just wondering about my blue oranda

[kelly82]

i was sold him as a blue oranda last year, ive had him for maybe 8 months or so, and he is around 4inches long, he is a beautiful silver blue all over, with a slightly yellow tint under his chin. what im wondering is if he really is an oranda, it doesnt bother me either way im just enquisitive. all the pictures i have seen of blue orandas show very deep bodied fish, with short rounded tails, and a nice wen, my boy is very streamlined, infact from across the room he almost looks like he has a common body, though when you get closer to the tank you can tell hes too rounded. he has no wen either. his tail is very long for his body, probably 3/4 length of his body, and is deeply forked with long pointed lobes.oh and his tail is also joined as one at the top of the top lobes. he has a rounded head though, it inst pointed at all, and its almost like his face is turned down a little. i will add some photos of him to my profile as i dont know how to list them in a post. thanks for reading.

 

[Flaringshutter]

Hey kelly, orandas take quite a few years to develop fully. Most fish are sold very young, at a year or less depending on the source. If your fish has good genetics, he should grow a wen and his body will fill out within the next few years.
Genetics play a big role in how close to the standard an individual fish will be as an adult. Fish from a breeder will likely grow out to be much closer to the standard than fish from a wholesaler or a chain pet store.

To give you an example of the growth, here is a photo of my oranda at less than a year of age:

And here he is just a few months ago.

Since I bought him from a chain pet store, he probably won't ever develop a very large wen or a deep body. But even so, you can see that his wen has grown and although his body has maintained a similar overall shape, it is much thicker and rounder.
With plenty of room, a varied diet of high quality foods, and clean water, your oranda should grow quickly and you will begin to see the traditional oranda traits.

 

[Cliff Mayes]

Two things seem to be happening. First the fish might be de coloring; the blue might be turning orange. Second you may have a cull that wasn't done; all orandas have headgrowth although the amount and placement of headgrowth or Wen varies with the strain of Goldfish. Neither thing is a problem unless it bothers you. Who knows what the genetics are so if you allow the fish a spawning oppotunity what shows up may be a surprise. All Goldfish start out life as dull colors but most color up within weeks or months and some change color as they get older or are exposed to different conditions.

All of the Fancy strains and a lot of the Singletails are Sports that would not exist in nature but are artificially maintained (as far as color and shape.) Goldfish can get very big and live a long time which is true of all big fish. The variety and colors are without end although few if any ever see them all. From rumors, there are colors and shapes that are family heilooms and that are not usually seen by outsiders.

Feeders are cheap, as they are bait fish but some Fancys are very expensive. Hundreds or thousands of dollars are not unheard of amounts.

Sorry but I do go on.

 

[kelly82]

hehehe i dont mind what he looks like, i brought him for £2.50 as he jumped out at me with his longer fins when i was shopping for a new goldie for my tank last year, he is living in a 48 x 12 x 20 inch tank with a small red cap male and a small calico fantail male. i dont think he is de-colouring as his silver/blue is exactly the same as when i brought him, his chin just has an olive/yellow hint to it. his wen is near non-existant, theres possibly a slight one but i can barely tell it just looks a little more wrinkly than the fantails head. the red caps wen is bigger than the blue orandas and hes smaller. hopefully they will all start to grow soon, although the blue oranda seems the only one to be growing at the moment! they will remain as the only 3 fish in the tank. the red cap and calico are around 3 inches or so, and the blue is around 4 inches, maybe a little more. im hoping they will grow plenty, they have lots of room, 2 fluval 4+ filters in their tank, and 50-60% pwc every week, plus live plants to keep the nitrates lower and for them to snack on. they have sinking fancy goldfish pellets every day, cooked shelled peas once or twice a week, live brineshrimp/daphnia once a week, bloodworms in jelly twice a week, slice of orange once a fortnight, pretty much i mix it up and give them what i think they want,and i feed them 2-3 times a day.

hopefully one day my fish will be as big and beautiful as yours are flaringshutter! that oranda is gorgeous, and you take wonderful photos.

 

[Kashta]

I read somewhere that most orandas don't generally grow their wen until they're about 2 years old. So if a smaller fish you bought doesn't have one, it's probably still yet to grow in. I imagine the wen is much more prominent at a younger age on red caps. It's that red wen on an otherwise all-white fish that sells them. So breeders probably cull out any bloodlines where the wen is questionable or slow to grow... thus producing more fish of that type with full wens established at an earlier age.

You're already seeing a wrinkly spot where the wen will be. So you probably have a normal oranda at the right age for this to just start developing.