Tag Archives: 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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dancing queen, oranda, The Diary of a Goldfish Breeder 2022

The Diary of a Goldfish Breeder 2022 (10)

This update covers the evolution of my Dancing Queen (DQ) Project.

To refresh a little bit, my original DQ project was meant to create sideview tosakin. This was the best result from the year 2020 after several years of effort:

But I guess it was a lonely journey. I decided to terminate the project for good. I was struggling at that time. It was hard for me to let go my lovely babies. Just before I let go all my DQ, I made an unthoughtful move by mating my last DQ with a grey Rosetail Oranda. Perhaps in my subconscious awareness I was hoping that Oranda with DQ tail might receive better acceptance. As a result, I ended up with few beautiful grey Oranda like this:

But I quickly realized they could not display their beautiful tail in deep water pond. So, once again, I was thinking of terminating them. But, as before, I managed to unthoughtfully breed them before I sold them. And I think I hit a jackpot. Some of the offspring have flatter tail, making them more suitable for shallow water and top-viewing. So I kept three of them in my large shallow pond along with my tosakin. As the fishes grew mature, I was amazed with the development. One of them grew into a very beautiful fish. Every time I showed him to my friends, they cannot help marvel at its tail. It is visibly different from tosakin tail. And I cannot stop taking his pictures:

And this is the tail position when he swims forward:

The tail is way longer and larger than my Tosakin, and softer. There is a flavor of the rosetail effect which is absent in Tosakin. Yes, it is very similar to the Orchid Tail developed by friends in Thailand. Since it has no legal name yet, my friends and I call it Oranda Dancing Queen (Oranda DQ). And I think I would like to develop it further to be one of my signature.

Too bad, the female are not as good as this male. This is one productive female which I breed with him:

I hope there will be some decent offspring resembling the father.

But I think I need to improve its color and enhance the tail feature. So, I decided to cross the handsome male with Tosakin. I know, this might impact negatively to the headgrowth. But I think I can work it out later on. The tail might look closer to tosakin, but I think I can select some closer to the father. And these are some of the current results:

With this piece as the best, I think:

I can still see the softness characteristic of the tail.

So, my DQ has evolved into Oranda DQ.

Well, let’s wait how these babies will develop in the future. Will they grow their headgrowth? Will the tail become as handsome as their father’s? Let’s hope so!

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miscellaneous

Goldfish Now Unseen

Browsing through old books on Goldfish, I saw specimens I cannot find nowadays. In this writing, I want to mention three that capture my attention.

First, a celestial eye with headgrowth. This is rare. I have met two kinds of celestial goldfish: the popular celestial eye without dorsal (usually with slim body and long tail) and the celestial eye with pompoms (usually comes with short tail and thick body). From my experiment, I have created celestial eye with dorsal fin (Nicknamed Celestial Dragon according to Mr Lei in his youtube channel Goldfish Corner).

But there is another type of celestial I have never seen alive nor mentioned by anyone else. I find the fish in my old encyclopedia. In fact, it is the first book I read in my childhood that mentions goldfish.

The Indonesia edition has 1979 copyright. Very old! And it has only 1 page about goldfish, which I observed to my heart lots of time.

Beautiful goldfish for a child like me! I adopted the terms Hanabus, Seibungyo, Chakin, and more without knowing what they meant. At the heart of this picture is a weird kind of celestial:

This celestial has a headgrowth!

Well, nothing else I can say about it. No other information. It remains an out-of-this-world goldfish for me. Yes, there is a temptation to recreate it. But as I think again, I do not know if I want to do that. The fact that this specimen existed once but no more might be a hint that something might be wrong with it. Perhaps there was not enough market. Perhaps the fish lost a certain function which make it unable to survive. I do not know. I think a headgrowth like that (seems to be like a goosehead type) might intervere with the eyes, in terms of both the functionality and the appreciation – a conflict between two features). Yet, it remains a mysterious fish for me.

Second, a rare ranchu color from Joseph Smartt and James H. Bundell’s “Goldfish Breeding and Genetics” (1996):

On top of page 67 I see a beautiful but rare color:

There is no description about the color. I try to observe this picture many times to figure out if this belongs to metallic or transparent scalation category, but I just cannot be sure about it. And I have no idea of how to create such color! It occurs to me if this was a real fish or just a redwhite fish painted with black marker. But knowing the reputation of the author, I believe it was a real fish. This specimen reminds a mystery to me. Do tell me if you can throw some light on how to create this coloration.

Third, a rare oranda color from “Goldfish in Hongkong” by An Urban Council Publication (1993):

On page 43 there are pictures like these:

And this is the description:

Strange color, right?

For sure I have never seen such a color on the internet nowadays. I also do not know how to create such a fish. The description gives a hint that it has something to do with blue fish (blue metallic scale, I think). But how come the blue color only appear in the face of the fish in a uniform way?

Those three specimens are in the top category of the most mysterious goldfish for me. It will be a delight if one day someone will revive them.

Enjoy.

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Brown Oranda, The Diary of a Goldfish Breeder 2022

The Diary of a Goldfish Breeder 2022 (8)

Color exists in spectrum.

When we say red goldfish, we must understand that there are different kinds of red with slight differences among them. The same case happens in other types of goldfish color.

In this opportunity, I would like to present two types of brown color I observe in my goldfish collection. In the previous diary (#7) I posted my current development of brown oranda. The color reminds us of the color of tea:

Actually, when I do a project – say, the brown oranda project – I do not just do one mating / crossing. I do several different pairings in the same period of time. One of the pairs produces the tea-colored oranda above. But another pair, which I must admit I did not document it well, results in a darker colored brown oranda. The color looks like the color of dark chocolate, I think. And it has a beauty of its own! Here she is:

This is the video link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rqSy4SucwvQ

This dark choco oranda seems to be from slightly different lineage from the tea colored one. Yes both of them have cute little hump and similar headgrowth type. Both have good body depth (width). But the dark choco has a bit longer and thicker body, and smaller tail type. And I think there is an important feature to note: while the tea-colored has the color in all its body, including the tail, the dark choco can develop white color (or no pigment) in its tail! I used to think that the white color cannot coexist with the brown. Usually, when the brown color fades, the fish will reveal orange color. But this dark choco forces me to revise my understanding. The white color can coexist with the brown color! Aesthetically, it is beautiful. If the white color can exist in its tail, perhaps one day I will see the white color occurs in the body to create the brown (dark brown) and white goldfish. It will be amazing!

I do not know what creates this different spectrums of brown. I also do not know why the white color can occur in this dark choco girl. But when I see the development of this dark brown color, I immediately fall in love. Right now, if I must choose one brown color to be my line, I do not know which one will I choose. As a hobbyist city breeder, I do not think I can afford both.

Which one do you prefer?

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Brown Oranda, purple oranda, The Diary of a Goldfish Breeder 2022

The Diary of a Goldfish Breeder 2022 (7)

Finally, this is the update on my Purple and Brown Oranda projects – half way. I think I have done a lot of improvements on these two lines. Let me start with my Purple Oranda project.

This is the purple oranda I had in the beginning of this project:

Skinny fish, with minimal headgrowth.

After working on it for a year, I have made significant improvement, I think. These two are the best I currently have:

Do you like them? 😊

The improvement is in the body depth (width) and thickness, the headgrowth, and the tail erection. And yes, I can see they have beautiful little humps, which I do not know where they come from. I have never used any ryukin in the crossing.

Now, let me remind us of my previous line of brown oranda:

This brown oranda project has also made some improvement. These two are the best results right now:

Improved, right?

At this point, I am tempted to consider this project as final. I love the shape of these purple and brown oranda at this current state. But I keep reminding myself that this is the half way result of a two years project. Well, what more do I want to improve? I still want to improve the headgrowth, and if possible I want to elongate the body just a little bit more.

Anyway, I am satisfied with my current result. Hope you all enjoy these results as I do.

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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 sakura oranda

The Diary of a Goldfish Breeder 2021 (26)

The new project I take this year is the Yellow Sakura Oranda.

It just occurred to me last year that it might be interesting to cross Sakura Oranda with my Yellow Goldfish. I pictured a goldfish with soft color skin as Sakura Oranda but the color is yellow white instead of red white. But I was not so sure about the upcoming result. Would the cross yield the color I imagined? Or would it be just orangish color which could not be clearly differentiated from the sakura color? Some transparent color goldfish have yellowish color, would my cross yield something differentiable from that?

I did this project out of curiosity. I just want to know.

After I separated the transparent from the metallic scale in the F1, I got all sakura color (red white). This is as expected, since yellow is recessive to red. I got the yellow color in the F1. Strangely, some of them had black marking. Perhaps the sakura oranda I used in the crossing was carrying the calico genetics. They were not perfect.

This one was not neat. The fins looked weak. Yet, I could confirm the color as yellow instead of red. I was very glad with this first result in terms of color. When I write this blog, the fish is no more.

The second yellow sakura had some improvements. The fins looked good, the body shape was more stout. The yellow color was a bit too little, but it was ok. I really liked this one. I managed to cross this with my metallic yellow oranda once, and this guy died.

I was left with several yellow sakura offspring.

One thing about sakura coloration is that the pattern counts. When the red color is too dominant, or when the red and white pattern was too plain (such as half the body is red and half is white), the fish becoming uninteresting for me. I consider a combination of red and white in proportional amount with some red islands as good pattern. I applied the same appreciation standard to my yellow sakura. So, I culled out a lot with dull pattern, and kept just one precious gem. This one piece is the one I currently have. The body quality is good enough, although there is a slight defect in the lower tail lobe and the dorsal which disqualify him from the contest. But, I found the pattern very beautiful. I think I can see two cartoon eyes in the pattern. And the soft yellow color combined with the milky white is more than I can expect. I also succeed in getting rid of the black pigment from the fish.

I take several pictures of him. Please enjoy. Merry Christmas.

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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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Brown Oranda, The Diary of a Goldfish Breeder 2021

The Diary of a Goldfish Breeder 2021 (24)

Update on Brown Oranda Project.

Among my Blue, Purple, and Brown projects, the Brown is the least successful from the start. But there are two developments I can report.

First, I manage to secure my old brown oranda line. So, basically, there is no upgrade yet but I do not lose the seed. I keep two of them. One has a good brown color, another one turns orange with some brown marking remains. The rest of the sibling are either defected or turning into orange fish, so I do not keep them.

Both of them have neat fins. The body shape is not bad, but not stout enough. The headgrowth is still minimal. I do not plan to breed them purely, so I mate the brown one with my purple oranda. The cross between brown and purple always produces both color types, so I will always have the brown without the need to breed brown x brown. I do not see the need to use the second fish in my breeding project. After doing the cross (brown x purple), I plan to let go both of them.

Second, when I breed Helen with her sibling in order to create purple oranda (Helen and her sibling are semi purple oranda), I get several brown color alongside the purple. So, without using my old line of brown oranda, I can get a new line of brown oranda. They are still young right now, I haven’t taken any picture of them. They seem to have different character from my old line. Yet, I still face the same problem of them turning into orange color. They left me with few decent brown color.

So, although my brown oranda breeding project was not successful in the beginning, I am lucky enough to get two different lines of brown oranda right now which I can use to continue the project.

Thank you for reading.

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oranda, Purple goldfish, The Diary of a Goldfish Breeder 2021

The Diary of a Goldfish Breeder 2021 (23)

Update result on Purple Oranda Project.

There was a big gamble in this project. I mated my previous line of purple oranda with my basic material. That’s it. Other plans did not work. So, if this single effort failed, I would lost my purple oranda line. Well, I did not worry so much about it since I could still revive the line using my blue and brown crossing all over again.

I waited the offspring of this semi oranda to mature. They grew very fast and big, a good sign of gene vitality. One of them is, you guess it, Helen! When the time came, I mated Helen with her own sibling. The setbacks come in the form of color instability. Most of them turn white. So frustrating!

I collected only four offspring with stable purple color. Two of them had slight defect which I did not want to use as the next parent, so a new friend from India adopted them. Now I am left with two purple oranda. For my purpose, it is enough.

Here they are:

The top fish is male, the bottom one is female. Obviously the male is far more beautiful than the female in terms of the body shape, dorsal, and tail. A friend asks if I infuse ryukin genetics to him. No. In fact, I do not have any ryukin project. I do not even have any ryukin for a long time. Then, how come I get that round body with hump? I do not know. None of his parents nor grandparents have that shape. I think that is the beauty of breeding. Sometimes we get surprises along the way.

Anyway, I am satisfied with the current result. Doesn’t mean that there is no more to improve. On the other hand, there are lots of them! First, comparing the two siblings, I know that there is no uniformity. That alone is something to work for. Second, the headgrowth is uniformly lacking. Third, concerning the body shape, of course the male is better. But I would like a slightly longer body. About the tail, well, If I can maintain the tail quality of the male fish, it will be superb. Perfect tail, in my opinion. The dorsal fin is an issue. Yes, the male has an outstandingly high dorsal fin. It is nice to see. Yet, it looks fragile. I will be satisfied with lower but strong dorsal fin.

Before I forget, let me repost my previous line of purple oranda. Don’t you think I have made lots of improvement?

For friends who are still confused about the difference between purple color and blue color, I take this picture:

The fish in front is the purple, or also called lavender. The one in the back is the blue, or also called platinum.

These last weeks I have started to move on with this projects:

  1. I mated the male purple oranda with my brown oranda (which I will update shortly). The purpose is to prevent the purple genetics from being saturated. That is why I do not plan to inbreed these siblings (purple with purple).
  2. I mated the male purple oranda with Helen. Yes, I do a backcrossing to his mother. And I will be very cautious to plan my next move. My purpose is to get stable purple color in the shape of Helen
  3. In my previous post (#22) I mentioned a white oranda (blue oranda that lost its melanin) with a desirable body shape. I mated him with Helen. Since the mating is between a genetically blue fish and a semi purple fish, the offspring results in a certain percentage of purple color.

Those three moves have been done. In the coming months I will have three lines of purple oranda which will give me more freedom to do the next crossing or to choose which line is the best. My only worry is the stability of the purple color.

Well, let’s see. I will update the results perhaps in the next five or six months.

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