when will my blue babies turn??

[orandablue]

My fry are about two months old. When will i see any blue on them??Or chocolate? Dad is a blue oranda mom is a chocolate pom pom. thanks. Right now they are still ....wild colored. Please tell me they are not wild colored.

[bwleung]

Hi,

Assuming your blue (ie, dark blue) and brown goldfish are both metallic scaled goldfish, and not calicos (nacreous) shubunkins, then technically, all the babies will be wild bronze in colour and will not depigment.

The reason is the (dark) blue goldfish has a pair of recessive genes, and the brown goldfish has four pairs of recessive genes. However, when combined in such a cross, these recessive colour traits are overpowered by the dominant genes provided by the other fish parent in each case.

Any crossing between the two when they are pure recessive specimen of the blue and brown types will produce wild bronze silver grey babies. However, crossing these babies with each other when they grow up will produce the wild bronze silver grey, blue and brown fish, as well as intermediate between the blue and brown, eg, like the 'light blue' in blue phoneix egg goldfish. This was determined genetically by Dr S C Chen in 1934in his scientifc paper.

But do not despair, reason is:

However, most blue and brown goldfish nowadays are genetically impure (unlike 1930s) and the blue or brown colour are unstable, so the blue and brown goldfish nowadays often depigment later to white and orange respectively.

Therefore, your fish may be impure genetically despite they are the blue or brown types. Therefore, keep the babies warm and plenty of sunlight, some may then depigment to orange, white and yellow later on, though some may not depigment until their 2nd or 3rd years.

Hope that helps.

Kind regards

Bill

[orandablue]

I wanted a blue oranda with red pom poms!!!!! WAAAAAAA! Well they are still nice plumpy fish. Thanks for the info. I read one genetic book but figured they would turn brown. So will they at least have the wen and pom pom going on!??? Thanks for the info. I have been crossing a calico ryukin with the chocolate pom pom getting half solid and half nacreous. So the solids are probably not going to chocolate then? With the calico dad? I also did a blue oranda with a calico oranda. Would that equal a blue oranda? >or does that go wild too? (calico and blue) :youtellme: thanks

[Cincy Ranchu]

Hi,

Assuming your blue (ie, dark blue) and brown goldfish are both metallic scaled goldfish, and not calicos (nacreous) shubunkins, then technically, all the babies will be wild bronze in colour and will not depigment.

The reason is the (dark) blue goldfish has a pair of recessive genes, and the brown goldfish has four pairs of recessive genes. However, when combined in such a cross, these recessive colour traits are overpowered by the dominant genes provided by the other fish parent in each case.

Any crossing between the two when they are pure recessive specimen of the blue and brown types will produce wild bronze silver grey babies. However, crossing these babies with each other when they grow up will produce the wild bronze silver grey, blue and brown fish, as well as intermediate between the blue and brown, eg, like the 'light blue' in blue phoneix egg goldfish. This was determined genetically by Dr S C Chen in 1934in his scientifc paper.

But do not despair, reason is:

However, most blue and brown goldfish nowadays are genetically impure (unlike 1930s) and the blue or brown colour are unstable, so the blue and brown goldfish nowadays often depigment later to white and orange respectively.

Therefore, your fish may be impure genetically despite they are the blue or brown types. Therefore, keep the babies warm and plenty of sunlight, some may then depigment to orange, white and yellow later on, though some may not depigment until their 2nd or 3rd years.

Hope that helps.

Kind regards

Bill

I agree with this answer, nicely put! The Metallic blue X Calico cross realy depends on the purity of both fish, in the classic blue philadelphia lines, thios cross was routine....

[harzan]

I did this with Ranchus this last season...Blue Mother (metallic) X Wild father....all babies (with 2 or 3 blue) were all wild. BUT! just started turning dark orange. Many are changing from the belly up.

QUESTION! If I spawn these reds...what will I get?:worship:

[Virginia ranchu]

Harzan,

With metallic fish, I believe there are only two color pigments (Xanthine=red, and Melanin=black). The Guanine is the metallic pigment.

Every color variety is an effect of different doses of Xanthine and Melanin, plus a gene for demelanizing, which can be strong or weak. Blues would lack the xanthine, and chocolates are incomplete demelanizers with xanthine. I think a cross between a blue and a chocolate might effectively cancel out both color types and leave you with wild colored in the F1 generation.

In order to get a blue fish with red poms, you would be better off working with calico fish. I don't think it would be possible with metallics.

Cheers,

Rob

[mikeno]

Did a chocolate oranda x yellow hammerscale cross (to produce hammerscaled chocolate wakins). All of them wildcoloured at start, the ones that has demelanize are washed out orange. I guess a mix of a low dose red from the chocolate mother and a low dose of yellow from the father. If your fish should start to demelanize (low risk) they would most likely be low dose reds (pale orange).

The fat yellow-orange with black back and tail at my blog (http://blog.guldfisk.se/#post4) is from that cross.

I read somewhere that wen growth is not likely to appear when crossed to non wen strain. My guess pom poms behave just the same. You would have to wait for the next generation and maybe you still have to do a backcross to enhance something. I’m counting on a backcross to chocolate oranda to get more doubletails and better colour when the hammerscales are fixed.

This kind of challenges is most inspiring!

[bwleung]

I wanted a blue oranda with red pom poms!!!!! WAAAAAAA! Well they are still nice plumpy fish. Thanks for the info. I read one genetic book but figured they would turn brown. So will they at least have the wen and pom pom going on!??? Thanks for the info. I have been crossing a calico ryukin with the chocolate pom pom getting half solid and half nacreous. So the solids are probably not going to chocolate then? With the calico dad? I also did a blue oranda with a calico oranda. Would that equal a blue oranda? >or does that go wild too? (calico and blue) thanks”

There are a number of issues here:

Wens
As for the wen, wen is definitely genetically based, however, the exact mechanism is not determined scientifically with consensus. Though any non-wen and wen cross will diminish the wen in the offsprings. However, wen has also a lot to do with environment as well (apart from genetics), so even great wen parents will throw normal non-wen frys if raised incorrectly. Regardless, severe culling is required to retain the good wen offsprings to pass thru the generations.

Pompoms
Pom poms are simpler, it appears to be a simple recessive (1 pairs of genes involved), so unlikely you have poms poms in the offsprings. But you never know. Look out for those with extended narial (nasal) growths as the babies grow. Goldfish are prone to mutate, we took that to our advantage for the last 1000 years.

Calicos x chocolate (metallics)
“I have been crossing a calico ryukin with the chocolate pom pom getting half solid and half nacreous. So the solids are probably not going to chocolate then?”

Yes, solids (metallics) crossed with calicos (nacreous) will result in 50% of each. The solids will not turn chocolate, as chocolate require 4 pairs of recessive genes at work. When you breed these solids (metallics) offsprings with each other when they grow up, only 1:15 ratio will apply, ie: one brown fish to 15 wild colour (however, some may depigment to orange, yellow etc).


“I wanted a blue oranda with red pom poms!!!!!”


Blue oranda (solid metallic type)
Let me clarify again: When I wrote my original reply: Blue oranda, by that I mean a solid metallic dark blackish blue, is a metallic fish, and not a blue calico (nacreous) fish.

There are brownish bronze metallics with red pom poms already in existence, that is possible because the Chinese have achieved decolouration of the narial pom poms (nasal region) only as opposed to the whole fish, and this is achievable.

As to solid blue or light blue (phoenix eggfish blue) carrying red pom poms? Blue is a simple recessive, so if you mate a blue metallic with a blue metallics, the frys are born blue, they don’t depigment later on. If they do, they turn yellowish white (that’s showing traits of bad quality blue metallics parents).

If you really want to try this, I suggest you mate a blue fish with one such bronze brown with red pom poms fish. Although all the frys will be wild coloured. Select those with good poms (if any) and tendency to decolour on the pom poms region only. These frys if bred together when they grow up, then you will have in the second generation one quarter with pom poms. Colour wise: blue frys, wild grey frys, light blue frys, or brown frys, and some with patches of brown and blue. Hopefully, in this mix you will have some which are blue metallics yet adorned with orange nasal pom poms. Theoretically not impossible.

Blue oranda (calico type)
If your blue is a calico (nacreous) type, then it is unlikely that your babies will carry the blue like their parent. Good calicos came from inbreeding of good blue calico parents. An alternative may be selecting a dark blackish metallics and mate with a pink matts (note matts, not nacreous), sometimes good blue calico goldfish may result, but often slate grey instead.

Blue calicos with red poms, I think harder to achieve this than metallics. Reason is calicos are by nature quilt work of random colours, ie, shubunkins. To restrict the red in the nasal region is pretty hard. Takes longer than the metallic cross. Though there are calico blue red fish with red nasals. It will take a lot of time and efforts.

Harris’s Q:
“I did this with Ranchus this last season...Blue Mother (metallic) X Wild father....all babies (with 2 or 3 blue) were all wild. BUT! just started turning dark orange. Many are changing from the belly up.
QUESTION! If I spawn these reds...what will I get?”

If you spawn these reds, I suspect the following:
Your blue metallic mother is simple recessive, however your blue father is most likely a wild coloured ranchu that did not depigment (ie, came from a line of normally depigmented ranchus).

As they turned dark orange, that suggests that your wild ranchu came from a line of orange ranchus if it did depigment like its siblings.

Crossing these dark orange offsprings together, you will have one quarter blues theoretically. You will see them, as they are born blue. However, you will also note that these blue ranchu babies may then depigment to a yellowish white. Some may not depigment completely, ie, belly yellowish white, dorsal/backs still blue. The rest, three quarters will be either be bronze, reds, orange, yellow, etc. This is due to them pikcing up the depigment gene from the wild fish. Blue will depgiment to yellowish white if depigmentation is at work.


Goldfish pigments
Goldfish has three types of colour pigment genes only. Yellow (xanthophores), black (melanophores) and reddish-orange (xanthophores). Silver reflecting tissues (guanophores or metallics using common terms), this came from fish being evolutionary lower down the chain, they do not rid their waste well, some of these waste are deposited in their skins and scale membranes and they are guanophores). That’s why, once the depigment, yellow and reddish-orange combine to give us the orange colour, and that is the most common goldfish colour, and not yellow alone.

Hope that helps.

Kind regards

Bill

[bwleung]

“I wanted a blue oranda with red pom poms!!!!!”


Blue oranda (solid metallic type)
Let me clarify again: When I wrote my original reply: Blue oranda, by that I mean a solid metallic dark blackish blue, is a metallic fish, and not a blue calico (nacreous) fish.

There are brownish bronze metallics with red pom poms already in existence, that is possible because the Chinese have achieved decolouration of the narial pom poms (nasal region) only as opposed to the whole fish, and this is achievable.

As to solid blue or light blue (phoenix eggfish blue) carrying red pom poms? Blue is a simple recessive, so if you mate a blue metallic with a blue metallics, the frys are born blue, they don’t depigment later on. If they do, they turn yellowish white (that’s showing traits of bad quality blue metallics parents).

If you really want to try this, I suggest you mate a blue fish with one such bronze brown with red pom poms fish. Although all the frys will be wild coloured. Select those with good poms (if any) and tendency to decolour on the pom poms region only. These frys if bred together when they grow up, then you will have in the second generation one quarter with pom poms. Colour wise: blue frys, wild grey frys, light blue frys, or brown frys, and some with patches of brown and blue. Hopefully, in this mix you will have some which are blue metallics yet adorned with white (not orange) nasal pom poms. Theoretically not impossible.

The correction:
Blue metallics goldfish where the nasal region decolours can only give rise to yellowish white, not orange, as blue metallic goldfish are devoid of yellow and red pigment cells. Any depigmentation will throw white instead.

We have bronze metallic goldfish with decoloured orange pom poms in the world, someone keen enough will work on blue metallic goldfish with white pom poms! It may arise as a natural mutation among a batch of bronze metallics with ornage pom poms. Someone with a keen eye and attention to detail may pick out such a mutation and preserve this line.

Noe: Blue metallics with blue pom poms have been created.

Kind regards

Bill

[sc569]

I think that some people could benefit from a clarification of the metallic colors.

Wild type fish are bronze/green metallics.

If you add the trait to be pied (for the red pigment only), then the fish will be bronze with blue patches.

Adding the demelanizing trait (for the black pigment only), then the bronze/blue fish turns into a red/white fish. Most people don't pay attention to this since they turn colors so quickly. There are 4 alleles for the depigmenting trait and the more copies of it, the quicker the fish demelanize. If the fish only has one demelanizing allele, the black pigment can be retained for a year or more.

So, it is much more likely that most blue metallics are not true blues. They are simply red/white fish with the pied trait but no demelanizing alleles. They will look blue if the pied (white) areas are very extensive.

It could be even worse if they did carry one demelanizing allele. You buy your gorgeous blue and it turns to a white fish in a few months or a year.

A true breeding blue line that will produce all blue fish should not have any demelanizing alleles and no pied alleles. Any hint of bronzing is a giveaway that the fish is not a true blue.:)

[mikeno]

This is a cool blue fish (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQIlx0SVYpY) going true demelanizing I guess. Is this the darker blue, simple recessive, blue type or something else?
PS. Skip the first 50s boring intro.

[Ichthius]

Isn't that fish a calico? Then it should hold on to it's blue.

[harzan]

This is a calico and I had one of similar color, but not the quality. Color should keep so long as it does not have the fading gene. I have had blues that faded after spawning or other reason I do not know.

A real eye catcher though.

I just wonder what combinations will make this. Anyone know?

[sc569]

That fish is very nice looking.

It looks like one of the new tri-color metallics that also happens to be a calico. Very interesting combination.

[mikeno]

I found some more of them:
Butterfly (http://www.cngoldfish.net/goldfish/goldfish_butterfly/butterfly_2.html)
Calico butterfly (http://www.cngoldfish.net/goldfish/goldfish_butterfly/butterfly_8.html)
Dark butterfly (http://www.cngoldfish.net/goldfish/goldfish_butterfly/butterfly_3.html)
Moor (http://www.cngoldfish.net/goldfish/goldfish_moor/moor_5.html)
Ranchu (http://www.cngoldfish.net/goldfish/goldfish_ranchu/ranchu_6.html)
Ryukin (http://www.cngoldfish.net/goldfish/goldfish_ryukin/ryukin_2.html)
Common (http://www.cngoldfish.net/goldfish/goldfish_common/common_6.html)
Note the lighter calico butterfly that may indicate they could all be calico. The common tricolor looks more as a metallic blue with the orange color bleeding thru… Could they all be highly metallic calicos? Is this type of color possible to find among a normal calico spawn?

[orandablue]

just had to put my 2 cents in. Blue is the new black.>:)