frisky goldfish

[bamweevil]

recently i added a female pearlscale to my tank and my two fantails aggressively chase her around the tank. I seperated the males from my tank because not only were they chasing the pearlscale but also my blackmoor and as the pearlscale was new i didnt want her stress by my amourous males. MY query is were the males chasing her because she is carrying eggs or were they trying to encourage her to produce eggs. being newbie not sure which way around it goes. If she carrying them now have i done the rigth thing by seperating will it hurt her if she doesnt lay. my main reason for the seperation was i was worry about stress on the new comer having just been brougth home and then meeting two very amourous males I thougth it migth be a bit much to bear for the poor girl. :-? :-?

[Caryl]

Are you sure of the sexes? When I had goldfish I found that whenever I tried to add a fish to the original number, the rest would hound it, not let it eat and generally treat it badly until it died or, once I figured out what they had done, removed it.

[bamweevil]

why i came to the conclusion one was male was because he has white dots on his gill cover was told this indicated he was a male the second fish has no white spots on gill cover just guess it was a male because it was following the same behaviour. Have seperated them but pearlscale still seems abit stress resting at the suface or bottom occasionally swimming still interested in food thou other fish with her are there normal selves and busy. she seems to breathing faster than other fish thou

[Caryl]

You are right, those white spots on the gill covers do indicate a male wanting to spawn. They will be thinking about it too from now on, although it is a little cool yet for them down my way.

Poor girl probably is stressed so it might pay to keep her separated from them until she recovers. You might have a problem if you have more males than females though as in a tank they have nowhere to escape and hide for a while.