Category Archives: miscellaneous

miscellaneous

The Story of a Goldfish Breeder 2024 (6)

Flysakin is a term my friend (mr. Harlim) gave to my Tosakin – Butterfly cross. At first, I objected. I would like to give a more creative name. But I could not come up with one. So, since this variety was just a transition fish to reject, I did not think I need to put effort in thinking about a more proper name. This name was used since.

It is a transition fish. Tosakin was (and is) rare in Indonesia. When I imported some from Japan, I had limited success in breeding them. Most of the offspring had partial or no dorsal fins. That was a disaster. My guess, the gene might be saturated due to inbreeding. So, my strategy was to cross the fish with a different line. But different line of Tosakin was nowhere to be found at that time. Importing again was costly. As an alternative, I had my line of Butterfly that I had been working for several years. I think Butterfly is the best match to cross with Tosakin. From that point, I would cross the offspring back to Tosakin to produce genetically more vigorous Tosakin.

The transition fish mostly did not display the telescope eyes in F1. Later on, the F2 would produce some small telescope eyes. I used them for my Butterfly project. Those without the telescope eyes are used for the Tosakin projects.

Concerning the tail, these transition fish (Flysakin) displayed many different tail characteristics. Some were quite astounding. Yes, they were meant to be rejects. Yet, my mind could not get rid of the impressive tail displayed. They were like paintings! As I looked back to my breeding activity, I had encountered these beautiful tails over and over again, without being purposefully breed them. And they always captivated my mind. It is true that they have no standard worth – they are out of standard. Yet, they carry rough beauty.

Here are some from my archieves:

The year 2020 was the most intense time of my Flysakin breeding.

The color was mainly grey since I used black Butterfly as one of the parents. There was a need to improve the color.

And this year (2024) I think I have come to the peak of my Flysakin projects. There are still several different tail types, but I chose the closest to Tosakin yet with tail split. Why tail split? The split will make it easier for the fish to open wide and develop its flips. So, it is easier to create a quality one than Tosakin.

Of course, the difficulty increases its worth. The more difficult to get, the more we value the object. In this case, quality Tosakin is much harder to get than Flysakin. So, Flysakin is not meant to be a rival to Tosakin. It is just meant to be a less expensive alternative.

There are four individuals that really stand out this year. I have taken some pictures and videos of them. I hope you will enjoy watching these painting-like goldfish.

The Female:

The Male:

And here are their videos so that we can see their beautiful swimming.

The female:

The Male:

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miscellaneous

The Diary of a Goldfish Breeder 2024 (1)

It has been a long time I did not update this blog. More than half a year, I think. I apologize for that. Business concerns, family matters, health issue, facility upgrades, employee’s absence, and vacations have prevented me from taking pictures and making updates. Now is a long Moslem holiday. I have a chance to catch up.

Last year, in the midst of my busy schedule, I managed to give an online talk to goldfish enthusiasts in Malaysia. They asked me to talk about my breeding projects. And a realization came to me that some of my projects are actually inspired by my childhood. I would like to start this first 2024 diary with this topic.

I mentioned before about an encyclopedia my Mom bought me more than 40 years ago. There is a page – yes, only a page – containing goldfish pictures. That page had become my daily childhood contemplation. My mind wandered wild, imagining whether someday I will have such beautiful fish.

In that talk to Malaysian friends, I realized that some of my projects correspond to this picture!

First, there is Seibungyo in the bottom of the picture.

The description is: a Chinese Seibungyo goldfish with beautiful bluish color. I always wondered what Seibungyo means. It sounds like Japanese word, but the description says it is a Chinese goldfish. As a child I remembered asking goldfish sellers whenever I went to local fish shops about that name. As you guessed, nobody ever heard about it.

But now I think I know what variety of goldfish this is. Is it not just a blue oranda? Yes, it is! And it is one of my main projects! My blue oranda line has improved significantly. I think I have a better quality of blue oranda than the seibungyo in the picture. One of my childhood dream has come true!

The Blue Oranda above is my most recent male. Some people nowadays prefer to call this color as Platinum.

Second, there is Chakin goldfish.

The description only says Chinese Chakin goldfish. It took me a long time in my childhood to understand that “cha” refers to “tea-color.” Yes, this is actually a tea-colored goldfish. Is this not the Brown Oranda line I have been developing so far? I have even gone further than that. I have also developed Purple / Lavender colored Oranda! With better quality, I think. Another childhood dream comes true!

Yes, my brown oranda is a bit darker. I find out that the brown color has at least two main types: the light one (which is the tea-color) and the darker one (which is the dark chocolate color). The darker one seems to have the ability to elicit white color – a quality I do not see in the lighter / tea-colored one. The tea-color seems to elicit orange color only when the dark pigment (melanin) fades away.

The picture above is the comparison between the dark and light color of Brown Oranda.

Third is the Chinese Goldfish with silver color and no dorsal fin.

Silver is just another name for blue or platinum. The fish resembles ranchu with long tail. I do not have such variety, but my blue ranchu is a good substitute for this fish, I think.

Fouth is Hanabusa!

What in the world is Hanabusa! Thanks God the description gives us a clue. It says Japanese Hanabusa with large headgrowth in its nostrils. Headgrowth might not be the right terms. But now I know it is an oranda with pompom. I do not breed pompom oranda. But I mentioned before that I use the Chinese chocolate pompom to create my brown oranda line. Although I do not specifically breed pompom, once in a while the pompom feature just show up again and again in my facility. The latest I have is this piece of short tail oranda with pompom (or to be more precise, it is a ranchu with dorsal and pompom!) This piece shows up in my breeding unintentionally.

Isn’t she adorable? I cannot help bring her up to maturity due to its cuteness. And I am thinking of creating ryukin with pompom in the future by mating this piece with ryukin.

The last one is this rare specimen.

The description just says celestial goldfish. And I have a hard time figuring out what is in between the eyes. I think it is a headgrowth – the goosehead type of headgrowth. I think there is no such variety anymore nowadays. Perhaps the combination of headgrowth and celestial eyes features decreases the fish ability to acquire food and this might contribute to its continual creation.

I think I have a better ideal. One of my ongoing project is to create Celestial Eye with Butterfly Tail. It will be a fish with dorsal. The project has show positive improvement.

I think one more crossing with Butterfly will finalize this project. Wish me success.

Enjoy!

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miscellaneous

Four-Eyed Goldfish

This fish is a cross between celestial goldfish and butterfly (dragon eyes / telescope eyes). There is nothing unusual from the side view of the fish. It resembles the common telescope eyes. But, there is something strange when seen from above.

Beneath the thin tissues covering the eye-tubes, when observed carefully, we will see other eyes glaring upwards! At a first glance, we might miss them. I was not aware of this phenomenon until I send the fish to my friend’s house. He helped me sell the fish. I just realized this uniqueness when I saw my friend’s video of the fish.

So, the fish has four eyes. Two of them protrudes to the side while the other two look upward. The eyes are the combination of telescope eyes and celestial eyes. The celestial eyes of the fish are not so sharp since they are covered by thin tissues.

Actually, I encountered this phenomenon several times before, but none of the upward eyes are so well-developed as in this specimen. While some might think this case unique, some might think it bizarre. I myself do not think I will continue to develop such feature. Nevertheless, this phenomenon makes me marvel at the mutation capacity of goldfish.

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miscellaneous

Goldfish Now Unseen

Browsing through old books on Goldfish, I saw specimens I cannot find nowadays. In this writing, I want to mention three that capture my attention.

First, a celestial eye with headgrowth. This is rare. I have met two kinds of celestial goldfish: the popular celestial eye without dorsal (usually with slim body and long tail) and the celestial eye with pompoms (usually comes with short tail and thick body). From my experiment, I have created celestial eye with dorsal fin (Nicknamed Celestial Dragon according to Mr Lei in his youtube channel Goldfish Corner).

But there is another type of celestial I have never seen alive nor mentioned by anyone else. I find the fish in my old encyclopedia. In fact, it is the first book I read in my childhood that mentions goldfish.

The Indonesia edition has 1979 copyright. Very old! And it has only 1 page about goldfish, which I observed to my heart lots of time.

Beautiful goldfish for a child like me! I adopted the terms Hanabus, Seibungyo, Chakin, and more without knowing what they meant. At the heart of this picture is a weird kind of celestial:

This celestial has a headgrowth!

Well, nothing else I can say about it. No other information. It remains an out-of-this-world goldfish for me. Yes, there is a temptation to recreate it. But as I think again, I do not know if I want to do that. The fact that this specimen existed once but no more might be a hint that something might be wrong with it. Perhaps there was not enough market. Perhaps the fish lost a certain function which make it unable to survive. I do not know. I think a headgrowth like that (seems to be like a goosehead type) might intervere with the eyes, in terms of both the functionality and the appreciation – a conflict between two features). Yet, it remains a mysterious fish for me.

Second, a rare ranchu color from Joseph Smartt and James H. Bundell’s “Goldfish Breeding and Genetics” (1996):

On top of page 67 I see a beautiful but rare color:

There is no description about the color. I try to observe this picture many times to figure out if this belongs to metallic or transparent scalation category, but I just cannot be sure about it. And I have no idea of how to create such color! It occurs to me if this was a real fish or just a redwhite fish painted with black marker. But knowing the reputation of the author, I believe it was a real fish. This specimen reminds a mystery to me. Do tell me if you can throw some light on how to create this coloration.

Third, a rare oranda color from “Goldfish in Hongkong” by An Urban Council Publication (1993):

On page 43 there are pictures like these:

And this is the description:

Strange color, right?

For sure I have never seen such a color on the internet nowadays. I also do not know how to create such a fish. The description gives a hint that it has something to do with blue fish (blue metallic scale, I think). But how come the blue color only appear in the face of the fish in a uniform way?

Those three specimens are in the top category of the most mysterious goldfish for me. It will be a delight if one day someone will revive them.

Enjoy.

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