you have to have bitcoin when the fork happens. the time is 99% of the time a block height. for bitcoin gold it is not yet set. they have said it will be on 25th of October but things may not be ready by then.
also there is no "accounts" in bitcoin to be credited with bitcoin gold. you have private keys when you use a bitcoin wallet which you can use to claim bitcoin gold with. you have to import them into the wallet that they team releases to claim them. you get 1:1 amount of BTG.
and no it doesn't matter what you do after that specific time.
Thanks for the reply! I use Bittrex and assumed is was going to work like the Bitcoin cash fork, where they make a BTG wallet once it goes live and it automatically credits you with a 1:1 ratio of BTG for how much BTC you had when it forked?
it may be like that too. even if not with bittrex, there are other exchanges that may do it.
but the difference between BTG and BCH is that bitcoin cash was more popular (at least they made a lot more noise in the social media) and they were more vocal and accessible. i feel like bitcoin gold devs are not communicating with the community that much!
what you can do is check back around the time fork is scheduled to be. meaning between October 20-24 (the fork is on 25) and see if bittrex (or any other exchanges) released any statement about BTG. they will most probably do it soon. and reading that you can see if they will or won't give you BTG 1:1