Category Archives: yellow oranda

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

The Diary of a Goldfish Breeder 2022 (3)

While waiting for my ranchu offspring to grow, I manage to assess the current state of my oranda projects. First, I unexpectedly found two beautiful redwhite oranda as side results of my breeding program. When I crossbred my oranda to create the blue, brown, and purple color, I also got grey fish as the side result. I usually cull them out. But sometimes I saw some with interesting quality. I was tempted to keep them without bothering to keep track of their lineage. Some of them stayed grey, some turned into red or redwhite fish. I located these two beautiful oranda among them. Both of them are female. If only I had their male sibling, I might be able to establish them as a solid lineage.

These two fish have almost identical body shape, but one is a bit larger then the other one. The smaller one has single anal fin. So, I put a lot of hope in the larger one as my alpha female this year. Although I do not know her parents, I can make a guess. Their body shape reminds me of Helen – my alpha female last year. So, I give this new female the name: Helen2 – a very unimaginative name, for sure 😂

I only take picture of Helen2. This is her:

And yes, Helen is a big young fish!

For her video, I have uploaded it in my youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KccfPVWNm88

And this is Helen, her mother. Do you see any resemblance?

I value Helen2 in terms of its strong body shape. It has beautiful body depth (measured from top to bottom) which make her long body looks medium (or some might perceive it as short). It is a character I want to maintain. The stomach is beautifully round. The tail is of medium size, a bit smaller than her mother’s. The headgrowth is still minimal, yet it looks handsome. Well, I will still improve the headgrowth later on. But there is a great temptation to be satisfied with Helen2. Unfortunately, her color is more orange than red.

Definitely Helen is now my Basic Material. I realized how far I have gone away from my basic material of the previous year, but I am happy with that. To refresh our memory, these were my original basic materials:

Second, I need to select a male fish to cross with Helen. Which fish will be the best match?

Right now, my adult blue, brown, and purple oranda are way unsatisfactory. As a surprise, my yellow oranda grow into beautiful specimen. This is unexpected, since I though they need one or two more crossing to yield the desired result.

My yellow oranda has strong body, better headgrowth (than Helen2), and has uniformity. Well, actually, there are two types of body among my yellow line. I kept 6 fish, 3 males and 3 females. One type of the body looks like this:

This one is the largest female yellow oranda. The body is very compact and round. A bit short, yes. But it can grow into big fish without losing its swimming balance. I think I can accept this quality as satisfactory. There is no Helen’s blood in these yellow. I think the body and head shape is influenced by my tricolor goosehead oranda (now extinct from my collection, too bad). Three females and one male has this body type. I was waiting for the females to lay eggs right now.

Another type is like this:

Two males have this body type. This shape reminds us of my original Basic Material, don’t you think? This picture depicts the best male oranda I have right now. He is my alpha male. I think as the fish grow larger, this shape will hold the balance better than her sibling’s shape (the more compact one). So, yes, I use this male to be Helen2’s ultimate partner.

Helen2 has laid eggs several days ago. The hatching rate is less than 50%. But I am fine with that. It suits my capacity well. This cross will enable me to have my new line of Basic Material, and also my new line of Yellow Oranda.

Third, I also think about the improvement of Helen2 and this Yellow guy, especially in the headgrowth type. Last year I made a resolution to incorporate the goosehead type in my oranda lines. I have not change this commitment. But, perhaps, I was aiming at a more decent size of the goosehead type of headgrowth, not the excessive one as those of the redcap oranda.

Yet, in order to do that, I need to use the redcap oranda. So, two weeks ago, I bought some. Here are two of them (male and female):

They are small fish with weak body (short and thin). But their headgrowth is amazing.

I mated the male redcap with Helen2. My vision is to have Helen2’s body and tail shape with redcap’s headgrowth. But I am afraid that the offspring might have drawbacks in terms of body shape due to this cross. The eggs are ready to hatch tomorrow.

I also mated the yellow guy with the female redcap to improve my yellow oranda line’s headgrowth. Same concern about the potential drawbacks. The eggs will hatch in the next two days.

That’s all the update of my oranda projects for now. Wish me the best.

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The Diary of a Goldfish Breeder 2021, yellow oranda

The Diary of a Goldfish Breeder 2021 (25)

Update on Yellow Oranda.

I think my most successful project this year is the yellow oranda. I can breed them in slightly larger quantity with almost uniform shape. Regarding the quality, well, of course there are plenty to improve.

Let me refresh our memory concerning this project. I started by buying imported yellow common goldfish. Then I crossed them with wakin to produce yellow wakin.

I discontinued the yellow wakin project, and planned to create yellow oranda. So, I crossed the yellow wakin with a red white oranda that I had at that moment. Here were the initial results:

The body was a bit elongated. The headgrowth and tail were weak. To improve the headgrowth, I mated them with my goosehead tricolor oranda (short body). Here were the results:

There was a good improvement on the headgrowth. The body became shorter. And the tail was still weak. So, I crossed them with my Basic Material. And here are the current results (7 fish):

I can see that there is uniformity in them. The headgrowth does not look excessive right now, but it is there. They are still young right now, and I believe the headgrowth will grow more in the coming months. The body has a good width, most of them are short, few has medium length body. The tail erects pretty well, but some are too open. And the color are dominantly yellow.

I am quite satisfied with these results. I think this quality is already acceptable to the market. But since selling is not my main purpose, I still want to improve them. I think I will maintain the headgrowth, or make it slightly bigger to display the goosehead style. I also want the body to be longer without losing the body width. I want to have a good erect tail without being too open. And last but not least, I want the color to be yellow and white instead of fully yellow. These are the homework for next year.

Right now, none of the female lays eggs yet. But the male are already productive. So, I managed to mate these male with Helen. This should be the back up plan, but I do it first since Helen is fertile. I think this cross might improve the body length and the tail style (Helen has rose tail / wrinkle tail style while none of these yellow oranda display this feature). But the headgrowth will be a concern since Helen does not have a good headgrowth. The main plan is to cross these yellow with the Basic Material again. But this must wait until the female yellow oranda lay eggs. All my current Basic Material are male.

Wish me the best.

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