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.

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.

purple ranchu, The Diary of a Goldfish Breeder 2023

The Diary of a Goldfish Breeder 2023 (6)

Project #11: Purple Ranchu

There is no shame in struggling. This blog is not a hall of achievement, but a diary of a journey. My purple ranchu has not yielded desirable result. But I think this does not discourage me at all.

In the previous diary 2022 (19) I posted the update of this project. The fishes have grown large and they are late in breeding. Some of them are semi purple ranchu, while others are purple and blue. No brown color here. Yes, I think I lose that lineage. Too bad. But I am sure I can easily revive them again. The offspring from these mixture will produce some brown color.

Semi purple 1 (male):

Semi Purple 2 (male):

Semi Purple 3 (male):

Purple 1 (Suspect female):

Purple 2 (Suspect female):

Purple 3 (Suspect female):

Purple 4 (male):

Blue with golden stain (female):

Well, observing their back curve, they are very rough. Not smooth at all!

But I see some interesting desirable features in them, namely the wide body (measured from top to bottom) and the small tail. Those two alone are good materials to produce beautiful ranchu unique enough compared to what is available in the popular market. Actually, I do not know why these “monstrous beauty” develop such features. I am not aware of any parent fish with such characteristics that I use in breeding. I take it as God-given, special for me. And I will try to work with these features as best as I can.

I love the wide body type because it portrays masculinity well. It reminds me of the Hulk.

The tiny tail is a feature gaining trends in Indonesia right now. I am glad I get this feature out of nowhere.

The weakness of these fishes are the rough back curve, the shape of the tail (mostly curved instead of straight, with bad angle). The headgrowth is in need of improvement also. Those are my homework.

To complicate the matter, these suspect females do not produce eggs so far. The only one that lay eggs is the blue one. Yes, it is the worst quality of all the females here. And it is not even purple. Adding to that, it is also difficult enough to arouse her to lay eggs. She will produce eggs only when I have kept her for 5 days in medication (with salt and methylene blue). She laid eggs twice with that method. No other normal methods will do for her. Strange, right? Her appearance is a bit unique for a blue fish. I was thinking she was a grey fish. But when I look at the head, tail and abdomen color, I realize she is a blue fish.

The only male purple ranchu is in no better quality. But I still use him because he is the only purple. His color might not show purple enough in this picture because he just come out from the quarantine tank (with methylene blue). You know, when the purple fish is dip in a highly concentrated methylene blue water, the fish tend to lose its purple color for a while to make it looks like blue fish. The purple color will reappear after several weeks.

So, I need to start this project with unsatisfactory parents. Will I succeed?

I am enthusiastic, for sure. I think I need two to four years to bring this project to satisfaction. And of course, I will open my eyes on the market to look for better materials to cross.

I only take the video of the long purple one. Enjoy.

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 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!

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.

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.

Purple goldfish, purple ranchu, The Diary of a Goldfish Breeder 2022

The Diary of a Goldfish Breeder 2022 (2)

Last year I made a plan to focus on improving my lines of Oranda. This year I will focus on ranchu breeding. Although I was preoccupied with Oranda last year, I managed to start early with my Purple Oranda improvement project. I bought a very bulky male ranchu. Unfortunately I did not document him well before he died. He was a large red white fish, with a very thick backbone. In fact, it was the backbone feature that attract me to buy him. The headgrowth was minimal, and no funtan. I mated him with a small, weak, and thin purple ranchu from my own line. But she had funtan feature in her headgrowth. I am sorry I take no picture of her, either. At that time, my purple ranchu vigor has decreased drastically, perhaps due to successive generations of inbreeding. My bad. I should be more responsible with my lineage.

Anyway, I took only one shoot from that mating pair. As expected, the results are all red white or red / orange fish. I selected the best few to prepare them for breeding. They looked promising. Most of them had strong and thick backbone. The majority also had wide body depth. Those are two features I am looking for. The back shape can be categorized into two: the round one and the flat one. The headgrowth is varied between minimal and lushly. Some might be categorized as hybrid or lionchu type of headgrowth. Satisfying stocks!

However, there is an alarming development. They have come of age, and no sign of mating activity! I have tried to induce the mating with no avail. At this point, I have no more purple ranchu in my collection. So, if these semi-purple fishes are sterile, then this purple ranchu project is doomed. My mind wanders far away. I already think about mating the male semi-purple with my female brown ranchu. This strategy can surely revive the purple ranchu. But, I only have two female brown ranchu left. And the same problem occurs. They have become so big with no sign of being productive. The most extreme thought I have is to start from zero again: to cross my purple oranda with ranchu. It will be another painful and long process..

Here are three male semi-purple ranchu:

There are two female, yet one is not in the best condition when I take these pictures. So, I only take this one:

This female has a problem with swimming straight. And she has a small tumour in her back. Yet, she is full of vigor, especially in the feeding time 😊 She is always the first one to devour the pellets.

Last month (Januari) I started to renovate my breeding area. I was compelled to move many tubs indoor. These fishes are among those I put indoor. It came as a surprise when in a certain morning I found them chasing this female! I was very happy.

I usually operate under the principle that the first eggs are weak. So, it is my custom to let go the first eggs. But in this case, I decided to collect the eggs. I fear that I might not have the second chance.

I hand-spawned them. I only used the first and second male, since they have the desirable round back bone shape. And they hatched well several days ago! Thank God!

After this first mating, they do not mate anymore. I quickly realize that they are not in a healthy condition. Perhaps due to the unfavorable climate. Many fishes fall ill at this moment. Right now, they are in quarantine. I am so glad I make the right decision to collect their first eggs.

These are some of the offspring:

I want to point out that the offspring of semi-purple goldfish will consist of two different color: the light one and the dark one. The light one is the purple color, which usually falls into 25% of the offspring. The dark one will become red or red white (50% of them are semi-purple and another 25% are true red / red-white). The following two pictures show the color comparison:

These two colors must be separated as early as possible since the light ones are usually weaker and cannot compete for food well with their darker siblings. I separated them one by one as soon as they are able to swim (the 2nd or 3rd day after hatching).

Yet, there is always one type of offspring that puzzles me. It has light color but there is a dark area in its body. I encounter this phenomenon always. Yet, I have never separated them to see what they become. I usually put them under the light color variation. But I cannot trace what they become when they grow into adolescence. I hope someday somebody can look into this in more detail. This is the appearance of the fish:

The latest update is that I have done my first culling yesterday. I have with me about 50 light color ones and 50 dark color ones. I am excited to see how their body quality will turn out.

Thank you for reading 😊

hermantogoldfish

My projects on Goldfish

Tag Archives: Purple