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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Ish who wrote (24067)	1/12/2004 7:48:40 PM
From: E	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793689

I wouldn't think of looking up shubunking fish on google. I guess I'll have to get along with what I just happen to know off the top of my head. The fish should be bright and alert with the caudal fin carried high without drooping or overlapping. The body should be long and slender with a smooth outline. Quality fish will have a high colour intensity with the pigment extending into the fins. A show fish will have a blue background with patches of violet, red, orange, yellow and brown, spotted with black. Did I mention that About 1,000-5,000 fry are typically produced per breeder in a season and about 10-25 are retained, giving a ratio of about 200:1 (i.e. 1 in 200 is very good in quality and kept for future showing and breeding)? A number of breeding schemes are followed, eg father-with-granddaughter, mother-with-son, but always the best fish are used, sometimes irrespective of relationships. The colour and overall body shape are the first characters to improve as a result of selective breeding, and the large tail is the hardest character to achieve. It is not necessarily the rule that good fish produce good young, which can be a puzzle, and improved characters, if not carefully maintained, will deteriorate - in fact the fish, if left to themselves in large numbers, would steadily revert to wild type. Some find that improvements in the tail lead to deepening of the body, and it is a skill to achieve a good balance of characters in accordance with the standard. Preparations for the breeding season start in February-March, some leaving it until April. The sexes are separated so that pairing is controlled. Some pairs are left to spawn naturally, whilst others are hand-spawned (i.e. the owner aids the release of eggs and spawn by gentle pressure above the cloaca), particularly when, for example, it is wished to breed more than one male with a certain female. Adult fish are fed flake, pellets, earth worms, frozen bloodworms and other frozen foods to condition them. Fry are fed on brine shrimp for the first 2-3 weeks, then live daphnia and crumbled flake; some breeders have lost fry when weaning them off brine shrimp onto crumbled flake, and live daphnia proves very successful in averting such losses.Fish are kept in tanks in fish houses (greenhouses plumbed for easy water changes) and ponds. Neither are heated at any time. Some breeders change 100% of tank water over the course of each week, using either all tap water or a 50-50 mix of tap water and pond water (which some feel is advantageous). Local water in the Bristol area is now very good, and it is usually left for a few days rather than treated; the water is slightly alkaline (pH of about 7.7) and medium-to-hard. Bristol shubunkins suffer little in the way of diseases, parasites or other problems (compared with some other types of fancy goldfish), and are very hardy, becoming very tame. Some live for 15 years or so. At least those are my thoughts about shubunkin fish. Off the top of my head. I can brief your neighbor, if she wants. You have them? Many of them? You breed them? They seem to be beautiful.