I have some chocolate pompoms. Their bodies are dark brown, and their pompoms are bright orange. This brown color is unique. In my observation, the brown color can get so tense as if there is an additional chocolate blanket covering the scales. This covering is similar to the deep black covering in the Thai black ranchu. When the color is not intense, they look like a lighter brown color with metallic shine.

The offspring of the pompoms show light brown color from the day they hatched, which is a different characteristic from the common red or red-white metallic scale offspring.  So, there are three types of color in the metallic scale offspring, namely the grey (as produced by the red or red-white fish), the blue (as produced by the metallic blue fish), and the brown (as produced by the brown or chocolate fish).

This is the offspring of the brown or chocolate pompoms.

It must be noted that the brown color in chocolate pompoms is different from the brown color that usually appear in blue metallic fish. So, in goldfish, we have two types of brown. The reason of my saying them to be different comes from the observation of their offspring. The blue brown goldfish comes from blue fries, while the brown or brown-orange pompom comes from light brown fries. The difference of color in their juvenile stage is enough to conclude that they have different color genetics.

To produce chocolate pompoms from chocolate pompom parents is easy. I do not see much challenge on it. But there is still one area I would like to understand about this chocolate color. So far, the body is totally brown. There are few instances where the bodies become orange. The tails are sometimes orange, but most of the times are brown. The pompom balls are most of the time orange, but few remain brown. I have not seen the white color appear in the body. So I would like to know if it is possible to produce a brown and white color from this breeding project.

We know that the color of black ranchu cannot exist with white color. That’s why we can never create a black and white ranchu by crossing a black ranchu with a white ranchu. It seems that the black color expels the appearance of the white. But the black color does not expel the orange / red color. That’s why we can sometimes see a black gold / black-orange goldfish. There should be a name for this behaviour, unfortunately I do not know it. Maybe it can be called the white-repelling behavior. In the chocolate breeding project, I would like to know if the chocolate color also has a white-repelling behavior, or is it possible to create a brown and white fish.

Another area to understand is what will happen if the chocolate is crossed with the common red metallic fish. I think I can answer this without even do the experiment. I will say that the red color is dominant to the chocolate, so the offspring will show the grey color only, and will eventually turn into red or red-white goldfish in F1. Then if we mate F1 x F1, the result will be some red or red-white fish and some chocolate. This is exactly what happens if we cross the blue or panda color with the red or red-white color. I expect the same thing to happen when we cross the chocolate with the red or red-white. (Just for a note, the cross between black color with red or red and white goldfish does not behave this way. The black color can sometimes, not always, occur as early as in F1, with varying degree of color density).

A more interesting understanding is to know what will happen if we cross the chocolate with the blue! Will they be blue-chocolate goldfish? Or will they be blue-chocolate-white and orange goldfish? What will the color of their fries be? Which is more dominant, brown or blue?

This is the blue goldfish. It has a brown coloration also.

To my surprise, I do not get blue nor brown fries. I get grey fries! This is out of my expectation. But it is an interesting fact. Too bad I am weak at my biology, so I do not know how to interpret this. But I am excited to see what they will be as they grow. Will they be just common red or red-white? And if so, what will the F2 be if I inbreed the F1? I will continue the experiment just to see what will happen.

As a note, I remember there was already such an experiment done by Shishan C. Chen before the 2^nd world war. As I consulted to the paper, I am amazed to know that I am repeating some of what he has done. In the experiment, Chen used wild goldfish to cross with blue. The result confirms my conclusion. I have done the same. But for the cross between the wild goldfish with the chocolate, which I have not done, my assumption of the result confirms partially the conclusion of Chen’s experiment.

Concerning the cross between the blue and chocolate, Chen confirms my result. And he gave me a better understanding of what to expect. If I inbreed the F1, he said that I will get grey, black, blue, brown, and some intermediate color between blue and brown which can be distinguished clearly from blue or brown. I wonder what that intermediate color will be! He also mentioned the blue-brown color. I am not sure if this is the same as the intermediate color or a different one. I guess my project will let me know about it.

Chen did not talk about the white-repelling behavior since it was not his concern. I think I must do it myself to know the answer then. Hopefully I can produce a brown-white goldfish, which will be interesting J