New Leather goldfish (more clearer photos)

Leather goldfish

Out of a tank of about 80 goldfish, I managed to find 8 more leather goldfish and 2 more mirrorscale (linear) goldfish on Saturday 25 July 2009.

This batch has a lot of the finless leather goldfish (except the tail), and very similar to the one I once kept more than 15 years ago. However, these 'finless' leathers are still more steady in their swimming abilities than the one I had. They are also healthy despite their deformities.

Furthermore, in this batch of leathers, the pectoral fins are more often reduced to stubs, instead of small deformed pectoral fins like the other 2 leathers I had (this includes the fully dorsaled leather fish, which is the fish in the right of the top photo which shows them still in the bag. The middle photo in the bag shows the leather with one dorsal rib, and an orange/brown one underneath. That is the most coloured one out of this batch of leathers. The ones I saw and the one I had in the early 1990s were fully depigmented.

The 'bottom up' photos show the stubs when compared to the linear goldfish, ie, missing ventral and pectoral fins. They also show they are not blue bellies (ie, mock metallics or pseudo matts), but are just metallic goldfish if they had scales.

In brief, (See my March blog for further genetic details of leather goldfish), the leather goldfish is a further scale variation from the mirrorscales. Unlike mirrorscale, which shows a single variation in the s gene (which determines the location of the scale), leather goldfish requires variation in 2 genes in combination, the s and n gene (n= nude, no scale). Otherwise no leather goldfish can result, thus explaining their rarity. Apart from the fact that farmers may discard them as they are often deformed.

Their lack of finnage is the same as encountered in European carp c carpio, but in carp this is not as severe as what we have in goldfish (Kipichnikov (1937) investigated this in detail for c carpio). The lack of fins is due to biochemical inhibition, reducing effect on various organs (termed pleiotropic effects from the scale gene mutation).

One of the leather is coloured orange brown (shown most clear in the bag photos), and another a tinge of yellowish/orange brown, the rest were generally wild bronze to olive green. Some are very stocky in built. I have now a total of 10 leather goldfish at the moment.

Two out of the ten leathers that I got have complete dorsal fins, the rest have one to two hard rays in the dorsal to others having no dorsals at all.

There are both males and females in this batch of eight leather goldfish.

I took about 50 photos and they are much clearer in quality this time round (some shown here).

The smallest fish out of the 10 goldfish I bought this time round is the smaller of the two mirrorscale goldfish, it is just under 1.5 inches.

The chance of me maintaining a line of leather goldfish is now more hopeful as now I have a good quantity of them and sufficient variation in genetic material to avoid too much inbreeding.

© 27 July 2009 Bill L

Leather 'scale-less' Goldfish (with photos)

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Top Photo: on left (still in the bag) is the small bronze linear scale comet, middle fish is the dorsal-less leather specimen 1, the fish on the right is the leather specimen 2 (the leather goldfish with the dorsal fin).


Leather 'scale-less' Goldfish (with photos)

After having not seen leather goldfish for around 15 years, I managed to find two specimens of leather goldfish again! The term leather refers to a scaleless goldfish (as documented in my earlier blog on 7 March 2009, and please see that blog for further detail genetic discussions). Like the leather carp, it has next to no scales on its body.

The two leather specimens I purchased were among a a tank of normal common/comet goldfish. Both were bronze silver grey (wild) in colour. They are young juveniles, and may depigment later.

In that tank which housed the 2 leather goldfish, I also purchased a smaller linear scaled (mirrorscale) goldfish (also bronze in colour). Therefore, I bought 3 goldfish from that tank. In another tank from the same retailer, I bought a larger red and white linear scale comet goldfish. Therefore I bought four goldfish in total on 11 July 2009, two linear and two leather goldfish.

Of the two leather goldfish, specimen 1 is shaped similar to the leather specimen I had around 15 years ago (as depicted in my line sketch which is shown in my 7 March blog). Specimen 1 also does not have a dorsal fin, only hints of remnant stubs where the dorsal is (like the leather goldfish I had before more than 15 years ago). It also has only one ventral fin, the other ventral fin is a very small fin/stub. The anal fin is very deformed also and small. It does have small pectoral fins, but also deformed (about half the normal length and overall size). The tail fin is normal common goldfish size.

Specimen 2 of the leather goldfish is quite normal. It does have a dorsal fin, but is missing some fin ribs (exactly as what Kirpichnikov described for leather carps). Apart from the pectoral fins being deformed and are quite small (like that of specimen 1), otherwise all the other fins are intact. It's tail length is intermediate of that of comet and common goldfish. It is quite a normal looking fish apart from the small pectoral fins and the lack of scales.

Of the 2 leather goldfish, specimen 2 swims more steadily when compared to specimen 1, as it has a more complete set of fins. Both leather goldfish are wild bronze olive grey in colour. Leather specimen 1 is more brownish bronze, while specimen 2 is more greenish yellow.

It is quite a joy to see leather goldish again and I have took a set of photos THIS time to make sure their existence is captured in photos.

What is interesting to observe that after 15 years, these leather goldfish have a more complete set of fins than the leather goldfish I had more than 15 years ago, ie, have either small pectoral, ventral, anal and/or dorsal fins. It also appears that for the defomity of fins in the leather goldfish, the dorsal and pectoral fins have the tendency to be the most deformed (see the top-down photos at bottom).

I hope these two leather goldfish will live and prosper through this winter in Melbourne, Australia now and breed in the spring of 2010 (Sept - Nov 2010), as they are too young to breed this coming spring in 2009. Their genetic make-up is unique for goldfish and I hope to preserve them and perpetuate this scale variant for the future.

Below is a set of photos I took of the two leather goldfish (with the two linear scale goldfish), and to prove that leather goldfish do exist, no matter how rare they may be.

PS: I have changed my email to: mirrorscale@live.com.au

© 12 July 2009 Bill L

Top down view: bottom fish on left is the linear scale comet, next to it is the linear red and wite comet, the fish near centre top right is the leather goldfish (Specimen 2 with the dorsal). The fish furthest on the right is the dorsal-less Leather goldfish (specimen 1). Note the deformed pectoral fins of the leather specimens when compared to the normal pectoral fins of the two linear scaled goldfish.

Black colour in goldfish - from Black Moors to Black Ranchus and Black Orandas

The Black colour in goldfish

When one thinks of a black goldfish, Black Moors is usually the first type that comes to one's mind.

The Black Moors (Kuro Demekin), a black metallic scaled telescope eye goldfish, was first developed in China about 200 years ago (called Dragon eyes). Shipments bound for export stopped in Japan en route and some were sold to locals there and the breed was maintained by the Japanese until it was re-introduced to the rest of the world.

The Black Moor goldfish, when they are first born, are originally normal wild bronze or silver grey colour. Generally, around 30 days to within 3 months after birth, the yellow and black pigments (melanophores) begin to intensify. As a result, the black colour of the Black Moor goldfish appears. This generally coincides with the development in the protusion of the eyes.

It was once held that the black colour in goldfish has something to do with the telescope eye (see Matsui's The Goldfish Guide), as no other goldfish breed at the time back until the 1970s had self-coloured black all over the body (until the appearance of black ranchus and orandas and black bubble eyes).

In good Black Moor specimens, no depigmentation of the black happens. However, in poor specimens, depigmentation occurs 2 - 3 years later, resulting in a yellow, orange or red telescope eye goldfish, ie Aka Demekin.

Scientific studies
Kajishima (1977)* studied the colouration of Black Moors and stated that it ususally did not depigment its melanophores during its life. Instead it produces more of them during development. He noted the four depigment genes as 2 multiple gene pairs, ie, dp1dp1 and dp2dp2. He also noted that the Black Moors had the dp1dp1dp2dp2 genes in their recessive state.

On that basis, Kajishima found that when a Black Moor mated with a dominant depigmented wakin, Dp1Dp1Dp2Dp2 (eg, orange colour), the resulting progency will be 100% depigmented like the wakin.

However, when a goldfish depigments, it always goes through a phase of black before the gold appears, ie, intensification of the number of yellow and black melanophores.

This change from bronze silver grey to black, followed by the destruction of the black melanophores, leaving the yellow and red melanophores, resulting in a yellow or red or orange fish, depends on whether the fish has yellow or red (or both) melanophores.

Therefore, depigmentation in a goldfish goes through three colour phases:
1. Wild silver grey, bronze colour phase (yellow and black pigment cells)
2. Black colour phase (intensification of yellow and black pigment cells)
3. Orange, yellow or red phase (destruction of the black pigment cells, leaving the red yellow pigment cells in isolation (red or yellow) or in combination (orange))

On that basis, Kajishima would naturally get all his frys from the Wakin and Black Moors cross to depigment and it would be incorrect to state that Black Moors have dp1dp1dp2dp2 genes in their recessive state. This is because Black Moors are already on the first stage of the depigmentation process, ie, turning from bronze olive grey to intense black. Therefore, Black Moors should have some of their depigment genes in the dominant state, but as a strain, the Black Moors depigmentation process is halted or switched off when the fish is all black, and the decolouring does not proceed to the next stage, ie, destruction of the black pigments to the yellow orange phase.

Kajishima should have used wild bronze olive grey goldfish instead and to label them as dp1dp1dp2dp2 and to cross them with the wakin for determining his research results.

Accordingly, it is more "correct" to state instead that Black Moors do depigment, but they have incomplete depigmentation, ie, the onset of intensification of the yellow and black pigment cells did not follow through with the destruction of the black melanophores (pigment cells). That means the depigmentation process got "halted" when the fish turned to black, and did not follow through with the destruction of the black pigment cells.

As to when the fish starts the depigmentation process to when it halts the depigmentation process, ie, suspending the destruction of the black pigment cells, leaving the goldfish permanently black throughout its life, is a genetic process that has been pretty much fixed in the Black Moors, but not in the Black ranchus or orandas, as they have more a recent heritage, ie, last two decades as opposed to last 200 years.

Black in non-telescope eye goldfish
Black ranchu lionheads, black orandas and black bubble eyse have all appeared (but not black comets or common singletail black metallic scaled goldfish). It was once suspected that perhaps the black ranchus and orandas were really black telecope eyes hiding behind their head growths. However, this does not appear to be the case, when black bubble eyes and to a lesser extent, grayish black pearl scale goldfish appeared in the market. They do not have telescope eyes.

Difficutly in breeding black frys from these non-Black Moor goldfish
Many breeders had no difficulty getting their black ranchus or orandas to breed, but they ended up with bronze silver grey babies that do not darken to black as they grow.

I don't know how long these breeders kept their bronze juveniles for, as goldfish with their depigment genes in their recessive state might take a long time to depigment, ie, they do not depigment until in their second or third year or more. Given many breeders noted on forum threads that their black ranchu babies did not decolour but remained bronze, it is suspected:
1. these ranchu babies inherited the recessive genes from both black ranchu parents, therefore, they do not darken to black like their parents. Goldfish have a tendency to revert to their wild bronze olive grey colour in successive generations. It is the efforts of human beings in constantly select and breed the yellow orange colours to stop the reversion of goldfish back to their wild state.
2. it also means that black ranchus when bred together, have a tendency to complement each other and provide a complete set of recessive genes to their frys in the homozygous condition (recessive state), ie switching off the depigmentation process altogether, ie, the number of non-depigmentation genes are increased when compared to their parents, so the frys are represented by dp1dp1dp2dp2, therefore they won't start depigmentation process at all. That is, they won't turn black but to remain bronze.
3. It also means the black ranchu parents have at best Dp1dp1Dp2dp2, ie, not having both pairs of dominant depigment genes Dp1Dp1Dp2Dp2 (ie dominant in the homozygous state). Because if they did, the parents themsleves would have turned orange first after their black phase, and their frys would inherit Dp1Dp1Dp2Dp2,ie, four dominant depigment genes in their homozygous state and depigment and also turn orange very early on. Instead, by having Dp1dp1Dp2dp2 genes in their dominant heterozygous state, these ranchu parents switch on the depigmentation process, ie, the black instensification phase of the depigmentation process, but then the black melaophores destruction phase is then halted, leaving a black goldfish.

How to switch on the 'depigmentation' button?
On that basis, in order to 'switch on' the depigmentation process, it is necessary to breed black ranchus with:
1. non-black ranchus, those that do depigment (eg, orange ranchus) but these orange ranchus are those which not only took a long time to depigment, ie, in their 2nd or 3 rd year before they change colour (eg, Dp1dp1Dp2dp2 or Dp1dp1dp2dp2, having one or 2 dominant depigment genes out of 4, so took a long time to depigment), and when they do eventually depigment,
2. they took a long time to lose their black colour to become orange, and preferably ones that still have a lot of dark black pigments (patches of dark black on their body and fins for quite some time as adults, ie, never loses their black completely).

What this cross will do is to 'trigger' the onset of depigementation, ie, the intensification of the black colour in the frys, but then hopefully, to switch off the depigmentation once the fish is black, so the orange phase does not then follow the black phase.

How to trigger the onset of black pigmentation and then to keep it?
Goldfish farmers have long noted that frys from the same parents, those born in warm summer months have a high percentage of depigmentation, but those born near early to mid-Autumn have a low percentage of depigmentation. Therefore, the environment has a lot to do with triggering depigmentation, apart from genetics.

The key to switch on depigmentation, ie turn bronze silver grey to intensification of black colour needs:
1. Warmth, ie, warm water
2. Light
3. light bottom susbtrate

Once the fish is starting to darken to black (ie, onset of black instensification begins), the reverse is required to halt further depigmentation of the destruction of the black pigments. This needs:
1. cold water
2. shade, dark green water environment
3. dark soil substrate bottom

As said, Black Moors has been bred for its black colour for 200 years, they have a high chance to depigment from 30 days to 3 months, ie, they have been selected repeatedly or been 'programmed' to darken and then to halt the depigment process once they are all black. Any which do not blacken or after they became black, then continued to turn orange afterwards are discarded.

On the other hand, black ranchus and black orandas only have been around for 20 years, they are not fixed as yet, and will require a far longer period to be programmed (fixed) to the desired outcome.

Here's a real challenge for the keen amateur breeder who meddles in both genetics and the environment. You want the goldfish to start the depigmentation process, and that has been determined scientifically, ie, by the number of depigment genes, yet the depigmentation process is then halted once the fish turns all black. This second part has not been scientifically resolved.

Note) With black Orandas, a way to help to get them black is to cross them with Black Moors. After all, both have dorsal fins, and the frys will all be normal eyes in the F1 generation. Then select the frys which still have good head growths from the outcross. Smaller head growth in exchange for fixing the black colour.Then cross it back to the black Orandas to get the head growth back.

*Takao Kajishima, Genetic and Developmental Analysis of some new color mutants in the Goldfish, Carassius auratus, Genetics 86:161-174 May, 1977

© Bill L 7 June 2009

Blood is thicker than water: for a goldfish

Goldfish have feelings

This time, I deviate from the usual genetic theme of my goldfish blogs.

Instead, my focus in this post is to document a goldfish experience that I could never forget.

Back in the early 1990s (around 1991-1992), one of my linear scale comet goldfish jumped out of my fish tank and landed on the lounge room floor. It was not discovered for quite some time.

By the time it was found, it was quite 'dried'. The eye which was against the floor kind of stuck to the floor, and although I was able to remove it, the cornea was damaged and my Linear goldfish survived the ordeal afterwards with a blinded eye.

The thing that left a lasting impact on me from this was when I returned this Linear scaled goldfish back into the tank was one of its tank-mate, a part-red and white comet swam close by it and kept circling it. The Linear was pretty exhausted from the near death ordeal, and was lying flat on one side grasping. The part-red and white comet swam around the Linear scale goldfish, and on many occasions, tried to use its head to help the Linear scale goldfish to balance 'upright'. It repeatedly used its head to nudge the Linear scale and did that for quite some time to try helping the other fish to balance upright.

None of the other goldfish in the same tank did anything at all, they all ignored the Linear scale goldfish.

The Linear scale goldfish eventually recovered its strength and was able to balance itself upright, then the part-red and white comet swam away. My linear scale goldfish survived the 'out of tank' experience and lived for about a year longer.

When it got sick again later and died in the tank, the part-red and white goldfish did not pay any attention to the Linear scale goldfish, as it once did.

However, what the part-red and white comet did on that particular day when the Linear scaled goldfish jumped out of the tank was purposeful and was deliberate. To me, it's only purpose was trying to help the Linear scale goldfish.

It was something that I witnessed and which I could never forget. I can only think that goldfish have feelings too and at least in that instance, I saw one goldfish trying to help another when it was sick.

Blood is therefore thicker than water for a goldfish too...

© Bill L 6 June 2009

Black Moor Goldfish and its normal eyed variants

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The Black Moor Goldfish

The Black Moor (Demekin) goldfish is a telescope eye goldfish which is known best for its velvety black colour in good specimens. Telescope eye is a recessive genetic trait, ie, crossing a telescope eye goldfish with a normal eyed fish will result in 100% normal eyes. However, crossing the offspings of such crosses will result in one quarter telescope eyes, a simple Mendelian genetics model at work.

It was once beleived that black can only be exhibited in the telescope eyes (see Matsui's The Goldfish Guide). However, since the arrivals of black orandas, black ranchu lionheads and black bubble eyes, which are normal eyed, the supremacy of black colour strictly within the domains of telescope eye goldfish no longer holds true.

Black single tail goldfish

However, black metallic single tail goldfish is still non-existent. I do not mean the black hybrid carp with triangular tail fins. See:
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3300/3275379548_afddbff97e.jpg

or the jet black shubunkins coming out of China.

Do Black Moors with normal eyes exist?

Yes, I had two normal eyed Black Moor (both four-lobed fantails) in the 1990s, they were good jet black specimens of Moors with normal eyes. They are like the black fantail shown in the link below(except the pupils of the eyes are slightly larger than normal, ie, a trait of their Moor telescope heritage and they are Black Moors shaped. You know what I mean when you've observed enough Black Moors, they have their 'own' features and shapes):

http://www.goldfishkeepers.com/forum/showthread.php?t=36

Fish farmers reject any normal eyed Black Moors as inferior, as Black Moors should have both eye protuding from their eye sockets, any single eye protusion or non-protusion is discarded.

Unfortunately, the 1990s were days without digital cameras, my two normal eyed Black Moors died without me having photos taken of them.

My current normal eyed Black Moors

These two juvenile Black Moors are normal eyed, and their black colours are still developing, ie, not velvety jet black but a brownish black instead. Hopefully they will darken over time as they grow, they are still young.

The first specimen is a fish with a three-lobed caudal fin, and it is also born without anal fins. The second is a single-tailed nymph. Both are normal eyed. These photos were taken on 6 May 2009. A third nymph specimen (not photographed), has slight part-protusion on rear part of the eye, so exhibits the telescope eye heritage, it also is not jet black but brownish black.

Time will tell as to how these three goldfish will develop over time. From them as a start, hopefully a black comet/common goldfish will appear in time.






© Bill L 24 May 2009

From Panda Goldfish (Panda Moor) to Panda Common/Comet goldfish

Panda Goldfish (Panda Moor)

The Panda Goldfish, nick-named Panda Moor, is a telescope eye goldfish (metallic scaled), which is named for its contrasting black and white colour. For an image of Panda Goldfish, please see:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/goldfishqueen/211749138/

Panda characteristics

Panda is named for its black and white colour, and is always characterised with white abdomens and black backs and tail fins, as depigmentation in a goldfish, ie, losing its black (see below) always occurs from the abdomen and ventral fins first, that is from the bottom half of the fish, moving upward in the fish until the back beneath the dorsal fin.

In choosing Panda Goldfish, always choose those specimens with black fins, ie, black pectoral, ventral and anal, and not just black caudal and dorsal fins. White ventral and pectoral fins mean the goldfish specimen is at an advanced state of depigmentation, and it won't be long before the fish loses all its black.

From what I read, the Panda Goldfish was first developed by the Fujian Agricultural Institute/Centre back in China in 1987, and it received 1st price the country's national Fauna/Flora show in 1989.

Similar to the Panda is another Chinese variety called 'Magpie', which is basically a deep blue and white telescope eye goldfish. There are a number of colour/shades in the Chinese blue goldfish Chin wen or Lan Yu, examined scientifically by SC Chen in 1934. The blue metallic goldfish will be subject of another blog when I have the time.

Since the development of the Panda Goldfish, black and white oranda, black and white fantails and black and white bubble eyes have appeared as new goldfish varieties.

Nevertheless, the 'problem' with the Panda Goldfish is that the fish loses its black as it ages, some in a few months, others in a few years. Thus, large specimens of black and white Panda Goldfish which retains the contrasting black and white colours do commend high prices and deservedly so.

Black colour and depigmentation in goldfish

Black is not a stable colour in the goldfish, as goldfish has four genes which governs the de-pigmentation, in its dominant depigmentation state, is denoted by Dp1Dp1Dp2Dp2 by T Kajishima in 1977. On the other hand, the Black Moor (Demekin) telescope eye goldfish has these four genes in the recessive state, denoted as dp1dp1dp2dp2.

Although not quantitatively or qualitatively examined, it is suspected that those goldfish which depigments in a few months after birth contain all four genes in their dominant state, while specimens which depigment in a few years after birth contains only one or two dominant gene out of four depigment genes in its dominant state, resulting in the delay in the onset of depigmentation. These specimens then spent the first few years in their silver bronze wild colour state.

Another feature is how quickly do goldfish lose their black colours? Once the onset of depigmentation begins, some specimens lose their black very quickly, while others took some years for the black to fully disappear. This aspect is yet to be determined scientifically.

Colour cells destruction in goldfish can be in simple terms described as:
1. Black colour pigment cells is 'allergic' to red and yellow cells (which when combined gives the common orange goldfish colour). Therefore, the black in the goldfish will be destructed and fade away leaving an orange goldfish.

2. Yellow and red cells are allergic to white colour cells, therefore, any white on a goldfish will eventually expand and erase the red and yellow colours on a goldfish, leaving it a white goldfish in the end.

On that basis, people will often be disappointed with their Panda Goldfish that it loses all it black and become a white or in poor quality ones, orange wand white.

The reality is, Panda Goldfish is a goldfish in the process of depigmentation. Unlike the common comet or fantail goldfish, the time it takes the depigmentation from the fully black phrases is (preferably or hopefully) slowed from a few months to over a few years, as its genetic roots should be the Black Moor telescope goldfish, known for its velvety black colour.

Therefore, the Panda Goldfish breed is likely to be developed from the Black Moor goldfish, by selecting Black Moor specimens that when depigmented, they turn into the white telescope goldfish as opposed to the orange/red (Aka Demekin) or yellow telescope goldfish. This is because only the showy black and white contrasts reminds children and adults alike of their 'Panda' appeal.

In order to miantain the Panda line and to slow the depimentation process, I feel that Panda Moor is best produced not by mating Panda to Panda, but Panda with a Black Moor (which has the four depigment genes in their recessive state). The selection of fish which slows the depigmentation process hopefully means the resulting Panda Goldfish gene pool is derived from specimens that may have one or two depigment genes in their dominant state, as opposed to all four.

Single tail Panda Goldfish?

Given Panda has moved from the telescope eyed to the normal eyed fantails and Orandas etc, is there a Panda comet or common Panda single-tail goldfish? Logic dictates it should be possible.

The photos (taken on 9 May 2009) show such a 'Panda' prototype sport specimen of a common single tail goldfish, although not perfect (as its has some faint orange pigments), but it is a good working material to further improve. Black and white single tail goldfish is very rare, black and orange or black and yellow single tail goldfish is very common. Of course, the black eventually fades away.

This specimen has a black back, with some orange and some white. Preferably, the black on the back will be retained for some time, and the orange will destruct to all white. Unfortunately, the ventral fins no longer are black, unlike the gorgeous Panda specimens and the dorsal and caudal black colours are beginning to fade. Again, this is a sport, so better things should come from inbreeding the desired features into its future progeny. I think I will breed it with black Moors, and perhaps white comets where required to ensure a white background when the fish depigments completely as opposed to an orange or yellow background.

What is the best way to maintain the black?
Goldfish farmers have always noted that warmth and light triggers depigmentation in young metallic goldfish, especially warmth. Therefore, to slow depigmetation, it is best to keep Panda Goldfish in cooler waters and less intense light, ie, green water in a large tank, and dark soil gravel bottom in the tank or pond/container should help.

© Bill L 24 May 2009

Leather (scaleless) goldfish

Leather (scale-less goldfish)

(sketch added and updated 10 March 2009)

This blog is created to answer Norm’s question about why the leather goldfish are finless and to document what I actually experienced back in the 1990s.

See link:

http://www.goldfishkeepers.com/forum/showthread.php?t=446

In this blog, I explain further my experiences with leather (scale-less) goldfish. I have only observed them once back in early 1990s and have purchased one of them and kept it for about half a year.

In a retailer at Swanston Street pet shop in Melbourne (the business closed after 2-3 years…), in a tank full of common/comet goldfish comprising normal metallic (self-coloured red and orange and part-red and white) were also many scale-less goldfish specimens which were all deformed. As for scale-less, I do not mean matts or shubunkins, as both matts and shubunkins are fully scaled but have transparent scales. Instead, these scale-less goldfish are really devoid of scales and are true leather goldfish. They are metallic fish (although without scales), as they have silver reflecting tissue in their operculum (both sides) and not transparent (pink) operculum as true matts do. Furthermore, they do not have ‘button’ eyes. They have full silver reflecting tissue surrounding their black pupils. They were not mottled either, so they were not nacreous (calico) fishes. Furthermore, no matts or nacreous scales have ever appear in Linear or Scattered scale types in Australia to date, nor have they appear in double-tail specimens (only single-tailed), whether they are metallic, nacreous or matts. I presume no one is bothered to breed these features to matts and nacreous, as ‘mirror scales’, as they are commonly called, are so common in Australia, and appear best in metallic (and not non-shiny nacresous or matts) and best in long wild type goldfish body type as opposed to the short-bodied fantails.

If you have seen linear scale goldfish (commonly referred to in Australia as mirror-scales), then the leather scale goldfish looks like the ‘window’ regions ONLY of the metallic Linear goldfish, ie, the back below the dorsal fin and the abdominal regions above the ventral and pectoral fins. These two regions of the Linear scaled are where they are free of scales (the large scales only appearing along the lateral line).

The likely reason for the rarity of the leather goldfish appearing in retail aquarium outlets in Australia (apart from genetics, which I will discuss later) may be contributed by the fact that such deformed specimens would not normally be offered for sale, and as best they are offered instead as ‘seconds’. In Australia, few coloured ‘seconds’ are ever sold in retail aquarium stores, ie, colourful fish with deformed dorsal/tails or missing an eye or gill-plate etc. These deformed fish do not generally make it to the public, stores do not devote their precious space/tanks in their stores for selling such low demand/cheap fishes. Instead, cheap uncoloured metallic goldfish are sold as ‘feeders’ and they are generally comets/fantails of bronze wild colour. These bronze fish in Australia are not deformed, they are just un-coloured.

On closer inspection, all these leather specimens in that tank have caudal (tail) fin only. The caudal fin in the specimen I purchased and owned was not perfect in the sense that it had few soft rays and the fins ribs were not smoothly (parabolic) curved but have sharp turns (ie, a bit like regenerated damage fins which are not perfect). My leather specimen, if it was a normal metallic fish, should have been a metallic fish of the comet type. The deformed caudal rays make the two tail lobes curve inwards to each other (a bit like a lyretail molly but more so). See sketch on top of this blog of my leather specimen.

Back in the early 1990s was days before I have a digital camera, and normal point and shoot film camera just can’t take picture of my goldfish close-up. Nor did I realise how rare it is … I would have gone and get some formalin and preserve the fish when it died.

The rest of the fins for the leather goldfish were all absent with the exception of remnant stubs where the fins should have been located. Despite the deformities, these leather goldfish specimens do thrive and flourish. However, they do swim with difficulties and with an uneven keel but being born with the defects, they do accommodate their limitations/conditions. They swim with an ‘unstable’ motion, ie, waving from side to side, but they always manage to correct themselves if they are overturned during their motions in the water, ie, they don’t swim belly-up.

I decided to buy one such a leather fish and chose one of the less robust leather ones from the pet shop to see if I can keep it alive despite of its deformities. Some of the leather specimens are actually quite robust in size despite they are deformed, ie, shape like stocky hibuna. The one I chose was a slender part-red and white fish instead (out of pity). This leather fish was kept in a 2 feet tank with my other common/fantail goldfish. Apart from flakes, I fed it raw fish/prawn pieces by sticking the morsels through a toothpick and specially feed it to it when it comes to the surface for feeding. This leather goldfish learnt to feed from the toothpick eventually, but it was not easy for it to swallow (probably lack of pharyngeal teeth – see below). Otherwise, this leather specimen had no hope of competing for the food against the able-bodied goldfish in my tank (apart from flakes which got disbursed everywhere by the water filter). By hand-rearing, my Leather actually fatten-up and the caudal fin grew longer when I have the time to feed it but after about half a year, due to lack of time and care, my Leather fish got ill and die. I just don’t have the room to devote an aquarium to it by itself. I was also too young to realise the value of this fish, being a scaleless goldfish (given Linear and Scattered goldfish are so common in Australia) as a teenager. Nor do I realise I have not seen any Leather goldfish since…

My postulation of leather (finless) genetics

First of all, I am not a geneticist, but have real keen interest in aquarium fish genetics, esp Puntius barbs (being a lawyer and chartered accountant by occupation instead). I will borrow the existing knowledge about European carp (Cyprinus carpio) scale genetic studies to postulate the finless condition in leather goldfish and I am not going to go into this blog whether goldfish (Carassius auratus) and carp hybrid are fertile as opposed to sterile (subject of another blog if I have the time) and argue whether the goldfish scale mutants in Australia are hybrids (they don’t have any barbels and they don’t shape like carps, they look just like normal goldfish apart from the scales).

Although there are reports of such carp x goldfish crosses being fertile (see Trautman, MB (1957). Fishes of Ohio, with illustrated keys. Ohio State Univ Press 683 pp), however on the whole from what I have read that crosses from Japanese cyprinus carp species with goldfish are sterile (can’t remember the name and the Japanese author, it was a brilliant, small pocket size book with many pages at CAE Library), and Canadian researchers have also expressed such crosses of their strains appear to be sterile (see Jane Taylor & Robin Mahon (1977), Hybridization of Cyprinus carpio and Carassius auratus, the first two exotic species in the lower Laurentian Great Lakes, Environmental Biology of Fishes, Vol 1, No. 2 pp 205-208). Furthermore, the creator of Butterfly kois in the US, Mr Lefevre, in his website clearly communicated such crosses between carp and goldfish are sterile.

See link:

http://www.blueridgekoi.com/The-Origins-of-Butterfly-Koi-a-1.html

NB) It is possible that particular strains of c carpio may yield fertile hybrids when crossed with the goldfish, but none of the Australian scientific research of such hybrids in Australia has conclusively proved this point which I am aware of.

So, I am assuming that these Linear (Lin), scattered (St) and Leather (Leath) scale mutations arose in the goldfish independently and not crosses from the carp, as they are fully fertile.

These goldfish Linear scale mutants in Australia are also not female only. I don’t have a pond or the room to raise goldfish as a teenager back in the 1990s with only two fish tanks, ice-cream containers and a plastic tub at my disposal. The one I crossed happened to be a female Linear scale (she was already loaded with eggs when I purchased her and spawned in the bladderwort days later with the newly acquired male shubunkin when I purchased them together and it was fully fertile (discussed in my earlier blog). Of the few frys out of many which I managed to raise to maturity (also being my first goldfish breeding attempt), I only saw one metallic Linear fry, the rest were normal metallic, 2 pink matts with some orange and the rest were nacreous but not pretty as the demelanisation gene on the metallic Linear scale female parent acted on the fry, so the frys did not have the nice black speckles and multi-colour of the male shubunkin parent).

Due to the lack of genetic studies to date on goldfish scale mutants (let alone recognising and accepting their actual existence). Nevertheless, we can borrow the genetic literature to date of such similar scale mutant occurrences in the carp to postulate why the leather carp are finless.

Back in the 1990s, I have read a green-cover book from Springer-Verlag, details below:
Uniform Title Geneticheskie osnovy selektsii ryb. English

Title Genetic bases of fish selection / V.S. Kirpichnikov ; translated by G.G. Gause.

Author Kirpichnikov, Valentin Sergeevich.

Published Berlin ; New York : Springer-Verlag, 1981.


See also a link of another one of his articles online:

http://www.fao.org/docrep/005/b3310e/b3310e14.htm

Kirpichnikov from the USSR studied the scale mutations in European carp Cyprinus carpio and he has provided notations to diffrentiate each type of scale which I have borrowed in my earlier blog about Linear (mirror-scales) on 22 February 2009:


Scale Type = Symbol = Genotypes
Scaled = Sc = SSnn, Ssnn
Scattered = St = ssnn
Linear = Lin = SSNn, SsNn
Leather = Leath = ssNn

Genotype S gene controls scaliness (S = scaliness), n gene modifies the scale pattern (n = nude)

He has also identified in his book (as well as in Table 2 of the article provided in the link) that (in brief) that there are defects with Scattered, Linear and Leather scaled specimens (and progressively so from scattered to Leather). The mutants (with or without the S or N genes) suffer adverse physiological effects (called pleiotropic effects), ie, lower viability and body size in depressed conditions, have lower tolerance of heat and low oxygen environment due to less red blood cells and less rows of pharyngeal teeth (carp fish equivalent to ‘teeth’).

The important thing to draw out from Table 2 of the link is that the mutants, ie, Scattered, Linear and in particular Leather carp specimens have less rays and less soft rays overall and have much lower regenerative capacity of fins. That is, leather carp have smaller fins in general and the fins have less fin ribs and soft fin rays overall when compared to the normal scaled carp.

On the basis what is observed above in carp genotypes is also observed in goldfish in the same fashion, then I postulate that the reason why all the leather goldfish I saw in that tank were finless other than the caudal fin is that on the basis that the lack of S and/or N genes in the Leather in that particular genotype order ssNn, that this adverse effect when being expressed in the goldfish BECOMES much more aggressive than in the carp, ie, instead of reduced rays and soft rays, they simply atrophied and disappear to remnant stubs where they should be, and leaving them with a reduced and deformed caudal fin with less and deformed fin rays overall.

I have found photos of specimens of deformed Tilapia aurea which resemble my deformed leather goldfish a lot, see Figure 3.6, in particular specimen n of Fig 3.6 on page 68 of Douglas Tave's book (1986), Genetics for Fish Hatchery Managers, AVI Publishing Company, Inc., Westport Conneticut (or see Tave D, Bartels, JE & Smitherman, RO, 1983, Saddleback: a dominant, lethal gene in Sarotherodon aureus (Steindacher) (=Tilapia aurea), J. Fish Dis. 6, p 59-73).

Tave's research also noted that the S allele (allele means any of the alternative forms of a gene that may occur at a given locus) in Tilapia aurea, the S gene in its heterozygous state produces the 'saddleback' feature, ie, which is an abnormal dorsal fin. He said this S expression is highly variable on the pleiotopic effects, ranging from saddlebacks that lack only the first spine to individuals that have no dorsal fins. That is, vertebral anomalies in vertebrae 1, 2 and 3, abnormal pelvic, petoral, or anal fins, skeletal abnormalities in the pectoral and pelvic girdles. Figure 3.6 shows the range of deformed T aurea also thrive and flourish despite lacking dorsal, reduced pectoral and ventral & no anal fins.

Therefore, it appears that the leather goldfish might be suffering from pleitropic effects, resulting in the finless specimens I have observed.

Can the Leather (scaleless) goldfish be recreated again?

I certainly hope so, on the basis that Leather goldfish genotype mirrors the carp above, denoted by ssNn, then the best chance of recreating the Leather, so I can see it again is by crossing a scattered goldfish with a Linear goldfish (see item 6, Table 1 of the link of Kirpichnikov’s article). By combining the Scattered and Linear genotypes, if luck would have it that you have the right genotype order (ssNn) when crossing the Scattered (St) x Linear (Lin) (SSNn or SsNn), resulting in the preferred combination of:

St (Scattered) x Lin (Linear)
25% Scaled
25% Scattered
25% Linear
25% Leather

Instead of (bummer…):
50% Scaled
50% Linear

Well, hopefully, if time and especially LUCK permits, I’ll or I really hope someone else can recreate the Leather goldfish, take a digital photo and prove what I actually witnessed and kept once. After all, the leather sheen on a leather goldfish is quite beautiful, despite their physical deformities. Also, someone may overcome the finless effect by introducing new genes. After all, goldfish have a few races, though most of what we see today came from one of two groups of Chinese goldfish strain.

See Journal article:
An evolutionary origin and selection process of goldfish

Tomoyoshi Komiyama, Hiroyuki Kobayashi, Yoshio Tateno, Hidetoshi Inoko, Takashi Gojobori, Kazuho Ikeo

Gene 430 (2009) p 5–11


© 9 March 2009 Bill L



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