Different markings on fish

[southpaw211]

Our inherited pond is full of what I assume are comets (pics of many of them are in my gallery). After our recent empty/clean and refill, we kept 21 fish, all of which we chose by hand out of the tub of fish we rescued from the murkey pond. All of our fish are either orange with white, white with orange, or solid white or orange. Except this guy and his friend. They have very distinct black markings on top and are orange underneath. Just another kind of comet? What's up with the black? I wish I could have gotten a better shot of him, but those little guys don't slow down for long!

~ Karen

 

[j.w]

That happens normally w/ goldfish. They start out black and start to turn slowly to all oj. Some take longer to turn then others. I have several like that in my pond and some that are huge and are still all black. Wondering if those will ever change? Don't know why some change when tiny and some wait till forever. Would be neat if they stayed oj and black like that! Now if you have any Shubunkins in there then they will have the oj/blk and silver/white and keep those colors when breeding w/ others.

 

[HARO]

The short tail makes this a 'common' goldfish. Comets have longer tails, sometimes longer than the body.
John

 

[mogsie]

you say you have solid white !! i would love a solid white but never found one yet !

 

[addy1]

I have an all white fish, it appears to be a female, has been chased recently.

Glad you rescued the fish from the murky water! Karen Bet they are a lot happier now.

 

[southpaw211]

Thanks for the answers! It would make sense that the black would go away, as we've seen little black fish in the past, but didn't find one black fish when emptying the pond last weekend, except these two with the organge/black. Must be because they'd all turned orange.

So it must be that comets start off early showing longer fins and tails. After closer inspection, it seems we have both common and comets. As for the solid white, one of our comets is a solid pearly white - she's beautiful (there is a picture of her in my gallery). Totally assuming the "she" part, of course. We also have a couple of solid white fish that must be common goldfish, as well as two (one large and one small) that look like common goldfish that are not quite white - they almost have a gold sheen. Not orange like a goldfish, but gold like the precious metal. They're pretty neat.

Yes, that murky water was pretty awful. The lower the water level got, the thicker the water was. The poor fish were gasping at the surface and swimming in pure mud at the end. Each time we caught one and put it in our holding tank, I swear you could hear them breathing a sigh of relief! They seem so happy and active now, I just can't stop watching them!

 

[j.w]

Got about 3 whiteish ones and I like how they show up well in the pond:

 

[addy1]

Pretty fish jw. I rescued some fish from a foreclosure, it was unreal had bad that water stunk and the oil sheen over the water. Made those fish happy moving them, just like you have in getting yours out of the muck

 

[CountryEscape]

Your white fish looks to be a Comet! Pretty fish, and I did see at least 2 solid black ones, smaller ones. I had black babies last year, and by the fall they had changed to solid orange. Did have one make it to spring still back, but it was from a late spawning I think, as I also had 2 smaller babies than the others.
I always look at the feeder goldfish tank at my local pet shop. I have 4 solid white babies, all Comets, in my aquarium right now. As soon as the pond gets warmer and STAYS that way (LOL), I'm going to put them out there. I pick the ones with the longest tails, and I also wanted solid white, so have several now. Plus, I got some large goldfish and Comets from a guy on here that wanted to get rid of them and he was from about an hour away from me. He had a solid white common goldfish with red eyes! Really neat! Several of the other Comets and Goldies also had red and/or blue eyes. Must have been in the genetics of the breeder where he got his fish.