How to make calico wakins

[mikeno]

I will try to “make” calico wakins this spring. I have red and white wakins, calico ryukins and short finned shubunkins to cross. Does anyone have any ideas witch cross will give the best result? My guess is:

Wakin x ryukin - many double tails in different length, hardly any blue in the nacreous, enough wakin bodied individuals. May eventually be backcrossed to Ryukin for better blue coloration but with some ryukin humps. Fair cross.

Ryukin x shubunkin - Good blue colour but very few double tails and in different length, but also some good individuals. If enough good individuals, f1 to f1 will give some calico wakins I think. The smartest cross?

It looks like I either will lose the blue colour or the double tails. With one is easiest to restore?

[Fishdork]

I think it would be easier to get the double tails back again. My main focus with calico fish is trying to get or keep blue color in a bloodline of fish. Wakins have such common features, I think it would be easiest to collect the parts you need from other calico varieties and not even use real red and white wakins. A few years ago I wanted calico wakins with blue. I crossed a calico ranchu to a red and white wakin. The calicoes were orange, white and black (no blue). At one year old the metallics turned orange and the calicoes lost their black color (group photo). I decided getting blue calicoes was unlikely in future generations, though some would probably have stable black in the next generation of inbreeding.
The photo with two fish has a calico ranchu hybrid and a metallic wakin from unrelated stock. The hybrids have large bellies and heavier peduncles, but look more like wakins than I expected.
I crossed wakin (male) to common goldfish and got 100% single tails in first generation (didn't go any farther).
I crossed a nymph ryukin to a midnight shubunkin and got some tri tails and maybe some web tails (maybe 10%?) in first generation. First generation I only saved long bodies, (didn't think of regaining the ryukin shape until it was too late). Third generation I used two single tails and I think more than half are double or tri-tailed. Some have humped backs and some are a little fat, but a wakin shape wouldn't be hard to get. I guess my point is expect to get double tails back, but I can't guess how many.
My suggestion is avoid mixing orange fish or long tails into the mix. I suggest the short tail shubunkins crossed to a ranchu or lionhead if you had one with good color, otherwise the shubunkin X ryukin sounds fine, but I don't know how hard it is to fix the tails all short.

Norm

[mikeno]

Thanks Norm, good pictures.

I guess I’m stucked with the ryukins. It’s hard to find anything but “fan tails”, black moors and red caps here. I have seen lionchu type fish some years ago but the short tails seems to be restricted to ordinary goldfish and some shubunkins. I will go with the shubunkin x ryukin cross, I guess the short fins can be selected and kind of fixed in a few generations.

No oranges fish you say, I guess the yellow colour works like the orange… My plan is to do a second nacreous cross, yellow common x ryukin to make something like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xGmNdCLJRT0&feature=related

Originally the yellow cross was planed to be a false Sunburst (nacreous instead of bluebelly) but when I found the yellow/black on YouTube I saw the possibilities to make both false sunburst and yellow/blacks in the same line. In the future I will add albino and in theory and if carefully selected parents the line will produce: yellow metallic (if they demelanize), albino yellow metallic, nacreous yellow/blacks and albino nacreous yellow. It may take some time to get there…

[mikeno]

Got this link with calico wakins for sale: http://www.ladyfishwakin.com/index.html . Nice site but it made me somewhat confused…

The term midnight are used for fish that looks like a ordinary calico offspring, see fish ID LFW110027, and all the wildcoloured(?) fishes ID 101,105,106 and 109. Compare to the midnights at Goldfish Garage (http://goldfishgarage.blogspot.com/search?updated-min=2008-01-01T00%3A00%3A00-08%3A00&updated-max=2009-01-01T00%3A00%3A00-08%3A00&max-results=38). Could this be right?

[Veil Gal]

Perhaps a cross with an edonishiki would be appropriate.

[mikeno]

To late for edonishiki, even if they would have been great. The shub x ryukin cross hatched some days ago and there are thousands of them! Even if only a few percent happens to be doubletailed or trilobed, it would be plenty of them. Otherwise there is a good chance I could find some high quality calicos. I need to buy more artemia!

[bekko]

Was that a metallic ryukin??? A shubunkin crossed to a metallic ryukin will not work. You will get shubunkin with very little black and metallic fantails. That is, unless the metallic ryukin is from a pairing of calico ryukin. Then you have a small chance.... I think it is 1:128 or something like that.

The larger problem will be getting a strong peduncle and typical wakin tail out of that cross. A wakin tail has more substance than either the shubunkin or ryukin and it takes a stronger peduncle to handle it.

-steve

[Guenther]

Even if only a few percent happens to be doubletailed ...

I look forward to the result - thought the single tail is dominant and the dobble tails appear in F2?

[mikeno]

The males are calico ryukins, the female a shubunkin.

http://i622.photobucket.com/albums/tt304/mikenophotos/tre.jpg

http://i622.photobucket.com/albums/tt304/mikenophotos/blue.jpg

Did not even think of the peduncle… Reading Norms experiences my plan was
to cull for colour, then body shape and leave the doubletails to f2. Since I got thousands of fry my eager to get doubletails took over. If the peduncle will be hard to get maybe I should cull for:
1. Good calico colour. Should be no problem.
2. Body shape. With focus on a powerfull singletailed peduncle.
3. Singletail with substance (is it possible? Not sure what you mean…)

Guenter – The origin of the shubunkin is unknown, therefore it may appear some doubletails. I do not count on it. The shubunkin is shortfined like a London shub.

Working without an official standard here… Until I find one I’m going for good colour at vital powerfull fishes.

[mikeno]

Sorry, forgot the shortfins. I guess the selection would be:
1. Nacreous
2. Good calico colour. Blue, white, red, black and combined effects.
3. Powerfull body
4. Shortfins with substance(?)
Or will the bodyshape be obvious before the colours? I guess they I will cull for both of them as soon as possible.

[Guenther]

Sorry, forgot the shortfins. I guess the selection would be:
1. Nacreous
2. Good calico colour. Blue, white, red, black and combined effects.
3. Powerfull body
4. Shortfins with substance(?)
Or will the bodyshape be obvious before the colours? I guess they I will cull for both of them as soon as possible.


Mikael,

for a long stable deep blue you need late demelanizer metallics too! Don't cull all the metallics.

[mikeno]

I have read about keeping the metallics but never totally understand why. If I can find a very late demelanizing metallic, I will probably be able to find a very stable blue calico. Is there a difference? I understand the blue colour may be affected by demelanizing gene, both being black. But at the calico I can see the amount of red. I theory, to me a late demelanizing metallic could be totally red or be all white underneath the wildcoloured layer…

[mikeno]

Peduncle… we are talking “top viewed” wakins here!?

[Guenther]

I have read about keeping the metallics but never totally understand why. If I can find a very late demelanizing metallic, I will probably be able to find a very stable blue calico.

Maybe - but, when I bred these fish the offspring lost their colour intensity and their black patches in the next generations.

[mikeno]

Ok, that’s a good reason to keep some metallics. Thanks for the advice.

It also leads me to the next question… The wildcoloured metallics are rather boring, is it possible to co-breed black metallic goldfish with calico?

[Guenther]

...is it possible to co-breed black metallic goldfish with calico?

Calicos are a cross between metallic and matt goldfish.

If you cross calico and calico you get 25% metallics, 25% matt and 50% calicos.
If you cross calico and metallic you get 50% metallics and 50% calicos.
If you cross metallic and matt you get 100% calicos.

Use the late late demelanizer metallics from your blue calico cross for stable blue and dark coloured fish.

[mikeno]

Out of 3-4000 fry I got one fairly good doubletail and one not so good. Both are nacreous I think. None of them will be used in future spawnings since I’ve got better and bigger singletails.

[tracey_shafer]

Got this link with calico wakins for sale: http://www.ladyfishwakin.com/index.html . Nice site but it made me somewhat confused…

The term midnight are used for fish that looks like a ordinary calico offspring, see fish ID LFW110027, and all the wildcoloured(?) fishes ID 101,105,106 and 109. Compare to the midnights at Goldfish Garage (http://goldfishgarage.blogspot.com/search?updated-min=2008-01-01T00%3A00%3A00-08%3A00&updated-max=2009-01-01T00%3A00%3A00-08%3A00&max-results=38). Could this be right?

Wanted to clear that up #27 is the offspring of a blueblack spawning. I get several of the black & white spotted wakins from their spawnings. I also get pure white that develop black sumi later in the fins, on lips very interesting to watch develop.

[tracey_shafer]

Here are a few of just Calico's
http://media6.dropshots.com/photos/472911/20100417/161352.jpg (http://www.dropshots.com/tracey_shafer#date/2010-04-17/16:13:52)
http://media7.dropshots.com/photos/472911/20100417/161506.jpg (http://www.dropshots.com/tracey_shafer#date/2010-04-17/16:15:06)

http://media6.dropshots.com/photos/472911/20100417/161706.jpg (http://www.dropshots.com/tracey_shafer#date/2010-04-17/16:17:06)
http://media6.dropshots.com/photos/472911/20100417/162507.jpg (http://www.dropshots.com/tracey_shafer#date/2010-04-17/16:25:07)

[bodenseebille]

Hello Tracey,
nice fishes you have!
How did you cross, any pictures from mummy and daddy?