奇貨可居 ~ Rarity to Treasure

捡了芝麻丢了西瓜

Concentrate on small matters at the expense of more important ones (literally: to lose the water melon while picking sesame seeds).
~ A Chinese Idiom

Fed-up with mostly white fishes last year, I made more spawns with the few calico breeder stocks this year. Finally, there are more exotic calico and even a few solid black individuals. The solid black comes from the maternal ancestry of the Chinese Calico Short Tail Dragon Eyes, which is related to the stable line of the Black Short Tail Dragon Eyes.

On the flip side, the smaller eyes of the calico breeders have propagated into many progenies. I do not like the shape and size of the eyes of most fishes this year so in the next iteration, I would select fishes with bigger eyes from other sub-lines to cross with these calico and black fishes. If I am lucky, I will need another 2 to 3 years to stabilize the new breed Calico Dragon Eyes Pearlscale.

Though I prefer the eyes of my Dragon Eyes Pearlscales to be bigger, I am wary that the extra weight on the headset may affect its balance. I believe that the balance problem can be mitigated by selective breeding to fine tune the body structure. A flat back line, for example, would almost always render the fish to topple head down, especially if it is a short tail variety.

In developing ornamental qualities of the fancy goldfish, many attributes essential for the survival of the crucian carp in the wild have been bred out. For example, the vibrant colours and the double caudal tails in fancy goldfish have replaced the grayish camouflage colouration and streamline single tail, making it too conspicuous and too slow for the fancy goldfish to escape from its predator.

Granted that the fancy goldfish is created for domestic keeping under man’s close protection and care, I feel the breeder still has the moral obligation to ensure that the basic functionality and health of the animal is not overly compromised in the quest for ornamental qualities.

Pictures:
1) One of the special black fringe Calico Short Tail Dragon Eyes Pearlscale (new breed).

2) A pair of blue-brown Short Tail Dragon Eyes Pearlscales (new breed).