Better late than never, guys! Sorry it took so long, but I moved, and was without internet access for a frightening 10 days!! Here we go for the month of June! Enjoy!!

Goldfish of the month June: The Ryukin
Origin
The Ryukin is one of the few fish not coming out of China. He is actually a "production" of Japan, and a very destinctive at that. The Japanese are very shy when it comes to letting their breeds out of the country, and despite of that the ryukin has turned into one of the more widely known and popular fish here in the U.S.

Body Features
To me, the ryukin has somewhat of a rubmarine kind of appearance, like a boxer in the water. His breed distinctive features are his deep body, almost as deep as the body length, and his softball like look because of that. His high dorsal fin make him look even bigger. Being a fancy goldfish, he has 2 anal, ventral and pectoral fins, evenly paired, and a few different caudal fin shapes, which can be longfinned, short tailed, ribbon, even butterfly, and latter one is a very beautiful feature viewed from above.
His most recognizable mark however is the humplike apppearance right after his head, and the higher that hump is, the higher quality ryukin you got.

Color options
First only available in red, the ryukin has been bred with a very wide variety of colors lately, among them being red, red/white, pure white, greenish, blue, calico and chocolate. Altough in a calico ryukin for some reason it is very hard to breed the very high hump into the line, so finding a calico ryukin with a well developed hump is a challenge, and when found is always a very appreciated fish at shows.



Challanges and feeding
With any deep bodied fish, swim bladder problem is always in the air, so certain precautions have to be taken, which have to begin when shopping for a ryukin. Stay away from any that are already obviously floating or head standing, since this is a sign of already progressed, and most likely, irreversable, swim bladder problems. A ryukin should be literally pushing the water aside when swimming, and being a very strong swimmer, that makes his appearance so forceful.
When bringing your fish home, make sure he gets the proper diet right from the start, to prevent any problems in the future. Stay away from any floating flakes and pellets, and even the sinking kind should be soaked first. Nitrates should be kept below 20 ppm, since constantly higher nitrates are thought to be part of the swim bladder problem. Other than that, a ryukin is a active and easy to take care of fish, and goes will with other goldies, although can be a pretty rough on any weaker fish like bubble eyes or telescopes. Orandas, lions and ranchu are perfect companion for the ryukin.
As for the rest of his diet, he basically gobbles down anything that hits the water and looks remote like food, so go ahead and indulge the fish - frozen foods like unsalted cocktail shrimp, krill brine shrimp, bloodworms, daphnia, the veggie group like spirulina flakes (soaked), algae, zucchini, lettuce, peas, and yes, aquatic plants (sorry, the ryukin does not stray away from the other goldie breeds' most favorite snack!), sinking pellets.

Basic requirements
Like a lot of other goldfish breeds, the ryukin is one of them that grow rather large, with 8-10 inches in good care and water mass. The minimum requirement when it comes to tank size would be at least 10-15 gl for a small ryukin, 20 gl and up for an adult sized fish. With his deep body he produces a lot of waste and ammonia, and will simply not grow to his full potential in a too small or overcrowded tank.
And for all of those with ponds outside, he loves them. There is so much more water mass available in a pond, and more natural food like algae, daphnia and mosquito larvae, so a pond ryukin will generally be bigger and hardier than one in a tank. But like most other goldies, take precautions when winter times approaches, and get the ryukin inside. And for most goldie breeds, separate them from the koi. The ryukin is no match for the fast moving and enormously big koi.

That was very interesting. Thank you for the effort, especially with the move you just did.
I love learning about all the different kinds of GF.

Laurie

Whoa! That's a beautiful fish. Great intro and bio. Thanks for showing it to us Andrea.

Andrea,

Very cool!!! Another favorite fish of mine. (p.s. gald your move went well) Here is a picture of my ryukin, Bucho, the very first goldfish that I ever bought....he is still alive and kicking with me!!! Enjoy!!

One more picture of Bucho. It's a little bit dark, but it shows off his beautiful long tail!!

anyone else with some beautiful ryukins and/or stories????

Andrea,as usual,that was a very informative article on the Ryukin!!!! You are very good at this fish of the month stuff! Erica,that was my first official goldie I bought after oranda man sent me 4 of his babies. I spotted this huge white Ryukin in a sea of fantails with a sale sign on it Fantails....$6.99 and I jumped on it..Unfortunately within a week ,the poor thing had died from swim bladder I think anyway. I thought the fish odd right from the beginning,but then shrugged it off thinking it had been so long since I owned goldies that maybe I just wasn't use to their ways. Afterall,it looked ok and was eating-but there was just something that I couldn't put my finger on...And when I did,it was too late. Needless to say,I was very upset!! By the way,your fish is very beautiful!

Sharon...Thankyou! Like you, my first three goldies were ryukins....all of which I still have. The other two that I have not posted in this thread, were the two that won "pic of the week" about three weeks ago. (it is my avatar) But here is a picture of one of them, Agent Orange. So far she is the only egg layers in the tank!!

That info is great Andrea, how do you get all the info on the goldies? do you look it up on the net? or is it just your own knowledge? either way, its terrific

Erica - Nice Ryukins Great pics of them

Erika, your ryukin looks beautiful! I especially like his finnage!
Sharon, sometimes its just strange about goldies, and we can't do anything about them dying. But he sure sounded wonderful....

Tanya, usually I grab a few of my books and search around on the internet for info on a particular breed, but this time I was without internet, and for the life of it still can't find Rick Hess' book either. So this one came entirely out of memory.... A lot about the fishes anatomy and background I find in some papers from the GFSA as well.

Keep the ryukin pics coming, I know they are out there in numbers!!

Thanks everyone!!

Oh, come on now, guys, there gotta be more ryukin out there, I am sure!! More for the photo gallery, please!

This isn't mine but I think it is a very good pic!

And this is an extremely lovely Ryukin!



And here is another pretty Ryukin!

Oh, my, those guys look huge!! And the perfect shape at that! Thanks, Josh!...

No problem.

I have two lovely calico Ryukin but can't post pics yet.

Ryukin are my FAVOURITES. I'm planning one or maybe two red and whites for my tank.

FancyFins, you can send them to me, I will post them for you - its RAJ-Pecher@msn.com. Just remember to put your username in the subject line, otherwise it gets kicked out!....

Thanks! koko's Ryukin is just lovely aswell

Thats my darling, Alexander. Koko put it up there for me, though! ....

I love Ryukins, but for some reason they're not that common in the UK. Very very rarely have I seen true ryukins for sale (and always when my tanks are already fully stocked, sigh).

I'll just have to enjoy looking at yours.

Thats okay,Emma, you got veils over there instead! Can we switch fish?

here is my boy Gabriel

Thanks for the info! I have a new Ryukin that I've had for 4 months now and she is growing fast! I live in fear of swim bladder disease which killed my Oranda after having him 6 months. My Ryukin flipped over for about 30 seconds today and I practically had a heart attack. I feed food that sinks and also add peas everyday. I have her in a 12 gallon tank which may not be big enough.

Can anyone tell if it's a boy or girl?

Very nice ryukin there, Valerie! Unfortunately, without any presence of breeding stars on the gill plates or the pectoral fins, it is really hard to tell. Unless of course the fish would suddenly drop eggs, then you'd know for sure as well. Did the fish every chase any other tank mates around, especially in the wee morning hours, or after a thunderstorm?