Tag Archives: hermanto

Purple goldfish

Updates on purple goldfish (Dec 11th, 2015)

As an overview, I was repeating the classic experiment by Shishan C. Chen. The experiment was crossing a blue metallic scale goldfish with a chocolate metallic scale goldfish. My slight modification was that I use the panda metallic scale goldfish instead of blue, noting that panda and blue color has a close relationship. I crossed a panda tosa with a chocolate pompom. I got the panda tosa from crossing panda telescope eyes (which is available in the market) with blue oranda.

The F1 was wild in color. Some turned into wild and orange, and some turned into totally orange color. No blue, no panda, no chocolate appeared at this stage. All have small pompom balls. Interestingly, their size became giants! I took my lesson that crossing far related types of goldfish may trigger the production of large sizes. (This inspires the possibility of doing projects on giant sized goldfish!)

This is the picture of the F1. Picture was taken 5 months ago, and the fishes have grown larger since. The bowl is 40cm in diameter.

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Then I did F1 x F1. The results were amazing! I got:

1st category: blue, blue-white combination (or we call it panda) and white (as the blue color totally disappeared)

2nd category: chocolate, chocolate-orange combination, and orange

3rd category: purple (the color in between blue and chocolate), chocolate-white combination (!), and white (as the chocolate color totally disappeared)

4th category: wild color

The shape were all pompom goldfishes. Some with large pompom balls, some with small ones.

I got rid of the wild color early. (And now I regret it, since I would like to know whether it can be used to create red-white pompom combination or not). So, I focused on in-breeding those 3 categories. My utmost desire was to breed and stabilizes the chocolate-white combination, since it is a rarer color compared to the panda. Unfortunately, they do not lay eggs till now even when all the other categories have spawned. My project of creating chocolate-white is in jeopardy! It is not funny to start all over again from the beginning.

The first pair to spawn was the panda. I am happy, since panda pompom is nowhere to be seen nowadays. I was thinking that these panda will produce 100 percent genuine panda color. That is what happen when I crossed panda color with red-white. When I crossed panda with red-white, the F1 was red-white/red. The F2 yield roughly 25 percent of panda. And when I crossed these panda with its panda sibling, the result was 100 percent panda / blue. So, I was hoping the same to happen in this project. Interestingly, the result is different!

Panda color produced from the cross between panda and chocolate, when mated with its panda sibling, does not only yield panda / blue color, but also purple / chocolate-white color in small percentage! I think this is an important matter. It needs someone knowledgeable in genetics to explain this. I do not have that expertise.

These are the chocolate-white goldfish aged roughly three months old. Some have turned totally white. These are the ones that still retain the chocolate color. Aren’t they lovely?

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First, I am glad that I do not need to rely on my 3rd category that do not spawn till now. I can still get chocolate-white combination from the panda pair.

Second, let me make clear of the relationship between purple and chocolate-white. For the start, it is better to understand that there are three color involved here: blue, chocolate and purple. Shishan Chen has discussed the difference between them. It involves the black pigmen, the red pigmen, their combination and distribution. Though I do really want to understand more about it and what involves that create the difference between blue and black, chocolate and red, they are not really my stuffs. (I am too stupid for that.) It is enough for me to know that purple is a color between blue and chocolate.

It is also important to understand that there are “base” color in goldfish. I have never read about this. This is my own terminology, that will need help from friends who understand more. This “base” color is what makes the difference betwen black and blue, and between chocolate pompom and purple. Let me explain. In the case of black and blue, we know that differences happen in the melanin pigment. Black ranchu has melanin pigment, so also blue ranchu. But somehow, that same pigment behaves differently in those two. One factor is the different pigment distribution. Is it the only factor involved? I do not think so. But I cannot say anymore about this. There is a second important differentiation between the black and blue, and I want to draw the attention to this. Their “base” color is different. In black ranchu, if the black color fades, we will see an orange color. That is what I mean by base color. Even in Thai black ranchu where the black color does not fade, if we try to scratch the black skin, we will see the orange color underneath the black coat. But in blue color, if the black (or blue) pigment fades, what we will see is white color. So, this is the base color of blue fish. In black ranchu, as the melanin fades, we will have black-gold color (or black-orange), while in blue ranchu, as the melanin fades, we will have black-white color (or panda). So, the base color is different.

The relationship between chocolate pompom and purple pompom has something to do with this “base” color. The base color of chocolate pompom is orange. That’s why, when the chocolate color fades, we will see the orange as the base color. The fish can turn into chocolate-orange,or totally orange fish. We witness the same behavior with black and black-gold fish. In purple goldfish, the base is not orange, but white! So, when the purplish color fades, the fish will have purple-white color combination. And in this kind of combination, the purple color will be more intense, the pigmen distribution will be thicker, and the purple will look like chocolate. That is why I call the purple-white color combination as the chocolate-white. It is the same case with panda, where the blue-white combination is called black-white since the blue is getting thicker and looking like black.

This answers my second point, that is about the relationship between purple and chocolate-white. When the purple color does not fade, the fish will stay purplish. When the purple fades, the fish will become chocolate-white, and some will even turn into totally white.

Third, there seems to be several spectrum of chocolate color in the chocolate-white combination. I am still not sure about this. I am not sure of whether they are worthy to be identified separately.

Fourth, the good news is, when I crossed chocolate pompom with chocolate pompom resulted from this project, the result is not 100 percent chocolate, either! There are purple color also! The same behavior I examined from crossing panda with panda from this project.

Fifth, I have not had chance to cross purple with purple, or purple-white with purple-white. If I do this, will the result yield several panda and chocolate also, or will they be 100 percent purple and purple-white?

Sixth, it will be nice to create purple-white ranchu! A project that is enough to occupy my time for several years ahead!

 

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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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Purple goldfish

The difference between blue and purple

One of my concern is that the purple color is hard to differentiate from the blue color. My aim of posting these pictures is to show that those two colors are indeed differentiable. When being put side by side with chocolate / brown, the purple will look like blue. But when being put side by side with blue, the purple look like brown. So, purple is indeed a color spectrum between the blue and the brown, and differentiable from the two. The pictures below show the difference between blue and purple. I hope it is clear which one is which 🙂 Have a good day.

purple and blue 2

purple and blue 1

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Purple goldfish

Update on purple goldfish, September 16th, 2015

Telescope eyes occur in my breed once and a while, though I have never intended to breed them. These three telescope eyes are from one batch, from the same parent, yet they differ widely in their color. The left one is a panda. The middle one is the purple goldfish – I think it is still rare, and perhaps the only one in Indonesia currently. Hopefully this pose highlights the purple color from the rest. The right one is the chocolate with some beautiful stain of orange, also a rarity, I think. Enjoy,

colorful telescopes

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Purple goldfish

What color is this?

This is the most unique color I find in this purple goldfish project. It started as purple fish. But then it develops white coloration. The purple color becomes darker, to make it look like light brown. I do not know what to call this combination. Purple and white? Chocolate and white? It surely looks like brown magpie bird to me.

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Many of the purple develop the white color, but most turn into totally white. So, I guess the behavior of this pattern is basically similar to the panda. That means there is a room for stabilizing the pattern through selective breeding.

unfortunately, there is only one with this kind of pattern. I hope the pattern will stay, though it is very probable that it will fade. And the purple goldfish is always the smaller compared to the blue and brown in the same batch.

My plan is to strengthen this pattern and multiply them in the form of pompom goldfish. Next, I would like to develop ranchu in this pattern. Wish me the best 🙂

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Panda pompom

Panda pompom

From my experiment to create purple goldfish, I accidentally create panda pompom. This is predictable, since I use chocolate pompom and metallic blue fish as the grandparent. Some blue fishes appear in the offspring. Some have pompom, some do not. But most of the pompom feature are blue also. This one is extraordinary since the pompom feature is white, giving it a good contrast. If today we usually find pompom goldfish with chocolate body and orange pompom features, hopefully we will see more of blue or panda body and white pompom features. I can’t wait to see this piece mature. Enjoy.

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Purple goldfish

Purple goldfish update on July, 2015

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The above picture is the same purple goldfish in a lighter and darker background. This color is distinguishable from the blue and chocolate below:

Blue goldfish

Blue goldfish

Chocolate goldfish

Chocolate goldfish

The pictures below show the differences between purple and blue

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and this shows the difference between purple and chocolate

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The picture below shows the fishes with respective colors from left: purple, green, blue and brown

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Below are the highlights

Blue scale on top, purple scale below

Blue scale on top, purple scale below

Purple scale on top, chocolate scale below

Purple scale on top, chocolate scale below

So far I think I have succeeded in producing purple goldfish, or purplish one, or any other name differentiable from blue and brown (chocolate). At this point, I think I can wrap up this project and consider it done. What remains is to try the same project again but with different type of fish. What I have in mind is ranchu. I would like to create purple ranchu. But first, I need to create the chocolate ranchu, which is still my ongoing project. It will be a challenging project!

There is another observation coming from this purple goldfish which I am not ready to share yet. Let see for another year or more if this observation really yields something interesting.

Have a good day!

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Uncategorized

Dropsy Treatment

I have experienced dropsy in my fishes probably close to a hundred times. I have tried to find articles about it with no satisfying answers. The best conclusion I draw from my reading is that there is no cure yet for dropsy. Once I even brought a fish with dropsy to a lab. It was a topview ranchu I bought from Thailand. It was a lovely fish. I have treated the fish with all medication I was familiar with, but of no result. When I brought it to the lab, the result confused me. The lab said that they found nothing wrong in the fish. It was healthy. So the lab officer speculated on a mutation as a result of something that happen to the fish that trigger the dropsy. I don’t really understand about it. The fish continued to live for several months in the lab until I finally let it go.

I also experienced rare cases where the dropsy is cured. A friend named Mr Andy Hernianto and I were together in pondering these cases. Our observation led us to believe that there is a way to treat the dropsy with a higher chance of success. This is our conclusion.

First, it must be understood that dropsy usually appears together with or after a certain illness. So, while the dropsy itself is not contagious, the illness accompanying it can be contagious. While the dropsy itself does not lead to death, the illness can lead to death. When the illness is cured, dropsy persists, and the fish lives on. When the illness is not cured and dropsy appears, then the fish is in danger. So, first thing in the dropsy treatment is to make sure that the illness is cured.

I do not know what illnesses cause dropsy. I do not know whether it is a special illness or common illness.  I do not know how dropsy develops. It is beyond the scope of this article.

Second, after the illness is gone, high aeration can be used to treat dropsy. In this case, there is no medication needed. Medication can be used if we suspect the illness is still present. The key is high aeration. Later on, we will make this more sophisticated by saying that the key is high oxygen level.

This treatment is so simple. I usually put the fish with dropsy in a shade, and start to give high aeration. This treatment is particularly effective if the dropsy is still in its beginning state. The dropsy can be cured in several days up to a month. I usually put a fish in a clean container by itself, and no filtration. Water change can be done routinely if there is no medication used. If the dropsy has been there for a relatively long period, this treatment seems useless. The dropsy might be permanent already. At least I have tried this for a month, and I gave up. I do not know if the treatment was done for a longer period. This is one experiment I did in 2012.

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The treatment took approximately ten days. And the fish was cured as before. Below is the picture of the fish being cured from dropsy.

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Later on, I share this finding with another friend Mr Jemmy Wijaya. He reasoned that this must have something to do with the oxygen intake ability of the fish. If that is the case, then cold water temperature will help to cure the disease. Then he did the treatment with a chiller and reported success. I myself do not have a chiller and have never done the experiment. But I think it makes sense.

So, this is how to treat dropsy. I know I do not do statistics, but I sort of thinking that the success rate for a beginning period of dropsy is very high, probably 80 percent or more. Thanks to Mr Andy Hernianto and Mr Jemmy Wijaya. I hope there are scientists among the readers of this blog that will do more experiments to perfect this work.

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Playing with patterns

Playing with pattern

Pattern is not one of the judging criteria in competition nowadays. However, pattern always has its own way to fascinate hobbyist all the time, from beginners to experts. History shows that some breeders had focused on pattern appreciation all along. Red cap oranda is one famous pattern that still exists until today. Jikin breeders are masters of pattern creation with their 12 red goldfishes. I am sure pattern will always find its way in the heart of goldfish hobbyist.

There is a science to the pattern manipulation. Unfortunately, this science is mostly unkown. I believe much of the knowledge is lost. Some who know tend to keep it secret. Most hobbyist are not aware that this can be an area to pursue. The undermining of pattern criteria in competition might contribute to this ignorance. The ethical assault faced by those who practice this art also contribute to the secrecy of this knowledge.

For me, I tend to think that this is interesting. My own experiment has led me to conclude that water parameter, food content, and background color can be used to manipulate the pattern. Other things such as whether it is outdoor or indoor, whether to use biological filtration or routine water change, the density of fishes, the PH parameter, and so on, seem to contribute to the pattern building. Tricks employed by Jikin breeders also seem to work but not to all goldfish. Some goldfish are easier to manipulate while some seem to resist manipulation. This need to be explained genetically.

Wakin and jikin are among the easiest to manipulate. Some oranda react well to manipulation tricks, while some like orange oranda are harder to manipulate. In my experience, ranchu is more difficult to manipulate.

Below is the results of my experiment on pattern building. I am not in the position yet to tell readera what I have been doing. I am still learning. Perhaps later on as I understand more, I will tell. The fishes I used are the oranda that have wakin genetics. They are my F3 from my oranda – wakin cross, which have been crossed back to oranda. I find that most of them are easy to manipulate, but not as easy as wakin. Some from the same batch cannot be manipulated, no matter what I do. Seems that the fish that mutate earlier from its wild color state into red and white is easier to manipulate. The one that takes longer to mutate is harder.

Enjoy.

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