From Fry to Fish

I am going to show you some photos of the development of one particular fantail goldfish.

3 week old fantail fry.

8 month old fantail fry in the same contain as the photo below.

22 month old fantail in the same container. He is definitely double in size.

2 Year Old Fantail Goldfish

It has been 2 years since I spawned some fantail goldfish. The babies have done surprisingly well and have grown to a nice size, almost the size of their parents. I have 3 calico and 1 white which I will grow to full size. I hope that this year they have another growth spurt and get a lot larger.

Calico 1 - This one is the largest.

Calico 1

Calico 2- This one is the smallest.

Calico 2

Calico 3 

Calico 3

The two mystery goldfish I think are a type of oranda or ranchu. They are developing head growths. Also they have started to turn white. It looks very interesting at the moment as one of them almost looks like a panda goldfish. If I manage to catch them, I will post pictures of their colour transformation.

Last Years Babies

So my little babies have grown up into very beautiful fantail goldfish...I would almost hazard to say they look more like Ryukins. They are all starting to get these nice arches on their backs and nice big bellies. So here are some of the babies, 1 year since hatching. All are about  3 inches long and have nice shapes.

This little guy is my favourite. He has a beautiful body shape.

This little matt also has a nice shape.

The belly on these babies is so nice and large! 

Blue and Brown Metallic Fantail Goldfish

I decided I would try and catch and look at some of the other fantails I have in my pond. I have two fantails which I thought were black and since they are so hard to see in the pond, I have been unable to catch these two males for years. So today I thought I might try again. And I was successful at catching one. Now he isn't a perfect shape and he has an unusually small dorsal fin, but he is a blue metallic fantail goldfish with a brown spot. He is quite beautiful.

I managed to catch the other male blue and brown metallic fantail. He has a much nicer body shape and a complete dorsal fin. Although the lighting is not great in these photos, you can see his interesting colours.

A Sunny Day In Winter

Yesterday was a beautiful sunny day. In fact, it was so warm that my fantail goldfish decided they wanted to spawn. Unfortunately for them, that sunny warm weather was not to last. Today, winter is back. However, the nice warm weather gave me the opportunity to look at some of the baby fantail goldfish from last May.

Here is this beautiful pinkie. He is awfully cute and he has a beautiful tail. 

Here is a top view video of him swimming around. He is a little cutie! 

This little guy has a lovely tail. It is really long compared to the others. But it sure is beautiful! 

 I like this one a lot. He has such a neat mix of calico colours. He is what I think a true calico should look like. Although of course, he is not a perfect calico, he has a nice mix of orange, black, and white with a hint of blue.

Here he is swimming around from the top view. 

This one is really unique. He has two black spots on his head. But he has a very nice round, egg-like body.

Fantail Goldfish in Winter

The winter season is nearing its end and the young fantail from May seem to be doing very well in the big pond. They seemed to have grown over winter as well as develop some nice colours. I am not feeding them yet as it is too cold, but it seems like they are doing well and swimming around finding their own food.

The photo above and below is one fish I caught to see how they are doing. They have all developed some lovely, vibrant colours. Here you can see how bright their orange has become and more distinguished they black markings are. I think these babies are growing into some nice fantails perfect for my pond.

Babies at 9 months old. I guess they aren't babies anymore. 

Here is the fantail goldfish above swimming around. 

Genetics of Calico Fantail Goldfish

I have always been fascinated with genetics. Although I am by no means an expert, breeding goldfish does have its benefits to see the affects of genetics. There are three categories of goldfish, metallic, matt and nacreous.

Nacreous Scaled Fantail Goldfish baby

Metallic: These fish have a lot of guanine present. Their scales are highly reflective and they look like metal in the sunlight. Metallic goldfish have two dominant genes, lets say SS.

Matt: These fish appear to have translucent or flat coloured scales. There is no reflective colouration. Matt goldfish, which are white and lack colour have to recessive genes, lets say ss.

Nacreous: This is a fish with a mix of translucent and reflective scales. Nacreous goldfish have the genes, Ss.

Most calico goldfish are nacreous goldfish, they have undertones of colour in their skin under the translucent scales and other colours in the reflective scales.

In the recent breeding, I spawned two nacreous goldfish. The resulting fry by these predictions should be as follows:

               S              s


S           SS              Ss


s            Ss              ss

This means there is a 25% chance of metallic goldfish, 25% chance of matt goldfish, and 50% chance of nacreous goldfish.

In my spawning, 60% are nacreous goldfish and 40% are matt goldfish. Now these numbers are different than predicted, but considering the fact that I selected only the two-tailed fry, these numbers are possible.

I have not yet considered the affects of colour, but from looking at the nacreous goldfish babies, they seem to be an even split between the parents.

Now, matt goldfish tend to be less impervious to cold weather, I hope they last the winter, since they are very beautiful babies.