Muddyfingers

Thanks for all your suggestions! Yes, there is one particularly fertile male who is very eager to sow his oats - the others do all the right actions but seem to be shooting blanks so to speak (no fertile eggs gained when I seperated them to spawn with the girls individually). With the females out of the tank, the males are behaving very docile! Mum's offered to take the girls and try them in with her waterlillies, in large clay pots. She's had fish in them before but a kingfisher took them before she could get netting over the pots!!!! The girls seem to be o.k, for now, I dosed them with blue tonic soln as soon as I put them back in water to try to combat any fungul problems - the longer finned female feels a bit 'sandpapery' on one side, but is swimming and eating well. I've thought about using a divider, but wondered what to use for such a large tank. Local petshop didn't even know what I was talking about when I asked! I do have a lid on the tank, but have had it open as it seems to trap heat and cause the tank to heat up faster in this weather. They haven't tried escaping from the bath so far. Thanks again!

Hello all! I hope someone can come up with some ideas for my dilemma….I was very good last year and was given a 200L aquarium for Christmas. Prior to this, my 5 poor goldfish lived in our bathtub for approx 6 months having outgrown their old tank. I always had my suspicions that I had a bully fish, but put it down to a lack of space. It seems that 1 male (a shubunkin) is always “on heat†(always has the sex spots on his gill covers and fins) and he provokes the other males into hounding the 2 females. Anyway, on transferring to their new home, I rapidly learnt which ones definitely were males & females…I have 2 females & 3 males, and lots of fry! I know I should keep the 2 sexes separated, but lack the space, time & energy to have more than 1 large tank (I’m due to drop my own little bundle of joy in 3 weeks). I was planning on selling my 2 females & keeping the males, and getting another 2 males in their place. However, Friday I arrived home at lunchtime to find both females had done a Houdini trick out the open tank lid and were lying on the carpet, dry as sandpaper! They had been right as rain when I left for work in the morning. I thought that was the end of them, but on picking them up for disposal, they both gave feeble flicks of their tails. It’s now 24hrs later and they have both made a miraculous recovery, albeit in large buckets, and one of the females is now laying eggs in her bucket like crazy. I can only assume that the females were either hounded so much by the males to spawn that they decided the carpet looked a better option, or, did the males tried to commit murder??? I tried reintroducing the non-egg laying female back to the tank, but within minutes the males were holding her out of the water and pushing her all around the tank, so I quickly took her out again. The 3 males are now placid and as quiet as can be. I have never seen this ferocious behavior in 15+yrs of keeping goldfish!!! Now I am at a loss of what to do with them both. I feel I can’t sell them because they have now gone blind and no longer look aesthetically pleasing with white cloudy eyes. I assume this is due to the out-of-water experience drying out the eyes. They are about 6 yrs old and have a body length of approx 15cm. 1 has a short stubby tail about 5ish cm long and the other had beautiful long flowing tail fins about 10cm long – which are now looking very raggy. Do you think that a breeder would take them? I feel so bad about what has happened to them and want them to go to a good home, but don’t know who to approach or who want to take them in their sorry-looking state, even though they were healthy up until Friday.