Category Archives: Yellow goldfish

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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Yellow goldfish

Yellow Oranda 2020

It has been a long way to create Yellow Oranda from Yellow Comets. While the project had shown some success as reported in my last update, I was not content with the result. The main problem was the small headgrowth. Well, headgrowth was and is and will always be the main identity of an oranda. The small headgrowth did not highlight its main identity, in my point of view. So, I needed to do something about it.

What I did was to cross my initial Yellow Oranda with an Oranda displaying a large and stable headgrowth. I chose my tricolor Oranda for this purpose, since my tricolor Oranda had large goosehead type of headgrowth. Of course, the F1 displayed no yellow color. But the F2 produced several of them. As I analyze the result, I think I am satisfied with the headgrowth of my current F2. Here are two of them:

Aren’t they beautiful? The second picture is the same fish as the one in the featured image (the Title).

The color is as intense as it can be, since they are kept outdoor full of sunshine and algae. And they are still as yellow as lemons.

I only kept four of them, since that is all I need to multiply their number. I does not take a picture of the third fish since it is almost white. Only a tiny stain of yellow is left in its body. Not good for a picture. But still good for breeding. At least I learn that it is possible to produce yellow-white goldfish, just as it is possible to produce red-white goldfish. Yes, the yellow color can coexist with the white.

The last fish is a surprise! At first, it mutated from grey (Yes, the yellow golfsish starts from grey fry) into complete yellow. But then, it develops black color. I thought it was due to stress. It is often for a stress fish to display temporary black color on its body. But the black color persists until now (more than three months). It looks gorgeous. Remembering that one of the grandparent was a tricolor which carried strong black pigment, it is possible that this fish has turned into yellow-black variant! Of course I do hope this is true. It will take more time to confirm this. Here is the handsome fish:

Do you love him?

My next plan with the Yellow Oranda are these:

  1. Of course I will breed them just to make sure they have successor that I can use in my next breeding project.
  2. I am still not satisfied with the quality of the Oranda. So, I plan to cross this yellow oranda with a better quality Oranda in terms of the body and tail. I picture a strong and thick Yellow Oranda with beautiful tail.
  3. Concerning the yellow-black Oranda, I would like to create more of it. Right now I don’t have any pair for it. I am thinking of crossing it back with the tricolor oranda. It will ensure the presence of the black color. Of course the yellow color will not be found in the F1. But the F2 will yield several yellow-black Oranda, I hope!
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Yellow goldfish

Yellow Oranda 2019

It has been a long time I do not update on my projects. Now is the time to catch up. First, lately, I have successfully developed yellow wakin from the yellow comets I bought from Japan. However, I found out that the yellow color is most striking when seen from the side-view. So, I crossed my yellow wakin with Oranda. The yellow and red white color cross is pretty straight forward, the yellow color is recessive and the red / red white is dominant. The F1 had no yellow color. The yellow occurred as the result of F1 x F1. And after sorting hard, I kept a few as my next parent fish. This is the main female:

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Some of them have white marks. It is an interesting combination. This is the 2nd female which has few white color on its head and fins:

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Analyzing these fishes, I think it is too early to call them as Oranda. The headgrowth is there, but too small. And the tail will be more beautiful if it is more erect, as the current Asian preference dictates. So, I am not satisfied yet. I have done further projects to improve this features. I made two crosses. First is to cross these yellows with large-head Oranda (as a record, I use a Thai tricolor Oranda with goosehead type of headgrowth, with the not-so-spectacular tail shape). Second is to cross these yellows with superb body and superb tail type oranda, yet with not-so-spectacular headgrowth). As I am writing this blog, they are 3cm already. Of course, they will not be yellow. Their offspring will. So, it will take about another year to see the result. Well, let’s see ….

 

 

 

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Yellow goldfish

Yellow Goldfish 2017

It has been a year since my last update. Just to review the project, I have bought some yellow commets. I crossed them with my double tail goldfish. I thought the double tail was of yellow color. Later on, the fish turned into mandarin orange color, and the eyes turned into strange color (perhaps albino). I did not documented it well, so I cannot provide any picture. Anyway, it came from the red white double tail goldfish. So, I will consider the gene as plain red / red white goldfish.

The result of the cross was 100 percent orange (red / red white), and 100 percent single tail. No yellow appeared. And no double tail at all. Some of the tail are long, some are short. Here they are:

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As they matured, I did F1 x F1. The results are varied. I collect 2 batches of them. Here are the stats:

Batch 1:

Total 77 offspring. Single tail are 61 (79.2%). Double tail are 16 (20.8%). I can easily separate the single from the double early without the need to wait for the mutation process. However, some of them did not survive along the way. The survivor are 73. The desired yellow double tail are only 3 (4.1%). Orange double tail are 11 (15.1%). Yellow single tail are 14 (19.2%). Orange single tail are 45 (61.6%). So, the desired yellow double tail are only 3 pieces. Two of them are defect. That means, I keep only 1 from this batch.

Batch 2:

Total 541 offspring. Single tail are 432 (79.8%). Double tail  are 109 (20.2%). The stats can be said as the same as that of batch 1. The survivor are only 287. Most of them are stunted and did not survive. From the survivor, the desired yellow double tail are 21 (7.3%). Orange double tail are 55 (19.2%). Yellow single tail are 57 (19.9%). Orange single tail are 154 (53.6%).  From the  21 desired yellow double tail, 12 are defect. So I keep 9 desired results.

Here are some pictures to compare the yellow double tail and orange double tail. Pardon me for the bad pictures.

What type of goldfish are these yellow ones? They do not belong to the popular category such as ryukin, oranda or ranchu. They looks like wakin, perhaps with smaller body and longer tail. Actually, this is my regret. I think I should use a more popular type to cross with the yellow commet from the start. Anyway, it already happens. I need to decide what to do next. Shall I breed them just to get more uncategorized yellow goldfish? Or shall I cross them with more popular type? Perhaps I can produce yellow oranda, yellow ryukin, yellow pompom, or just yellow wakin. I will decide later.

 

 

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Yellow goldfish

Big Progress on Yellow

It has been sometimes I dream of yellow goldfish. It all started when I accidentally acquired a yellow tosakin. I was unaware at that time if the color was yellow. I thought it was just a pale fish due to the lack of sunlight.

I did make a cross between that yellow tosakin and a wakin, as part of my another project. Most of the offspring were red – really deep red – in color. But few show different color. It took a while for me to realize that they were yellow and mandarin orange color. I was inspired to create more of them. But unfortunately, there were too few of them. Usually from the same batch, all of the yellow were of the same sex. And most of the female were infertile. What to do?

This is my yellow female infertile goldfish

semi lemon 2

my semi lemon

I remembered from my last trip to Japan, I saw that Japan has yellow commets. I also heard that they are common in America, Israel, and some more parts of the world. But Indonesia has none. So I planned to import some yellow commets from Japan. Thanks to Limas who made it possible. I did not have any yellow male. I only had some mandarin orange male fish. So I planned to breed my male mandarin orange goldfish with female commets from Japan.

These are what I call the mandarin orange:

mandarin orange

Upon the arrival of the yellow commets, I noticed that the yellow color was a bit different from my yellow goldfish. The commets were more like lemon color. My yellow goldfish had a bit of orange flavor in it, though I will still consider it yellow.

This is the comparison:

lemon cross

Alas, the yellow commets did not lay any eggs yet, though it has been months since I bought them. But the BIG SURPRISE is that, yesterday, my infertile yellow female suddenly laid eggs! And lots of them. I was tempted several times to let go the fish. Glad I did not do it. It has been a year or more without any eggs, but suddenly it laid the eggs yesterday. I matched her with the male lemons from Japan. And I am very enthusiastic to see the result.

If the yellow goldfish project was in jeopardy from the start, now I begin to see a big hope. And from this, there is a possibility to create yellow oranda, and even yellow ranchu in the future. Certainly this will enrich the goldfish diversity. Yellow goldfish will not be limited to yellow commets anymore 🙂

Wish me the best!

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Yellow goldfish

Update on Yellow Goldfish (Sept 19th, 2015)

Yellow goldfish is not common in Indonesia. Though it is common in Japan and America, it cannot be found in Indonesia. I mentioned before that it is a lucky thing to see one showed up in my offspring. However, I can only find a single yellow one in one batch. In another batch, it is between orange and yellow, which I am sure it is carrying the yellow genetics. But all of them are female. The best yellow might be sterile, since it does not show any sign of laying eggs though it is almost one year old. The siblings are red or red white in color. So, there is no other way than to cross the yellowish orange one with a red one.

This is the result. I get three yellowish orange. The rest are deep red or red white. These yellowish orange, or the color between orange and yellow, have yellow eyes. Another bad luck, all of them are male. So, if the mother is still productive, I will mate them back with the mother, hoping that some yield will be yellow.

This is a picture of one red and one yellowish orange from the same batch. One might be tempted to think that the yellowish orange one is an underdeveloped color, which might become as red as the other one if being feed with color enhancer. Well, I do not feed them color enhancer. But I can assure us that they are from the same batch, and they receive the same treatment and living in the same pond. In the pond with dark background, the color difference is more differentiable. Enjoy.

tones of red

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Yellow goldfish

Yellow Goldfish

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A long time ago, I heard – or maybe read – about yellow goldfish. Yellow is the color of the King, at least in the ancient China. So the King thought that yellow goldfish was a royal fish and prohibited common people to keep it.  As an experimental breeder, it is one of my desire to see the fish, to own it, and to understand it. Nowadays, this color has been so rare, and one cannot find it in Indonesia.

During my travel to Japan two years ago, I saw the yellow goldfish in a fish shop. I was filled with joy! They were in the form of common goldfish. Nothing beautiful except the yellow color. Alas, it was impossible for me to bring any to my country due to the government regulation. I took some quick picture of them in haste, and that was all my encounter with real yellow goldfish.

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As a breeder, I sometimes am amazed with how a certain desire suddenly comes true out of the blue. I am blessed, that’s what I think. As you may know, I am working on a weird project of wowkin. Yes, I know it is weird. It is a cross between wakin and tosakin. Both are red fishes. You can imagine how surprised I am to find out that one of offspring turn out to be yellow! Not only yellow, but yellow with pattern – clearly defined high quality pattern! This is out of my mind. How can this happen? I have no idea.

The picture below shows two of the wowkin offspring from the same batch. The way I keep them is also the same. Same pond, same food, same environment. Same parent, of course. Even same birth date. But one turns intense red, and one keep on being yellow. If there is any reader here well versed with pigmentation or genetics, could you please stand up and give me explanation of what is going on here?

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Is it worthwhile to bring yellow goldfish back to life in the market? I do not know. Red color is surely more widely accepted. Yellow might be accepted by few due to its rarity. But if it ceases to become rare, how would the market respond? Well, what do you think of yellow goldfish. Would you want to have one also?

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