Baby goldfish questions from a beginner

[Kr1stina]

We are beginner fish keepers and we have 8 goldfish and two koi in an outdoor pond. Last year they produced two babies, which are now quite big.

This year they had about 100. We are now down to about 30- 40 ( rough estimate as we have lots of plants ) and the big ones have stopped eating them , I assume because they are too big. About 1.5-2 inches long. They swim with the big boys now and eat their food.

I have some questions

1. How many are likely to survive the winter and is there anything we can do to help ?
   

1. They are nearly all black ( about 6 patterned ones ) - will they change colour when they get bigger ?
   

1. We are assuming they are all goldfish and not koi - is that likely to be correct ? I don't know the sex of any of the koi as they seem to neither chase nor be chased. This makes me assume they are both the same sex. But what do I know.
   

1. What do I do if they all survive - the ponds not big enough ?

[Kr1stina]

I'm sorry, they wouldn't stay still for a photo

[jwww]

Are you sure they're koi and not shbunkin goldfish?do they have barbs? Also koi get bigger than fully grown goldfish.
All black ones will most likely stay all black but I don't think it's impossible for them to marble?
Winter wise it shouldn't really affect them even if it gets cold enough for the pond to freeze over the top layer of ice will insulate the water below so you should be fine, it's more how much space you have in the pond that will mainly effect them. They need 50l each :)

[Kr1stina]

Many thanks for your reply jwww.

I was assuming that they WERE koi and not goldfish . I don't think they have barbs but it's hard to see as they are small and move fast and obv not as easy to see in a pond as in a tank.

The marbles ones are definitely babies of our one shubunkin - the kids call them Baby Charlie. Charlie spend a lot of time chasing the female comets and common goldfish amd generally making a nuisance of himself.

Our koi are already much bigger than the goldfish and I suspect they all have a lot of growing to do yet .

I'm glad to know that they will be ok in the winter. We've only had the pond for two winters - the first was quite cold and it was frozen over for several weeks at a time . We tried to thaw holes with saucepans of boiling water but it was too thick , but we found that footballs worked better .

Last winter want cold and we only had thin layers of ice for a few days at a time .

Re pond size - I know the linear dimensions, how do I convert that to litres of water please ?

[jwww]

Don't worry about trying to break or thaw the ice it acts like a blanket and actually helps stop the cold getting to the pond it's self.

I'm sure there's if you have a look online you can find somewhere to plug the dimensions in to get a litreage but to be honest unless you start fishing the baby's out and selling them or expanding the pond every time your fish breed, I wouldn't worry about it just let nature take its course :)

[guineapig1]

This happened to friends of ours and by the following year lots of the all black little fish gradually began to change colour. If they are ok now, they probably be fine over the winter. Not sure about the size of the pond - i think our friends' mentioned that their fish bred two or three times and then stopped as the pond reached "capacity" - though as pp has pointed out perhaps what actually happened is that they were getting eaten

[Kr1stina]

I thought you had to make a hole in the ice to stop gas being trapped ? Maybe that's nonsense

I'll keep fingers crossed that some of the black ones will change when they get bigger . The kids have be counting them and assure me that we have many more than 50 . But apparently we have 32,000 litres ( which sounds huge but it's not ) so they should be ok .