not the pellets - they don't crush finely enough - just bog standard goldfish flake) - as they get bigger just de-crease the amount of crushing, till theyre up to about 1/2 " long at which point i'd switch to roughly crushed pellets. If at all possible i'd avoid putting them back into the pond wih the adults until youve got a nice weedy section for them to hide in, and they're about 1" long (growth depends on temp and food). As for the malachite green - yes, it's great stuff for keeping down the fungus i use just enough to give the water a very light tinge - approx half the standard dosage. Don't forget - you will NEED to cull if you are raising outside of the pond or you'll end up with THOUSANDS of fry, that you just don't have room for and will stifle the growth of the good ones - as cruel as it sounds i just pop them back in with mum and dad, and pretty soon they're a fish supper - the other most humane way is pop them in a bag, and freeze them - the fish go into hibernation mode, their brain shuts down, and they effectively die in their sleep. Lastly - Good Luck!!!