Category Archives: Brown Oranda

Brown Oranda, The Diary of a Goldfish Breeder 2023

The Diary of a Goldfish Breeder 2023 (5)

Project #2: Brown Oranda

Last time I mentioned my Brown Oranda splitted into two lineage: the Dark Choco and the Tea-colored Oranda. I decided to focus on the Dark Choco one, since it is more unique.

This lineage of Brown Oranda diverged from my Blue Oranda line far enough to manifest different body features. My Blue Oranda line has a rounder body and well-erected tail. But it has weakness in its dorsal fin shape. The dorsal looks a bit thin. Some is good in its straight position while others is slightly curved or even a bit fallen to side. This Brown Oranda line is directly opposite to it. The body is a bit longer than the Blue one, and the dorsal looks thick and strong with a sharply straight position. The weakness is in the tail, which is not so well-erected.

I am happy with these differences since they provide me with materials to improve both lineages through cross breeding.

These are three of my Dark Choco:

As you can see, the dorsal fins are pretty uniform. This become their strength.

The dark brown color is also consistent, which is another point to value. There is a special observation I made regarding this color. This dark brown color usually comes with white color in part of its tail, while the tea (or light) brown color has totally uniform color in all its parts. Could this be that the dark brown is actually the exact same pigmen but more condensed than the light one? I do not know about that. But there is another significant different among these two types: in the light brown one, when the brown color fades, the occuring color is always (as far as I observe) orange color. So, it is possible to have brown and orange pattern in a fish coming from the fading light brown color. But the dark brown one has the capacity to introduce white color in its pattern, which the light brown one does not have. So, it is possible to have brown and white pattern (or even brown, red and white) pattern coming from the dark brown lineage. Isn’t it amazing?

In fact, the third fish was brown and white fish before. But then the brown color takes over to make the body totally dark brown and leave the white to the tail. So, this is another unique feature: the ability to remelanize (to reintroduce the dark brown color that had faded)

Back to analyzing the fishes, their body lengths are different. The second fish has the longest body, while the third one has the shortest (roundest) type. The first one is the medium length type. So there is no uniformity in the body length.

The tail is varied, also, with the second fish becomes the weakest.

Well, after analyzing the strength and weakness of this dark brown lineage, I think I am happy with the current result. I am also excited to see the possibility to improve them in the future. My best pair is the first fish (male) and the third one (female). I am also thrilled to see whether I can create the brown, red, and white stable pattern. If so, it will be an interesting alternative to the current tricolor (black, red, and white pattern) in the market. It will be a pattern I have never seen during my whole life time!

For the video please see the youtube below:

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Brown Oranda, oranda, The Diary of a Goldfish Breeder 2022, yellow oranda

The Diary of a Goldfish Breeder 2022 (12)

This is a comparison between three shapes of Oranda.

Three of my Oranda have grown mature into Jumbo size. I think they have reached their peaks, or almost. So, it is the right time to compare them with the purpose of learning and adjusting my idealism of Oranda.

The first one is Helen the 2nd, as my main blueprint. She carries the recessive gene of purple color, so she is what I call a semi purple oranda. Let’s see her development over time:

Previous (6 months ago):

Now:

I am not really happy with the development. The headgrowth is growing, so there is no problem with it. But the body which was stout before seems to lose its thickness. I do not know why. Can it be because of the headgrowth? As the head grows, the previously high curve of the back bone looks a bit flat now. Or can it be due to the excessive breeding? Perhaps lots of nutrients in the body are directed to producing eggs to let the body lose its muscles, just like a human mother facing calcium deficiency after giving birth. I do not know. The size of the fish is amazing, but she looks like a young fish with mediocre quality. The color does not seem to change much. The orange color cannot become red. And yes, few flecks of black pigment appear on her body. It is not a sign of stress. It is common for a semi purple fish to develop such color over time. The first ray of the dorsal fin becomes untidy. The tail is in good shape.

These are the video of Helen from the side and top, showing her size:

The second oranda to compare is my Dark Choco Oranda. Amazingly, with such a round body she can grow into jumbo size also! Let’s see how she develops:

Previous (6 months ago):

Now:

She was not in my blue print at all. I never think about such a ryukin-like body shape. I do not even have a ryukin currently. So, this shape comes to me out of the blue. And the dark chocolate color is another blessing. I do not even know that such color exists. I only knew the tea-colored brown goldfish so far. So, to have this fish is like to hit a double jackpot for me. Since this fish has caught my attention, I think it is suitable for me to give her a name. But I cannot make up my mind whether to name her Kong or Godzila. I think Godzila sounds better, though she is a female.

The headgrowth grows but not so much. It grows in the same pace with the body growth, so she can maintain her bulky ryukin-like shape with the small headgrowth. But the color seems to grown more solid, and it spreads to the fins! The dorsal fin is getting slightly bent.

Seeing this color, I remember that we have various spectrum of black color in goldfish. But usually, we divide them into just two: solid black, and not so solid one. The tea-colored brown resembles the not so solid type of black pigment, while the dark choco resembles the solid black color. There seems to be another layer or coat of brown color on top of the scale, which might be the cause of darker appearance. Let’s review the differences in a picture:

I felt the urge to preserve this dark brown color. So far, I see it nowhere else. It will be a pity if we lose such a beautiful color. I have a male sibling of her with the same dark color, thank God! But the sibling has a very different shape of body and fin! If I mate them, there is a possibility to be able to preserve the dark brown color, but I might not be able to maintain the bulky shape of Godzila. Well, life seldom gives all we want.

But there was a bigger problem than that. Godzila is now about 1.5 years of age and no sign of breeding till last month. Fish usually lays eggs at the age of four months in my place. Godzila definitely falls under the category of unproductive / sterile. I already gave up on her. Fortunately, suddenly she laid eggs for the first time at the beginning of this month. I was not prepared at that time. But I was able to keep the eggs the second time she mated. I could not wait to see the result!

These are her video, from side, from top (to show the size) and the comparison between the dark and the light brown:

The third fish is a male yellow goldfish. He is a jumbo fish right now and the last of yellow oranda I keep at this moment. Of course, I have his offspring but in a crossing appearance. I mean, I cross her with a goosehead and comes up with a red and white fish as the F1. They are semi yellow oranda. This yellow has a stout longer body with a beautiful headgrowth. Let’s see the development of this handsome guy:

Previous (6 months ago):

Now:

The headgrowth has developed very well. The goosehead type of head is visible, along with the slight development on its cheeks. The fish does not lose its stoutness nor its body length, which I think is good. The only weaknesses are the fold in its lower right tail and the dorsal fin losing a bit of its ability to stay erect.

Here are his videos:

And now it is the time to compare these three:

Well, do tell me how will you rank them and why 😊

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Brown Oranda, The Diary of a Goldfish Breeder 2022

The Diary of a Goldfish Breeder 2022 (8)

Color exists in spectrum.

When we say red goldfish, we must understand that there are different kinds of red with slight differences among them. The same case happens in other types of goldfish color.

In this opportunity, I would like to present two types of brown color I observe in my goldfish collection. In the previous diary (#7) I posted my current development of brown oranda. The color reminds us of the color of tea:

Actually, when I do a project – say, the brown oranda project – I do not just do one mating / crossing. I do several different pairings in the same period of time. One of the pairs produces the tea-colored oranda above. But another pair, which I must admit I did not document it well, results in a darker colored brown oranda. The color looks like the color of dark chocolate, I think. And it has a beauty of its own! Here she is:

This is the video link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rqSy4SucwvQ

This dark choco oranda seems to be from slightly different lineage from the tea colored one. Yes both of them have cute little hump and similar headgrowth type. Both have good body depth (width). But the dark choco has a bit longer and thicker body, and smaller tail type. And I think there is an important feature to note: while the tea-colored has the color in all its body, including the tail, the dark choco can develop white color (or no pigment) in its tail! I used to think that the white color cannot coexist with the brown. Usually, when the brown color fades, the fish will reveal orange color. But this dark choco forces me to revise my understanding. The white color can coexist with the brown color! Aesthetically, it is beautiful. If the white color can exist in its tail, perhaps one day I will see the white color occurs in the body to create the brown (dark brown) and white goldfish. It will be amazing!

I do not know what creates this different spectrums of brown. I also do not know why the white color can occur in this dark choco girl. But when I see the development of this dark brown color, I immediately fall in love. Right now, if I must choose one brown color to be my line, I do not know which one will I choose. As a hobbyist city breeder, I do not think I can afford both.

Which one do you prefer?

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Brown Oranda, purple oranda, The Diary of a Goldfish Breeder 2022

The Diary of a Goldfish Breeder 2022 (7)

Finally, this is the update on my Purple and Brown Oranda projects – half way. I think I have done a lot of improvements on these two lines. Let me start with my Purple Oranda project.

This is the purple oranda I had in the beginning of this project:

Skinny fish, with minimal headgrowth.

After working on it for a year, I have made significant improvement, I think. These two are the best I currently have:

Do you like them? 😊

The improvement is in the body depth (width) and thickness, the headgrowth, and the tail erection. And yes, I can see they have beautiful little humps, which I do not know where they come from. I have never used any ryukin in the crossing.

Now, let me remind us of my previous line of brown oranda:

This brown oranda project has also made some improvement. These two are the best results right now:

Improved, right?

At this point, I am tempted to consider this project as final. I love the shape of these purple and brown oranda at this current state. But I keep reminding myself that this is the half way result of a two years project. Well, what more do I want to improve? I still want to improve the headgrowth, and if possible I want to elongate the body just a little bit more.

Anyway, I am satisfied with my current result. Hope you all enjoy these results as I do.

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Brown Oranda, The Diary of a Goldfish Breeder 2021

The Diary of a Goldfish Breeder 2021 (24)

Update on Brown Oranda Project.

Among my Blue, Purple, and Brown projects, the Brown is the least successful from the start. But there are two developments I can report.

First, I manage to secure my old brown oranda line. So, basically, there is no upgrade yet but I do not lose the seed. I keep two of them. One has a good brown color, another one turns orange with some brown marking remains. The rest of the sibling are either defected or turning into orange fish, so I do not keep them.

Both of them have neat fins. The body shape is not bad, but not stout enough. The headgrowth is still minimal. I do not plan to breed them purely, so I mate the brown one with my purple oranda. The cross between brown and purple always produces both color types, so I will always have the brown without the need to breed brown x brown. I do not see the need to use the second fish in my breeding project. After doing the cross (brown x purple), I plan to let go both of them.

Second, when I breed Helen with her sibling in order to create purple oranda (Helen and her sibling are semi purple oranda), I get several brown color alongside the purple. So, without using my old line of brown oranda, I can get a new line of brown oranda. They are still young right now, I haven’t taken any picture of them. They seem to have different character from my old line. Yet, I still face the same problem of them turning into orange color. They left me with few decent brown color.

So, although my brown oranda breeding project was not successful in the beginning, I am lucky enough to get two different lines of brown oranda right now which I can use to continue the project.

Thank you for reading.

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Brown Oranda, The Diary of a Goldfish Breeder 2021

The Diary of a Goldfish Breeder 2021 (18)

One unsuccessful attempt in the beginning of this year was the Brown Oranda project. Gladly I have the opportunity to resume the endeavor right now. I still keep few offspring from my original brown oranda line as a back up. One of these have matured into a charming male ready to mate.

This male is not perfect. There is a defect in its tail where the left and right upper lobes do not align well. The left tail is higher than the right one. The body is a bit slim, and one of the aim in this improvement project is to create a more stout body. The headgrowth is still minimalist. Yet he is very photogenic. I cannot help to post his many beautiful pose for us to enjoy.

What I learn about the brown color is that there is a spectrum in the color. There is the dull brown color which is almost undifferentiable from the wild color. Well, most of the brown color look grey when they are in the pale state, such as after being medicated. But they will turn darker into brown color. The one that can only achieve dull color closer to the wild color is not a good fish. There is also the dark brown color, which is nice. But my favorite is the brown color that resembles tea color such as this male. For me, it is the best.

Let us enjoy this guy:

This pair this male with Helen. This has taken place several weeks ago, and now the offspring is already two centimeter in size. In my prediction, some of the offspring will have stout body like Helen the mother. Most will have beautiful tail since both parents have good tail though in a different style. But the headgrowth will still be minimalist since both parents are like that.

How about the color? Yes, Helen is a red fish in its phenotype. But she carries 50% of purple color genetics. So, Helen is a semi-purple goldfish. We need to remember that purple is a color that emerges from the crossing between brown and blue. So, when the purple genetics meets the brown genetics, I will directly get some brown in the offspring.

When the eggs hatched, they can be distinguished into two color: the dark one and the light one. I am sorry I do not take their picture. The dark one is just like the usual fry which will turn into wild / red color. The light one will turn into brown or purple – they can be distinguished at such an early state but this is very hard to do. So, I just separate the light ones from the dark ones at day 1 after they can swim. Why do I need to separate them so early? Because the light one is weaker. Most of them cannot compete with the dark one for food, resulting in malnutrition and stunted growth. Separating them as early as possible will let the light colored fry to develop better. I cull out the darker ones at this stage.

Will I have a good tea-colored offspring? This is hard to predict. In my experience, such a crossing sometimes creates a weak brown color where the fish looses the melanin totally. The fish turns into a complete orange color. If this happens, it will be a set back to the project. Some turns into brown color with the spectrum ranging from the pale / dull ones, the tea-colored ones, and the deep brown ones. There is a special case where the fish turns into a brown and orange fish (two colors) or a complete orange color but then the melanin grows. So, instead of loosing the brown color, the fish regains it and stay in a pleasing two tones color of brown and orange. This is a desirable result.

The pictures below are from my old files (2018). Pardon the bad photography. These pictures illustrate the transformation of the special case where the brown color grew.

  • Before
  • After

The end.

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Blue Oranda, Brown Oranda, Purple goldfish, The Diary of a Goldfish Breeder 2021, Yellow goldfish

The Diary of a Goldfish Breeder 2021 (2)

Date: 24 Feb 2021

               Out of the four projects to establish my line of blue, brown, purple, and yellow oranda, three are already on the way since January. Each project presents its own difficulty.

Blue Oranda

               My previous line of blue oranda was not bad, though they have not acquired the Basic Material’s body form. But the quality was declining at the end of last year. Somehow, my latest offspring regained the old version of blue oranda form with its long and slim body shape. Well, it is not bad. Just that it goes out of my plan. I decided to let most of them go. I was surprised to find myself with only single blue oranda left in my pond. I think I took a great risk in selling them. If something bad happen to this last Mohican, I will lose my line.

               It is a great relief when this blue female oranda laid eggs this January. I quickly paired her with my male Basic Material. I collected the second batch of the eggs and not the first batch since I believe the first batch is usually weak. I will not expect the blue oranda directly from this cross. The blue oranda will appear in the F2. So far, the offspring has a good body shape and erect tail. But it is too early to judge them. In my calculation, this F1 (and also F2) will not have the complete Basic Material body form yet. Their shape will be transitional. I will need to mate the F2 with the Basic Material form again (probably the offspring of the current Basic Material) to have my objective realized in the F4. The plan is so straight forward. If everything is on course, then this project will be successful in two years (assuming that each step needs 6 months for the fish to mature and ready to mate).

               At least, the first step has been done, and is on the right track. What can go wrong is if all the offspring die, or all of them turn out to be of the same sex. That is why I think the wise course is to keep the female blue oranda with me till the production of F2.

Brown Oranda

               This project is behind the schedule.

               I kept a pair of brown oranda from my previous line. In January, I mated my female brown oranda with the male Basic Material. Yet the result was weak. In my analysis, the bad result was due to the female brown oranda getting old. So, I got rid of the offspring and executed plan B. Actually, I had the option to cross the male brown oranda with the female Basic Material. Unfortunately, the female Basic Material was unproductive at that time. Glad that I had plan B.

               My plan B depends on the offspring from the previous brown oranda. Somehow, I managed to breed the pair before they became weak, and I raised six youngsters. Six was more than enough, I thought. Right now, they are three months old, not ready to breed yet. So, I need to postpone this brown oranda project perhaps for three more months until the young brown oranda mature. Sounds like a good plan, isn’t it? Too bad, two of them died last week due to disease, and three more died this morning. I am left with one youngster, which is still in medication right now. I do not know whether it will survive or not. And I have not checked its gender yet. Hopefully, this last fish will survive and I can run the plan B three months from now. But I must admit, this plan B is not safe right now.

               What happens if plan B fail, that is, if the last fish dies also? I have plan C.

               Last year, I did not make a clear plan for my breeding project yet. So, I bred whatever project that came to my mind. One of them was making a brown oranda with large headgrowth without bothering about the body shape. So, I crossed the brown oranda with my tricolor goosehead. The offspring have red white and grey coloration, and is now five months old, almost ready to breed. When I decided to establish my line using the Basic Material body form, I thought about getting rid of this brown goosehead project, since I did not want to have too many overlapping projects. Glad I have not done that. So, if plan B fails, I still have this plan C. If I need to execute this back up plan, then this project will take six to nine months longer. It will take two and a half or even three years to complete.

Purple Oranda

               Things get a bit messy here. Before this project to establish my purple oranda line, I already started several projects. First, I already bred my original line and now I have six young purple oranda about three months old (the same age as my young brown oranda). Second, I already mated my original purple oranda with my tricolor goosehead oranda to create purple oranda with large headgrowth. Right now, the F1 is already five months old and ready to spawn. Third, I already crossed my original purple oranda with the Basic Material body shape (I use the parent of my current basic Material in the cross) and the F1 is seven months old. So, with these stocks, I can have plan A to C in readiness. But it is hard work to maintain all of them.

               From these collections, which one should I use as my plan A?

               Of course, the most logical thing is to use the third project. I already have the F1. I will just need to breed the F2 and it will yield purple oranda with transitional body form. Then I will continue with crossing the F2 and the Basic Material again, and will achieve my goal in the F4. This will make the project be finish in one and a half year! Sounds great!. And that was what I did. I mated F1 x F1 in January and came up with the F2. But I anticipate two problems.

               I only have one female in the F1, and she has a defect in her tail. The tail is folded. And I am worried that this trait might be carried forward to the offspring. So far, the offspring (F2) looks fine. But it does not mean that they will be free from defect, since folded tail might occur later. Hopefully the result will be mixed, so I can select the non-defect one to use. If all of them are defect, then I have some options. I might still mate them with the Basic Material line in the hope that the gene from the Basic Material will correct the defect. Or I can start over using the original line, mating them with the Basic Material (basically, this means I redo what I have been doing half a year earlier) with the consequence of taking a longer time for this project to accomplish. I do not know which one is a better strategy yet. I think for now I will just observe, and decide later according to the situation.

               The second problem has happened. Some of the F2 are losing its purple color and are turning into white! This is bad. How can this happen? In my analysis, it is because I use red-white Basic Material fish in the previous cross. The purple color is basically a variant of black pigmentation. It will be stronger if I use black fish in the cross instead of red-white fish (let alone a dominantly white one). Actually, there were some grey fish in the F1, but I got rid of them, thinking that the colored one (red-white one) is better. Now I realize my mistake. The grey one might yield a more long-lasting purple color (this is still my guess). Yet, this is already happening. I have the option to continue with this F2, hopefully selecting the strong purple color if possible; or I can introduce black oranda to the project. But the introduction of black fish will complicate the project, since the black fish is not the Basic Material.

               Well, so far, I need to observe how the F2 turns out. Will they have folded tail? Will they become all white? And I will think of solution later on after the observation.

Yellow Oranda

               About seven months ago I crossed my original yellow oranda with the parent of the Basic Material. I kept two females from the offspring (F1). The first one is free from defect and is my first choice to breed. The second one develops a folded tail. As weird as it may seems, my first choice does not lay eggs up to now. The productive one is one with defect. I have no choice but to breed the defect one (F1 x F1). Unfortunately, more than 90 percent are single tail! I do not know why. But my guess this has something to do with the original yellow goldfish that I use (yellow comets – single tail). So, I discarded this batch. Now I am waiting for the first choice to lay eggs. Meanwhile, I run the back-up plan.

               The key to my back up plan is my original female yellow goldfish (actually, she is yellow-white, very interesting color). She is very productive. I have several options:

  1. I can breed her with another original yellow goldfish
  2. I can mate her with the existing F1 (which already contain part of the Basic Material genetics)
  3. I can cross her with the Basic Material

Which strategy is the best? Option 1 is to retain the original yellow goldfish in case something happens and I need to start from scratch. Option 2 has the same purpose but with a better body shape (since the result will have 25% of the Basic Material genetics). So, by this logic, option 1 can be discarded. Option 2 is even better than the option 3 in terms of the lesser time to complete the whole project. It seems that option 3 can be discarded also. But there is one possible problem to worry about. How if option 2 results in many single tail goldfish? If that happens, then option 2 cannot be used. But at this state, I do not know what will happen. So, I just do both option 2 and 3 simultaneously. And I have done them last week, with good egg hatches. So, now there are two sub-projects going on in this yellow oranda project, while waiting for the F1 x F1 to happen.

               To complicate the matter, I also have another side project, which is the yellow sakura project. My aim here is to create transparent scale oranda with yellow and white color. I do not know how they will look like. I am not sure if this can be achieved as I expected. But it is nice to try. I have started this project about six months ago and already have the F1. The appearance of the F1 is just a red-white sakura with a few black stains. But the genetics is half yellow. I already breed this F1 x F1 and has one yellow white transparent color oranda (with a few black stains). It is very young, still less than two months old, but it already looks yellowish-white. I need more time to confirm the color. Apart from this F1 x F1, I also mate the original female yellow in the option 2 and 3 with this male F1! I am hoping to get some more yellow sakura with less black stains. But this project does not incorporate the Basic Material’s body shape. So, this will be a side- project. I do not know if I am too greedy or if I can be justified doing this. But this certainly complicate my yellow oranda project – an interesting complication.

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Blue Oranda, Brown Oranda, Purple goldfish, The Diary of a Goldfish Breeder 2021, Yellow goldfish

The Diary of a Goldfish Breeder 2021 (1)

Date: 19 Feb 2021

               This year is the 21st year of my breeding activity. In accordance to my New Year resolution to “celebrate my potential”, I see the need to be more focus in the area of my goldfish breeding. Though breeding is just a hobby for me – an obsessive one, I must admit – I need a clear direction. So, in the beginning of January, I assessed my breeding situation and made plans. The most feasible thing for me to do turns out to be establishing my line of Oranda.

               I have been working with color experiment for many years already. I played with the blue, brown, purple, and yellow color in metallic goldfish. Right now, I have the blue oranda, brown oranda, purple oranda, and yellow oranda. I used many different sources to create them. For example, to create brown oranda, I crossed the brown pompom goldfish with red oranda; to create yellow oranda, I crossed yellow commet with red oranda. These different sources resulted in different oranda shapes. Though they are oranda, my brown and yellow oranda look very different. To make things complicated, I sometimes used several different lines of oranda in the crossing. So, for each type of color, I might have more than one shape variation. It is a bit overwhelming to maintain all of those variation.

               Now it is time to simplify things. I want one uniform shape in all my colorful oranda variety. It does not mean that I will not keep other shapes. It just means that I should have my primary shape for oranda. It will be my line: my signature.

               In order to do that, I need a basic material to work with. This, I think, is very important. I will induce this basic material into my colorful oranda so that I will have the blue, brown, purple, and yellow oranda with the shape as close as the basic material. Of course, the real basic material is only an idealism in my imagination. It does not exist. In reality, I need to find one close to my idealism. Or at least, a satisfying one. This non-existence of my ideal oranda creates a possibility to continually improve the basic material in the future.

               For the past several years, I had my eye on a certain red-white oranda shape developed by a breeder friend. I especially admired its body form. I acquired that line, and mixed it with my fishes. The offspring becomes my basic material right now. In today’s diary, I would like to talk in length about this basic material. Let me first show the picture:

The Male

The Female

               Basically, if I can create blue, brown, purple, and yellow oranda with such shape quality, I will be quite satisfied. And that is my current goal. Don’t you agree that those fishes will be gorgeous? These projects might take one to two years to complete.

               Now let me go deeper.

               What I admire in these two basic materials is, first of all, their body shape. The body length is medium; it has a good thickness (especially in the peduncle area); and it has a good body width (measured vertically from the back to the stomach). The female is slightly longer than the male. If I must choose the body length, I will choose the female. This preference of medium body length differs from the current trend of a shorter oranda. I know I do not really follow the trend.

The back curve is also good enough. It has a good height: higher than the headgrowth as required by a good standard, yet not as high as the oranda-ryukin hybrid. The current trend in the market is a very high oranda hump, which is fine with me, but I do not follow it. If I compare the male and female here, the male has a slightly better height.

My first concern about the body shape is that the peduncle of the female is positioned a bit upward / high. It makes the fish looks slightly imbalance – but only slightly. Fortunately, the male does not show this weakness. I think this weakness might occur in the offspring once in a while.

The bigger concern is the shape of the abdomen. The male has a good egg-shaped abdomen, though if it can be stretched a bit further back will be nicer. Yet, the female does not have the egg-shaped abdomen. I do not know yet if the stomach can be fuller later on in its development. It is yet to observe. But it is reasonable that some of the offspring might carry this weakness, since I saw the same case with the original line (from my breeder friend).

The scalation looks beautiful. The red color is not deep red, but is more intense than just orange color. There is a possibility that the red can be improved using color enhancer food. But the color is not my concern here, since I do not intend to breed the red or the red-white color as my main oranda. I will need to breed them still just to have enough basic material for the next breeding, but my main purpose is to have the blue, brown, purple and yellow oranda.

Concerning the headgrowth, I have come to a realization that my line will be more of the goosehead type of headgrowth. Looking back to the past several years when I have not decided at what type of headgrowth will my line be, I was already working many times with the goosehead type. And now, I am settled with it. The pictures above were taken two months ago. Now, the fishes have developed the headgrowth more. They have a larger growth on the hat area. Beautiful. The headgrowth was not excessive as in my tricolor oranda line, but it is not small, either. I might want to have a little bit more, if possible, so that the main identity of the fish (the headgrowth) will catch more attention when one sees it. In this basic material, the headgrowth is also seen below the eyes. I think it is the gene from the original line. For my line, I do not desire it and wish to minimize it later on. For now, I must expect that this trait (headgrowth below the eyes) might still occur in the offspring.

Last but not least, I must talk about the tail. The tail is of medium length (or between medium and long). It is a good length for me. I do not want the medium short or even a short tail. The degree of erection of the tail is good enough. It is not very spectacular, but it is considered good. The thickness of the tail tissue is good enough, though I will welcome a thicker one. There are three concerns about the tail. First, the lower tail lobe is not round. So, the lower tail cannot cover the anal fins well. The anal fins are too exposed. I also see this in the original line. And this weakness is uniform in the line. So, I need to plan a long-term repair for this, which is not easy if I cannot find this trait in the existing market. I have made several efforts, though. Yet, it is still a long process. For now, I must accept this weakness. Second, the lower lobes of the female (and some of its sibling) have small folds. The male does not have this. I guess this defect might occur once in a while in the offspring. Third, it was examined that the left and right lower lobes sometimes become imbalance when one of the lobes curls inward when swimming. The curl is not symmetric between the left and right lobes. Not all the sibling develops this, and I certainly do hope that this is not a hereditary defect. It is also possible that this type of tail needs special care so that it does not developed into imbalance curl inward. Perhaps this type of tail is not suited to deep water or strong current. I still need to observe this.

Anyway, after analyzing the basic material and see that they are obviously not perfect, I must say that I will be satisfied to have the basic material shape exist with blue, brown, purple, and yellow color. It is feasible for me to do. I also want to incorporate the tricolor into this basic material shape, but the difficulty is greater. I will save it for later.

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Brown Oranda

Brown Oranda

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It all started with some chocolate pompom I bought from China. The brown color captivated my attention. Most of them had orange fluffy nostrils to make them adorable. To my knowledge so far, chocolate color like this was rarely found in other goldfish variety. Well, I saw a brown butterfly sometimes on the internet, but I have never seen one alive. I remembered seeing a brown oranda nicknamed chakin in an encyclopedia I had during my childhood. But I cannot find one live specimen of chakin (teh-kin, or tea-kin, the tea colored goldfish) here in Indonesia. Even the chocolate pompom had to be imported from China. I was entertaining a project to recreate brown oranda from this chocolate pompom I had.

This is one chocolate pompom I bred from the imported parents. I had many of this several years ago.

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I crossed it with an oranda. I am sorry I forget about an important fact regarding this matter. I could not recall whether I used a common oranda or a redcap oranda for this cross. The result was all orange goldfish, with small head growth, and the small pompom in some. Those were my transition fish. I did not bother to take a picture of them.

Then I inbred those transition fish to get the desired result. I chose the few brown colored offspring and mated them with oranda again to improve the oranda characteristic. Once again, I got all orange color, but this time, they were decent oranda, with no or insignificant pompom. My final result should come from inbreeding them.

And yes, I got what I wanted! The brown oranda! From the start, I picked up the fry which showed light brown color right after they hatched. I grew them up. Yet, to my disappointment, only one remained brown until maturity. The rest turned into orange.

I mated this only brown with its orange sibling. The hatchlings were all brown in the beginning. And only two remained brown until now. I still keep them and now they are roughly 20 cm long with no hint of turning into brown. Unfortunately, both of them are male. All the female has turned orange. Below is one of current brown oranda I had, which I consider as my throphy.

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One strange phenomenon is this. Actually, there was a third male brown oranda, which slowly turned into orange. It retained less than 10 percent of its brown color. I was about to cull it out. Yet, I did not know how, it started to regain its brown color. This is one of the phenomenon I call the reverse demelanization. I managed to take the picture when it regained its brown color after being almost all orange:

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At first, I thought the increasing brown color might due to stress. If that is the case, the brown color will be temporary. But, it continued to grow to cover the whole body of the fish, leaving out only its cap. It grew into a beautiful fish: a brown red cap, if I may say! And then the reversing process stopped. Until today the fish is still alive, and has been almost a year in this state of pattern!

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Beautiful, isn’t it?

Any explanation?

That is my project to recreate the brown oranda. I think the project is finished. The only thing left is to multiply them, and to get the market to appreciate them.

Have a good day!

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