Goldfish Culling - Celestials page 4 / 6

Color for the traditional form of Celestial has up until recently been pretty much limited o metallic solid red (orange), red and silver (white), or solid white. You can imagine, then, my thrill when my metallic yellow fish popped up this year. I had in the past always selected for the darker shades which is one of several reasons why a yellow never cropped up before. Furthermore, since my strain colors up early, I can make the call early. A slight adjustment to my culling practices for the current generation— born out of a near total disaster that almost ended my line a year ago— allowed the yellow to slip through the gauntlet. An important lesson learned the hard way.

I have seen two or three photos of traditional Celestials that could be truly called sarrassas, but have never produced one myself so far. Though calicos have been known in the traditional form of Celestials, they are exceedingly rare and I have never seen one this side of the Pacific. In fact I know of only one photo ever published of a traditionalCelestial in calico—a juvenile Chinese fish whose eyes have yet to turn completely celestial. Here it is, circa 1990:

Depth of color is not generally impressive in the traditional form with a deep orange usually about the best I can hope for to date, as on this fish, a 10-month-old brother to the red female I pictured in the caudal discussion, bred by me about 6 years ago:

Color is an area where I am sure my culling practices have restricted me to maintaining color but not improving it or expanding the range. I got lucky with the yellow fish, but how many yellows, or sarassas, or who knows what else, did I discard before they colored up? The presence of the yellow fish now has me rethinking how I could refocus my culling practices so that I have a better shot at winding up with more deeply colored, and more unusually colored Celestials.

And before leaving the subject of color, I should mention why I had the dalliance with the Chinese hybrid form—it was in an effort to bring the expanded color range of the hybrids into my Celestials. By virtue of their hybrid makeup, the Chinese hybrids are available in much broader color range: chocolate, sarassa, and black metallics, and even calico nacreous fish. But the two breedings of metallics that I did, one to my fish, and another that was hybrid-to-hybrid, produced monsters. I got quasi Ranchu, Lionheads, Orandas, Bubble Eyes, Pearlscales, you name it—everything short of a Cocker Spaniel dressed in Bermuda shorts. Yes, many had celestial eyes, but all had pom-pons and most had other head growth. Not having the space to follow this through without causing detriment to my line of fish, I abandoned it. However, if in the future I could get my hands on a Chinese calico hybrid, (assuming I cannot secure a calico in the traditional form), the prospect of crossing calico into my line might enthuse me sufficiently to press some of the bathtubs into service if I had to and try it again. Here’s an example of one of the calico Chinese hybrids that makes its way Stateside every once in a while. The form makes me wince. The prospect of introducing calico into my line of traditional Celestials makes me drool: