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!

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!

purple oranda, The Diary of a Goldfish Breeder 2023

The Diary of a Goldfish Breeder 2023 (14)

Update Project #3: Purple Oranda

This line of purple oranda is different from the one I posted on the diary 2023 (3) https://hermantogoldfish.com/2023/02/24/the-diary-of-a-goldfish-breeder-2023-3/

The previous line came from crossing my blue and purple oranda. This line comes from the cross between my brown and purple. They produce different characteristics. The most noticeable difference is in the body shape. The previous line has a longer body while the current one has a rounder body. The color combination is also different. The previous one has only single purple color in majority while the current one has brown stains which makes them far more beautiful.

There is a uniformity in the current purple oranda line, both in their strength and weaknesses. The uniformity itself is something I value. But yes, I still have homework to tackle the weaknesses. Let me show you the three specimens I keep for future parents. (Sometimes I post more than two pics for a fish for us to enjoy. The sunset light gives different color tones to the same fish)

Fish 1:

Fish 2:

Fish 3:

To me, the round and strong body shape looks uniform enough. All have the purple and brown pattern (Ochiba pattern). The dorsal fin looks strong in all three. The headgrowth is a bit lacking. The tail belongs to the so so quality and is a bit too widespread.

I think, despite all its weaknesses, the market might welcome it readily. But I take it as my homework to improve it further. But no hurry.

This line also produces another color variant which is purple and white pattern. As the fish loses its purple color, the white part emerges. The purple area become denser to make it looks like brown – well, light brown or pale brown actually. The fish gives an impression of being brown and white color. I am not sure if the color is stable yet. Since the purple color is still dominating the fish skin though the fish gets larger, I think it is stable enough. I am still in the stage of observing this pattern to see how I can develop it further. Here are lots of pictures of our prince and this concludes my post today. Don’t forget to notice his smile. Enjoy.

The Diary of a Goldfish Breeder 2023, yellow oranda, yellow sakura oranda

The Diary of a Goldfish Breeder 2023 (7)

Update Project #4: Yellow Oranda

There was a setback on this project as the results were weak. Fortunately hope arises unintentionally.

Following the project I mentioned in the Diary 2021 #25, I end up Yellow Oranda with goosehead type of headgrowth, short body, and weak fins. The best among them is this male:

As you can see, the first ray of the dorsal is short and curved, so as the tail. I think this curvature looks a bit abnormal to me. The fish swim normally in my deep pond, but seems to have maneuver difficulty in a small space (as I observed when placing him in a tank for the purpose of taking these pictures.) But yes, I must admit that the head is beautiful, and the body looks positively thick. I have a hard time deciding whether I should use him as a parent or not. And I think, I will pass.

The rest of the batch is worse. I keep only one as she is the only female in the batch. And she is also the only female Yellow Oranda I have! Let’s take a look at her:

The goosehead type is visible in her, but not as pronounced as the male. Perhaps the lack of white color in the body and head makes her less attractive than the male. The fins differ sharply from the male as they belong to the long-fin category. The dorsal fin and the tail are not well-erected. And there are traces of untidiness on the borders of the fins (first ray and last rays of the dorsal and tail.)

I don’t think I want to use them as parent as I suspect they show weak genetics. Mating them might not be a good move.

Fortunately, there is a hope out of my expectation.

To improve my Yellow Sakura Oranda line (Project #5), I crossed my Yellow Sakura Oranda (Diary 2021 #26) with the parent of my metallic Yellow line (Diary 2021 #25). The cross yielded two variants: Yellow Sakura and Yellow Metallic. Of course my main expectation was in the better quality of Yellow Sakura Oranda. I did not expect anything about the second variant. Unfortunately, the expected Yellow Sakura Oranda was also experiencing a drawback. The fins were untidy, the color was dominantly white, and the heads were almost bald! I think this is a big blow for me. For several months to come, I will have nothing to update on the Yellow Sakura line. Yet, surprisingly, the Yellow metallic fish that came from the same batch has tidy fins and good body shape quality! Mostly bald, though. I kept only one from source, the best one, with sufficiently good headgrowth. He is a male fish that I can be proud of:

Handsome, right?

The only weakness I see is in the lower lobe of the right tail. The curve is not perfect. But overall, this fish is a joy to me as it provides hope for my next generation of Yellow (metallic) Oranda.

What strategy do I employ?

Yes, as you can guess, I have no choice but to mate him with the weak female above. And the eggs are hatching today!

But that’s not all.

During all this time, I also managed to cross my Yellow metallic line to my Basic Material (Helen offspring). The results are redwhite oranda carrying yellow gene recessively. The fish are large, long, semi goosehead type, and moderately good finage. They have not laid eggs right now. If they do, I think I will also mate them with the handsome yellow male!

Exciting, right?

Please wait for the result!

For video of the handsome male, please check the youtube below:

Brown Oranda, The Diary of a Goldfish Breeder 2023

The Diary of a Goldfish Breeder 2023 (5)

Project #2: Brown Oranda

Last time I mentioned my Brown Oranda splitted into two lineage: the Dark Choco and the Tea-colored Oranda. I decided to focus on the Dark Choco one, since it is more unique.

This lineage of Brown Oranda diverged from my Blue Oranda line far enough to manifest different body features. My Blue Oranda line has a rounder body and well-erected tail. But it has weakness in its dorsal fin shape. The dorsal looks a bit thin. Some is good in its straight position while others is slightly curved or even a bit fallen to side. This Brown Oranda line is directly opposite to it. The body is a bit longer than the Blue one, and the dorsal looks thick and strong with a sharply straight position. The weakness is in the tail, which is not so well-erected.

I am happy with these differences since they provide me with materials to improve both lineages through cross breeding.

These are three of my Dark Choco:

As you can see, the dorsal fins are pretty uniform. This become their strength.

The dark brown color is also consistent, which is another point to value. There is a special observation I made regarding this color. This dark brown color usually comes with white color in part of its tail, while the tea (or light) brown color has totally uniform color in all its parts. Could this be that the dark brown is actually the exact same pigmen but more condensed than the light one? I do not know about that. But there is another significant different among these two types: in the light brown one, when the brown color fades, the occuring color is always (as far as I observe) orange color. So, it is possible to have brown and orange pattern in a fish coming from the fading light brown color. But the dark brown one has the capacity to introduce white color in its pattern, which the light brown one does not have. So, it is possible to have brown and white pattern (or even brown, red and white) pattern coming from the dark brown lineage. Isn’t it amazing?

In fact, the third fish was brown and white fish before. But then the brown color takes over to make the body totally dark brown and leave the white to the tail. So, this is another unique feature: the ability to remelanize (to reintroduce the dark brown color that had faded)

Back to analyzing the fishes, their body lengths are different. The second fish has the longest body, while the third one has the shortest (roundest) type. The first one is the medium length type. So there is no uniformity in the body length.

The tail is varied, also, with the second fish becomes the weakest.

Well, after analyzing the strength and weakness of this dark brown lineage, I think I am happy with the current result. I am also excited to see the possibility to improve them in the future. My best pair is the first fish (male) and the third one (female). I am also thrilled to see whether I can create the brown, red, and white stable pattern. If so, it will be an interesting alternative to the current tricolor (black, red, and white pattern) in the market. It will be a pattern I have never seen during my whole life time!

For the video please see the youtube below:

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:

purple oranda, The Diary of a Goldfish Breeder 2023

The Diary of a Goldfish Breeder 2023 (3)

Project #3: Purple Oranda / Lavender

Currently I have two lines of Purple Oranda. One comes from the Blue line, and another from the brown line. I will update only the first line at this moment.

As you might have known, I have crossed purple and blue many times such that my blue oranda lineage carries the purple genetics recessively. The blue oranda parents I mentioned in the diary 2022 #19, which I thought were purely blue, turned out to produce a little percentage of purple! So, without any effort, my Project #1 to create blue oranda rewards me with a succesful outcome for Project #3. The quality of the purple oranda is roughly similar to their blue brothers and sisters.

These are five of them:

These are young fish. I am satisfied with their quality right now. I am sure they will turn into beautiful specimens several months to come. Two things I need to improve: the dorsal fin and the pattern. Some fish shows weakness in its dorsal fin, namely the first ray. Concerning the pattern, I am hoping to have more brown color staining the purple to make the ochiba patterns. I consider the ochiba pattern to be more desirable than plain purple.

I will update these fish again when they are mature in shape.

For those interested to see their video, please visit the youtube link below. Thank you.

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!

hermantogoldfish

My projects on Goldfish

Tag Archives: oranda