The Diary of a Goldfish Breeder 2025 (#2)

Update on myself
New side project: Yellow x Purple Oranda

I am 52 years old now, and taking goldfish pictures and videos is getting wearisome for me. The last time I took some pictures, I had a strained lower back. From that moment on, I think I need to cut back on my photo taking activities. On top of that, several business and family matters occupied my attention. While my overall health was (and is) diminishing (when vertigo took over several times) and my travelling schedule was tight, Not to mention that the earning generated during several years of working on this blog cannot even pay the subscription fee for even a year, haha! I was still faithful to my goldfish breeding projects, though. Every morning when I was not travelling, I will did my daily routine: doing water change, scrubbing dirty tubs, closely working on my projects. It is just that I had far less time to update on this blog. Going forward, I might update on this blog with less (and lesser quality) pictures. Oh yes, my vision is also deteriorating (welcome to old age, said my eye doctor!) I also think of discussing a new topic, that is about appreciation and the philosophy behind it. I think it will be an interesting topic for me to explore, though I fully acknowledge my limitation. Well, it is all still just wishful thinking, though. No promise.

During my blog absent last year, I had a chance to make a unique cross that I had an eye on a long time ago. The color of yellow and purple are both recessive to red. How if I cross them? What will the offspring variety be? I already know what happens if I cross red to yellow, or red to blue / brown / purple. But I have no idea what will happen if I cross yellow to purple. As far as I know, nobody has ever reported this kind of project.

The F1 are all orange (some with black spatter). I did not manage to take picture of them due to the reason I mentioned above. Since it is easier to take video of them from my handphone, I managed to take their video and upload it in youtube:

And here are the F2

Is there any interesting result? I would say yes, though I am not sure they will do well in the market. They are interesting for curiosity purpose.

The most obvious results are the red / red white and the yellow / yellow white color. This is predictable, of course. But I do note that the yellow color has a bit of orangish color, in a different spectrum of yellow from its father, yet can still be differentiated from the red siblings. I do not think I will use them in my next projects, though.

Next in line are the blue and purple color. This is also predictable. If the F2 of red x purple results in blue and purple (along with brown and red), it is expected that the F2 of yellow x purple will results in blue and purple also (along with brown which I will discuss after this, and red and yellow).

The brown offspring is a bit tricky and interesting. First, let me show you the grey (wild) color as also one of the offspring, and its dark brownish sibling. The wild color being #1 and the sibling #2. Do you think we can call the #2 brown / chocolate? I am not sure. It is close to Dark Brown color I discussed before in my previous blogs.

And there is one unique color in the offspring, which I am not sure how to call it. Is it bronze? Green? Copper? Gold? I do not know. I call it #3. When compared to the wild color, it is obviously not wild:

But compared to #2, it is certainly not as brown as #2:

Can we call #3 as light brown? I do not think so, because we have another variant of brown as #4:

I compared #4 with #3 and #2:

And if we think #4 is an interesting brown color, I still have #5 which is slightly different from #4 but more eye-catching. #5 is the best brown color I have ever seen. Too bad, when I took these pictures, I already tired myself to the core. So, pardon me for the few and blurry picture.

I will definitely try to duplicate the color of #5!

Now, some of the brown color can fade into brown-red-white and brown-yellow-white color. The brown-red-white is already a rare color. But the brown-yellow-white is even more rare!

I think the brown color might eventually gone totally. But the existence of these two creates the possibility of us having those rare color combinations in a stronger version. Very unique, right? However, I am not sure if the market can accept them well.

Since the brown-red-white fish is full of defect, I cannot use it for my breeding project. But the brown-yellow-white is perfect. I will keep it for now and think about a follow up project later on.

the brown-red-white and brown-yellow white from above

Of course, there is a tricolor (black-red-white) fish in the offspring. The black color almost disappears completely. But this shows that such crossing might yield a tricolor combination. The picture below shows the difference between the black and the brown in red fish.

I might use the black-red-white fish in my tricolor project.

That’s all my diary today. Hope the reader enjoy!

Blue Oranda, Brown Oranda

The Diary of a Goldfish Breeder 2024 (3)

As mentioned in my previous diary, I must commit this year to my Ranchu projects. In order to do this, I must rearrange my priorities. I must let go some to make room for the Blue, Brown, and Purple Ranchu projects. And sad to say, I am thinking (very hard) to let go my Blue and Brown Oranda lines. I have been working hard to improve the quality of the Blue, Brown, and Purple O for several years. And I think I have accomplished the projects to a certain extent. Among the three, I plan to keep only the Purple line. I have several reasons for this choice:

The Purple is the most rare among the three. I considered it as the hallmark of my Oranda achievement. The blue and the brown were ingredients to produce the Purple.
I can always recreate the blue and brown from the purple if I want to.

With this thinking, I have started to let go all my Blue and Brown Oranda. Well, almost all. I still keep one male from each variant (the best ones) just for my collection. I have no plan to breed them in the near future, but in case I miss those lineages and have spare times, I can always cross them with my Purple.

I have taken some pictures and videos of the last two for us to enjoy. Hopefully you like them.

The headgrowth is not minimal nor excessive. I think it is decent and can still grow a little bit more with age without ever covering his eyesight. The back curve is higher than the headgrowth, to give him a strong body impression. The body length is medium with a good head – body proportion, in my opinion. He has a good body width (measured from top to bottom. If we take a straight line from the eye to the peduncle, then the line will divide the body in approximately the same portion. A good balance. The scales have beautiful shine, neatly arranged in the right side of the body. We see some out of proportion scalation in the left side behind the upper head area. The first ray of the dorsal is not very straightly upright (if we want to scrutinize in detail) but it is a good one. There is a sign of recovery from injury in the middle of the first ray, my bad. The tail angle is good, and I put a special attention on the lower lobe which has a slight nice curve towards the abdomen. This is a feature seldom remembered nowadays. The brown pattern makes him more handsome, I think. A note about the brown color: when it appears on Blue fish, the brown looks paler compared to when it appears on Purple fish. I love the fish.

The headgrowth tends to be minimalist, not highlighted enough, actually. The body has an impression to be round. It means, the length is medium short, and the body width is good. The head – body proportion is still okay. The brown color is vibrant. The dorsal and the tail are good. A special attention should be given to the tail. It is a luxurious tail! The lower lobes curve towards the abdomen, and there is a tosakin-tail flavor to it. This reminds me to my terminated Dancing Queen projects, which tried to create Oranda with Tosakin curled tail viewed from the side. I must have crossed the result from that project to my Oranda line sometimes ago. The beauty of the tail is more visible in the videos below.

Enjoy these two youtube videos!

blue ranchu, brown ranchu, purple ranchu

The Diary of a Goldfish Breeder 2024 (2)

For the last several years I focused too much on developing my Blue, Brown, and Purple Oranda line. I postponed the Ranchu projects on the same color to the point of neglecting them. I must confess that all my Blue, Brown, and Purple Ranchu line were wiped out almost completely. There is only a single old male Blue ranchu left. I can hardly do anything with that. So, basically, these projects must be restarted from zero.

Is he not handsome? He is a large fish. Personally, I like his strong body type. It is a bit long but with a balanced body width. And he has a thick waist. His headgrowth is decent. Yes, he has some obvious weaknesses in the smoothness of his back curve and the angle of his tail. Hopefully I can still have his offspring that carries the positive features. But I must act quickly, because he is losing his vigor due to old age.

I tried to find other breeders that might carry the blue and brown genetics. I do not worry about the purple, since if I can get blue and brown, I can recreate the purple. Gladly, I find breeder friends who bought from me before and are still keeping the genetics of these rare colors.

From Mr. Malek I bought some of his Blue Ranchu. He acquired the gene from my line before, and he crossed it with his own fishes. These two females are in my possession right now.

They are very fertile, and that is the most important thing for me. I also bought a male blue from him just for a reserve. But since these two females are good at laying eggs, I do not want to mate the male with them. Looking at the specimen here, I must admit they have their charm. I do not want to produce the same line. I want to differentiate a bit.

These two females show two spectrums of blue color, the lighter and the darker ones. Their body type can be considered medium short. This is the first point of difference with my male. The curve is varied, but I believe my friend has lots of good quality ones. The tail is also varied. The headgrowth is more well -developed than mine. This is the second point of difference. I make a cross between my line (the old male) with these two. I am tending their newly hatched offspring right now. Wish me success.

From Mr. Aji Linting I acquired this Brown Ranchu:

He acquired the brown (and also purple) from me a long time ago when I have just started. At that time, my line was of low quality. My friend crossed it with the previous type of Thailand’s Black Ranchu since he appreciated that variant very much. We can see the trace of the Black Ranchu feature in this male specimen. I was breeding that Black variant twenty years ago, so I am familiar with the features. New hobbyists might not be familiar with it. Anyway, looking at the bright brown color, I am very enthusiastic!

I acquired several male and female. Some with purple combination. But I focus on this brown male Ranchu as my material. I already crossed him with the two female Blue Ranchu and am waiting for the offspring to grow. Wish me success also on this project.

I also acquire a red and white Ranchu from local breeder to use in my crossing:

He is an enormous fish. He is handsome in his own way. But for me, I do not like the indentation in his upper neck and his excessive headgrowth covering his eyes. But still, this is the best I can find so far. I plan to cross him with the two Blue Female to enrich the blue genetics I have. The richer the gene pool the more choices I have to work on improving my Blue Ranchu quality. And also, I think I might need to have my own red and white lineage. Hmmm, let’s see ….

That is the update so far. Stay tuned.

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!

blue ranchu, brown ranchu, Chocolate Ranchu, purple ranchu, The Diary of a Goldfish Breeder 2023

The Diary of a Goldfish Breeder 2023 (12)

Project #9,10,11: Blue, Brown, and Purple Ranchu Update

The fish I mentioned in the diary #6 show promising results. The cross produces four colors at once: grey, brown, purple and blue. I do not post the grey here. I will focus on the brown, purple, and blue. These are the champions after the final cull.

Brown Ranchu:

I am satisfied with these two brown ranchu, especially the first one. She shows beautiful smooth and thick curve. She can grow into a large and beautiful fish. Yes, she has weak headgrowth, and the size of the head is a bit small compared to the body. I plan to improve it by crossing with red-white ranchu that has better characteristic on this area. I think I will have beautiful offspring from this crossing next year.

The second fish is also female. So I do not have a male brown ranchu right now. The second fish is cute. She has a better headgrowth with more proportional head and body ratio. Well, actually I do not mind which one will be the next mother for my brown ranchu project. Both are adorable in their own ways.

Purple:

Well, this is the only purple that can survive the cull. And the quality is far below expectation. The head is totally bald. The peduncle is long and slim / thin. Those are two characteristics I would like to avoid. But he is the only one I have. So, my future purple ranchu lineage might depend on him. The color is attractive, though.

Blue:

The pictures were taken under afternoon sunlight. So the blue color looks a bit like purple due to the excessive sunlight. The first fish is female. I am not sure about the second one. The headgrowth is unique. The first has a little headgrowth, while the second one is bald. The curve of the first one is almost flat in the upper back, and sharply curves down before the tail. The second one has highest point of the back curve a bit to the front, which then slopes down not in a sharp manner. The color of the second fish is rich in gold combination.

I will certainly consider these blue to be my next parent fish. But I also have with me a different line of blue ranchu with a totally different character. I will compare them to decide what to do when they are ready to breed.

As a conclusion, I think my prize in this project is the brown ranchu.

Blue Oranda, The Diary of a Goldfish Breeder 2023

The Diary of a Goldfish Breeder 2023 (4)

Project #1: (Semi) Blue Oranda

Well, the result of my Blue Oranda is satisfactory. But as a breeder, I need to anticipate the genetics being saturated due to inbreeding. So, I develop a cousin-line by crossing the female Blue Oranda parents (Diary 2022 #19) with an orange oranda of my own, which unfortunately I did not manage to take his picture. So, the phenotype of the offspring is orange / red white Oranda, while the genotype carries the blue genetics recessively. I keep only best three of them currently:

Let me analyze them.

Body-wise, the first fish is superb. It has depth and thickness. The length doesn’t seem to be short, more of a medium type, which is what I want. The curve has a good height. It will contribute to the bulky appearance of the fish even when the headgrowth grows higher. The headgrowth is a bit small right now, but I will not worry since I know the parents headgrowth type. It won’t be small, but it won’t be excessive, either. Just right. The tail has a good erect angle with no defects. Perfect! The only visible weakness is the dorsal fin with its curved first ray. This feature also appears in parts of my current Blue Oranda line. Well, it is not really a defect. It is just less desirable than the perfectly straight one. This fish seems to be a female.

What to make of her?

Of course I want to have Oranda with this shape, but with a better dorsal fin. If I use this to cross with my Blue line, then I must choose a male with a good dorsal fin. This will make my Blue Oranda lineage improved in terms of the dorsal fin, but I don’t think I will get 100% better dorsal fins directly from the crossing. It would be better if both parents have good dorsal fins!

Or I can use the first fish as my Basic Material fish. If I mate it with the second fish, which seems to be male, then I can develop a good quality line of orange / orange white Oranda. I can use the line to improve my other Oranda projects (see Diary 2022 #18 for list of my projects).

The body of the second fish is not as strong as the first one, but it might due to the gender difference. This fish has a strong erect dorsal fin. I am glad to have him since I have the needed material to further my projects.

The third fish is probaly a male also. But the body is not as strong as the second fish. And the dorsal is not desirable. So, I think I have no need of him.

For video, please see the youtube below:

Blue Oranda, The Diary of a Goldfish Breeder 2023

The Diary of a Goldfish Breeder 2023 (2)

Update Project #1: Blue Oranda

At the end of last year I wrote the progress of my Blue Oranda Project (Diary 2022 #19). These are their offspring:

One:

Two:

Three:

Four:

Five:

These are from the 1st batch. I kept six of them. Yet when I caught them for the purpose of taking these pictures, I only managed to catch five of them. I produced more in the 2nd batch for the purpose of Keeping Contest in our community with 23 participants.

Analyzing these offspring, I think this confirm the uniformity of the line. The body shape is relatively the same type. Yes, I must admit some have wider body and some a bit slimmer. But I think this might due to the sex. The slimmer ones I suspect are the male. The headgrowth is similar. The tail shape and the erect-angle is uniform enough. The obvious weakness I think in the dorsal fin, especially in the 4th specimen. Well, mostly have good dorsal fin, but some are weak. About the stability of the color, mostly are strongly blue. Yet, about 20% still turn into white.

Theses fishes are approximately three to four months old, so they still have lots of time to grow. Their current size is about 12cm.

I am satisfied with the current result. Perhaps I will breed true to this lineage for several years to come. Perhaps with improvisation on the dorsal and headgrowth a little bit.

Enjoy.

For the video link, see the youtube below:

Blue Oranda, The Diary of a Goldfish Breeder 2022

The Diary of a Goldfish Breeder 2022 (19)

Project #1: Blue Oranda

I am enthusiastic about the result so far. Well, it is not perfect yet. But I see some significant results.

I keep three fish from the latest lineage. One male and two females. Yes, I know. It is a bit risky to keep such a small number of parent fish. But I can always cross any of them with another Oranda even if I were left with one.

Let me show my three musketeers:

The 1st female:

The 2nd female:

The male:

Let me do some analyzes on these three:

First, there is uniformity in terms of the body shape, the head shape, and the color stability. This uniformity is a significant progress, in my opinion. The two females look rounder than the male body shape, but I think this is due to the male – female sexuality. It is common in goldfish to have rounder body shape in female, though it should not be a general rule (I have seen male with round shape such that it cannot be differentiated from the female just looking at the body shape). The headgrowth is uniform across these three, which is a bit too thin for me. The color is strongly blue (or some might say platinum) and show no sign of going to turn to white.

Second, there is a bit of departure from my initial vision concerning to the body shape. I am satisfied with the broadness of the body width (measured from top to bottom). But I envisioned a longer body shape (measured from side to side). Well, as I ponder on this body quality, I say to myself that frankly, I do not mind with this body shape. So, I can say that this body shape is final. Whether there will be a longer version later on is a bonus which I will not work on it on purpose.

Third, the headgrowth is minimal and it is far from my original plan to have a goosehead type of headgrowth. Yes, I think I still need to work on this, but there is no haste. The market is full of this kind of headgrowth. And combined with the round body shape, this quality can still be appreciated as above average quality. I can call this headgrowth feature as finish at this stage. But I will slowly try to improve it.

Fourth, the fins are not uniform and below the competition quality. The dorsal fin of the 1st female is good, but its tail is not desirable, while the 2nd female has these features the other way around. This provides difficulty for me to decide which one is best to be the mother. Well, I will decide later when it is time for them to lay eggs.

Fifth and foremost, there is a significant quality progress from my initial blue oranda! And I am satisfied with this progress. My initial oranda was skinny (as shown on the left below) and now they are bulky!

blue ranchu, brown ranchu, purple ranchu, The Diary of a Goldfish Breeder 2022

The Diary of a Goldfish Breeder 2022 (16)

Update on several ranchu projects.

In my plan, I am supposed to concentrate on my ranchu projects this year. But I must confess that I am too occupied with tosakin instead of focusing on ranchu. It is already October. The year will end soon. I have not made any significant progress on my brown, purple, and blue ranchu projects. But I think I still need to report my progress here.

To follow up the diary #6, most of the offspring are not satisfying in terms of the quality. I took a big risk by sorting out almost all of them. I kept only one female from each type. And I am not proud with the quality.

Yes, there is a bump near the tail area. The color is good, though.

This purple ranchu has a rough back curve.

This tricolor is actually a blue ranchu that lost some of its melanin. She has been in this stable color for months. I hope she will continue to be like this. However, the back curve is very bumpy.

I mated these three with my two male semi-purple ranchu:

The results are few. They are 7 cm right now. And I think I see some interesting quality. Thank God!

I will take their pictures when they are older and provide the update later on.

Have a nice day!

purple ranchu, The Diary of a Goldfish Breeder 2022

The Diary of a Goldfish Breeder 2022 (6)

I must revise my understanding about the breeding of blue, brown and purple crossing.

Several weeks ago I crossed semi purple ranchu with semi purple ranchu. What I mean by semi purple is the cross between purple ranchu and red ranchu. The phenotype (outward appearance) is red / red-white / wild color. To refresh our memory, these are the pair I used (female, male, and male):

In my understanding, the result will be as shown in this illustration:

SP = Semi Purple

I mentioned earlier that the result consists of two different visible color: the light colored fry and the dark one. The light colored fry will become purple, and the dark colored one will become grey (which might eventually turn into red / red-white / stay grey). Based on this understanding, I usually cull out the dark colored one.

I have done these crossing with oranda and ranchu several times and I have revised my understanding. The light colored ones do not turn into solely purple, but also brown fish! So, without any crossing back to brown, I get brown color as a bonus. This will make my life easier. I do not need to make the brown as a separate project. But in this revised understanding, I still cull out all the dark colored ones.

This time, when I breed the semi purple ranchu above, I decided to keep the dark color fry. My initial purpose is to see if some of can become my Basic Ranchu Material. To my surprise, as the color become more visible in several weeks, the dark color turn out to be not only grey fish but also blue fish! So, I have been wrong all this time by culling out all the dark ones! So, once again I must revise my understanding to be like this:

Here are the real offspring:

purple ranchu
brown ranchu
grey / green / wild colored ranchu (that might turn into red/red white)
blue ranchu

Knowing this, I can simplify my projects. Instead of three projects of blue, brown and purple, I can just do one. The purple project will yield all the three color types I want. Is not that great?

But there is a certain doubt lingers. Why does the semi purple cross produce all the three color types? In my understanding, there is two possible solution:

the purple genetics I use is not pure.
even the pure purple genetics carries all the three color types with it, which will be reintroduce when being crossed with another fish (in this case a red fish)

Possibility number one is likely to happen, since I crossed my purple to many other color which I did not keep track diligently. I tried to purify the purple by mating purple with purple. I also mated purple with brown, and purple with blue, which yielded several percentage of purple goldfish (which I guess the purple gene is not pure in this case). And I do not know which purple I use to produce the semi purple ranchu above.

So, yes, I cannot answer which one of the two possibility is true. If number 1 is true, then to reduce my three projects into one will only work if I use the impure purple genetics. If number 2 is true, then I can reduce the three into one in all cases. Hopefully someday someone else can clarify this by doing a better experiment with diligent journal.

hermantogoldfish

My projects on Goldfish

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