Interesting. I saw a dog breeding show on PBS and they talked about defects that made me think.

I know that fish defects are very common in young fish. Question. Is selection of goldfish, or breeding goldfish in general, ever done where you consider the strength of the genes? Are goldfish one breed that is especially prone to defects or is that for all fish?

For instance, if you select for color only or fin size, you may introduce problems like low-resistance to disease or other problems.

The veiltails I'm breeding have what may be a genetic problem. The females tend to have a high mortality rate. I'd like to remove that from the "bloodline" to help bring back the breed. The Philadelphias are very rare and all too beautiful to loose.

Anybody every breed more towards strengthening the genes and not worry about how pretty they are, for instance? Or maybe how the fin-length, for instance, is up to standard. If the fins are smaller for a veiltail, perhaps they are less of a veiltail, but they could be stronger.

all types of fish have defects, its not just gf
however, in the wild, the ones with defects are eaten
by predators and thats why you don't see them
thats another reason why fish lay so many eggs
in the wild, only like 1% of fry survive to adult age

also something else to consider is the selective breeding of gf
as you mention, selecting fish for its characteristics often means
that that the fish suffer in terms of their immunity to disease
since their genes are limited they are more susceptible to diseases
i would imagine that you would get many defect in breeds such as pompom
thats why you have to pay more for them

even by breeding my comets which have very similar characteristic, i still
get a significant number of fry with defects and some with characteristics
that are present in the breeding pair

A complex question if anybody has some tidbits to share:

Is there a systematic way to breed to strengthen a breed such as the veiltail who needs stronger females, yet still keep their beautiful finnage?

Thanks in advance.

Ed, if I remember correctly, a breeder told me once that he adds a less attractive to the breed fish (say, a veiltail with a shorter finnage), to the breeding spectacle, just so the weakness of the following fry will get taken away a bit.
There used to be another veiltail breeder, an older lady named Janet Purdon, here in the US. Her fish were a bit hardier than Al's, but they never grew as big as his, and the finnage was a bit shorter as well.
For me, I rather have the long finnage the veil is so famous for, and have to take extra precautions to keep him alive.
It is extremely difficult to breed such delicate fish. The more you go into the details you want for the fish, the more you will notice the weakness, and the more you have to cull out the undesirable caracteristics. All you can do is pick the strongest group of fish with the most percentage to the "perfect" veil.
There is a breeder trying to breed the floating problems out of his group of ryukin, and what he does is he does not use any of the floating fish for breeding, only the ones that don't show that symptom. Over time, he is sure, if he only picks floating free fish for breeding, he might get rid of floaters in the group. Although the kind of food they get plays a major role in that theory as well....

Thanks Andrea. That only makes sense. I thought there might be a more "scientific" way of handling it. But if that's what the pro's do, then my task doesn't seem as daunting.

Do you know of anyone who may still have some hardy Philadelphia's? I'm thinking of just joining the GFSA's and ask around through them. I don't think Al want's his females to have so much trouble. I don't know if the "finnage" gene is any relation to the trouble they have, it's only one guess. But the simple approach of watching for females with problems would do the job. Apparently, these genes may be close on the strand of DNA which may make a fish more beautiful, but only weaken the breed in the long run.

If anybody hears of Philadelphias out there that could be bred, I may be willing to take a few more.

AS I understand goldfish genetics, it is one of more complicated schemes on earth. There are literally thousands of combinations, for not too many are "connected" to each other. In many species, color is connected to sex (even weakly as in orange female cats are less common than orange male cats. Calico males are non-existant -TRUE show definition calico that is). Goldfish genes tend to stand alone and are not linked in this fashion.

Because of this, almost every gene is capable of combining in any combination with any other gene, leading to thousands upon thousands of possibilities.

Fancy goldfish carry a tremendous number of what are called "fatal flaws". These are genes, that when they are used by the body in its makeup, will end up killing the fish at a younger age than normal. The fish has lower immunities, the body does not digest as easily or efficiently, the eyes do not work as well, the finage is placed in the wrong place for proper swimming ability, the growth hormones are in short supply or have too many or the improper combination, etc. All these factors cause a fish to be "less" than another fish of the same type.

When breeding it is nearly impossible to remove all the negatives from a line of fish. In many mammals, "culling" from the breeding program is what creates a superior line of creature. In creating guinea pigs, it is a balance between body type and color line and personality. Body type is the most important. If a cavy was not presenting the ideal body type or at least some outstanding feature in the area where a line needed improvement, then they were not bred. For example with fish, you wish strength but long veil tails, so you would want to include in your line the fish with the longest tails, as well as the fish that had the strength and immunities. The generations of these fish would then be selectively bred, combining all with long tails with any with longish tails and strength. Through the generations you should be able to produce a line of fish that OFTEN produces strong veil tails. Goldfish will NEVER be as close to a line of identical fish as the cavies can be, for there are too many combinations and too many "lethal" genes involved.

Line breeding means that you start 2 or 3 or 4 lines of fish that are only inter-bred between lines at generation 3-4 and then crossed out again. This prevents weakening of the line by interbreeding. Never breed a fish that does not have a quality or numerous qualities that you wish to reproduce. If a fish has NO tail, but immense strength, this fish could be used for generation 1, but should not be included in the future generations. Same for a very very weak fish with an outstanding tail. Keep careful records. And since fish change so dramatically over the first couple of years, you will need to observe the results of your program for that long. This may be difficult for it will involve a great many fish.

Cavy genetics is the easiest - 23 combining genes and most are linked. Fish genetics are even more difficult than human genetics.

I find this subject FACINATING and have been doing a great deal of book research into it. I do not have the facilites or the desire to go into the actual breeding aspect of it. If you do, I would love to hear about it!

That is VERY fascinating Daryl. It looks like I might think about a scaled-down breeding "facility". I might have team up with people or something. If you really want to be scientific about it, you'd have 50 tubs after only 3 or 4 years! Is that right? Just one experiment after another...

Is there a good book out there the might teach me more about "systematic" breeding? I could understand it, even if I couldn't do it!

The GFSA website has an article talking about this initiative:

http://www.goldfishsociety.org/philly_veil.html

"Interested breeders are working cooperatively to try to create robust strains of Philadelphia-style Veiltails. Strategies include the use of imported English stock, and out-crossing with other goldfish varieties, including Telescope Eyes, Ryukins, and Orandas. Great progress has been made, but much work remains to create a variety of stable color variants with a large enough base of breeders to ensure their continuation."

Ed, as far as I know, besides Al there is one other breeder, his name is Gary Hater, and he had some of his veils on Aquabid a couple of weeks back. I didn't like the finnage on them all that well though....
Joining the GFSA is definetely a great thing to do, most U.S. goldfish breeders and importers are in there.....
I found an interesting book about breeding goldfish on Ebay a few months back, but unfortunately, since I move this weekend, everything is in boxes. If my memory serves me right, it was something like "Goldfish breeding and generics or genetics" or something like that....

Cool. Now I think we're cooking. I can't wait to hear from GFSA. I just sent in my $25.00.

"Goldfish Breeding and Genetics: by J. Smartt, JH Bundell, E. Bundell et al.

Good book. Lots of good info. Worth owning.

Edit: I hate typos......

If this helps,

I had 7 goldfish in one tank...Some of them with great finage, some not....The one's that didnt have the finage of the others seemed like they would be stronger, but they died and I guess my fish with the BIG finage lived...I guess its possible to get a breed that has the long finage that u want and the strength against desieses.

hope it helped
Noah

Daryl, yep, thats the book!!

I got the book ordered.

Anybody know if Gary minds an email contact? I tryed to reach his email I found from a geo-cities web site. The "grhgoldfish@msn.com "doesn't seem to work anymore as it bounced back to me.

I'll see if I dig up another email address of him.....

Sorry, no luck! I got the same address than you, Ed!.....

Darn. GFSA also said Al's still the only guy. With the huge amounts that gary had it makes me wonder if he isn't breeding them any more. There are people in England doing it to. But they are calling it English Veiltail. They may need some competition.