My BT fry are almost 8 weeks old now. They are between 3.4 to 1 inch in total length. The calicos are taking on color, but the reds are still very green. MAny are impressively deep bodied - and have wonderful tails. May are developing nice little humps, too!

I am a bit frustrated.

1. I cannot seem to take a decent picture to save my life. I need to import Riz with his wonder-camera.
2. The 2 with the biggest and best bodies, the straightest edged tails - enormous dorsals are not right. One is a tripod and one is joined together at the top too much. RATS! But there are many in there that look to become very nice fish - maybe even similar to their daddy, I hope (Dad was Sterling - grandfather was Sterling, too).

Here is the best picture I could get....

All I can say is WOW! They are such perfect miniatures with fabulous coloring! I want 1... or 5!

All I can do is repeat what glitterfish already said... Wow! They're amazing!! So pretty! And so many!
That picture would be so pretty on a wall!! And she says she can't take a decent picture to save her life.

Debbie

I love the way you are so fussy about the details!! To me they all look just perfect.
I can see lots of deep bodies already in there .

Lots of nice looking babies there. Are you culling? If so, what are you looking for at this stage?

This particular spawning was amazingly good. I have had to cull some, yes. I took out most of the tripod tails, the standard tails, the long-forked tails. I had a few single tails that a friend took. I have kept 3 of them for another friend. One, in particular is an AMAZING fish - except it has a single tail.

There are a few in there that are not developing very fast - not as fast or as deep as their mates. Those will most likely be culled. IF they have particularly gorgeous tails or colors and tails, I may sell them to the fish store - for they may be pretty fish.

For a Ryukin, I look for a deep body with a beginning hump. In these, I am looking for a large tail with a straight vertical line at the back - no forking or such. I want a high dorsal, set not too far back and not too far forward. The fins should be balanced and symetrical with no turns or twists in them.

As the fry develop, I will be looking for the body type - deep and balanced - as well as double anals and nice colors. I want a balanced color on a fish - not a white with one spot or something. I want a fish that makes me say "WOW" when I see it. I want little chubby tanks that plow through the water with strength and power.

I have a problem with passing off fish that are not of "good quality" even to a fish store - because they go out as ambassadors of goldfishdom and I want people to see what a Ryukin goldfish really should BE. They are beautiful works of art - and they grow like crazy and get HUGE. (Or at least they should).

I did not have a HUGE spawn - only a few hundred. I think there are about 100ish in that tank - it is a 40 breeder.

They will need homes. I intend on only picking about 10 to grow out, so the rest will need to go elsewhere. I have one person who has spoken for about 12 of them.

In constrast, I have a spawning of Crystal Ranchu that is particularly BAD. I have culled and culled and culled. I may or may not find ANY that are worthy of growing out. I will never cross those particular fish again. It was a bad match.

Aye Carol, even with your l33t breeding skills & r0x0rz quality parent fish, your pic taking ability is abysmal

Hurry send me that plane ticket

Savin' those pennies for you......

This leads me to a question about breeding: What are the effects of inbreeding? Is that ever a problem for goldies?

Oh so many cute little babies, I would sit in front of that tank all days if I had it...

Some of my babies are inbred, sister and brother are the parents, I wanted to keep that doubletail genes.
The surviving fishies looks great and healthy, and most of them are doubletails!
There can always be deformities, I think.

wooooowa so cute nice fry.....if u n me live near than surely i would ask u to give me 2-4fry
goodluck with them

Inbreeding, done with thought and care, is what is called "creating a line" in animal husbandry. To stabilize a genetic trait in a line of creatures, it is common to take the young and cross them back to the parent with the most important trait. The resulting young are then separated into various groups and cross bred. Each subsequent generation can be crossed back to another group of young - for, kept "separate", you have essentially created two "families" that are very very close in genetic makeup, but not exact.

I have hopes of creating a line of Broadtail Ryukins that breeds successfully with most individuals. Goldfish genetic makeup is extremely complicated - thus you will ALWAYS have a fair number of "bad" fry in a spawning. The goal is to reduce those "bad combinations" to the absolute minimum.

When you cross two unrelated fish you can get a tremendous number - or only a lot. I recently crossed 4 "like" Ranchu. If I had to guess, I would have thought that they were somewhat related. REgardless of their potential relations, their genetic makeups were NOT compatible with each other. I have well over 90% that are really NOT good at all. I crossed two good Broadtail Ryukin together last year and got over 4000 fry to work with over the year. Of those, I selected 2 male and 2 female. This year, I crossed the females back to their dad- the better of the two original parents. These fry are the result. I was lucky. I got at least 75% that are fairly good broadtails. I expect to find more than 4 in this group that I would show or breed.

Next year, (or after) I will split this group and create at least 3 "lines" that, properly bred (and with a LOT of luck) should give me a reliable spawn of good fry each time.