Lei, I am so glad to hear the concern for breed preservation coming from such an important voice in the Chinese Goldfish Community. I fills me with hope for the future and makes me less anxious for finding common ground from which we can build a strong foundation for preserving the art science and cultural traditions of the past and build a vibrant global common understanding and knowledge base for the future ... I definitely like what I am hearing from Mr Ye!
Mr.Ye used to work as a frontline breeder in several Fuzhou goldfish farms over 30years. He understands goldfish and probably witnessed a few rare breeds gradually become extinct. Like you, I am very encouraged to hear his appeal during the National Goldfish Show. His words of “once lost, it would be extremely hard to recover the breed” never vanished in my ears.
Billy, I feel red cap Oranda fits more for side view and red Goosehead for top view. Plus red cap Oranda costs a lot less than Goosehead. When you say the color is no stable, do you mean the white body has some red spots, typically on its belly? My experience is that I don’t see any other color spots except red on its white scales. To get rid of red spots, there is nothing you can do but culling.
How about the red cap telescope variety? I just wonder cus I have a female red cap telescope. I do have 3 males red caps also. I may try to breed the two best males with the telescope female next year.
Red cap telescope or 鹤顶红龙睛 is a traditional Chinese goldfish breed, but not as popular as red cap Oranda, but still available in the market. Remember telescope is a recessive gene. Based on your plan, you will not get any red cap telescope in F1 generation, but may be in F2 generation. So be patient.
If just one or two spots on the belly, it is still a red cap but may not be high quality. Depends on your red pattern and location , it could be dear spots or Kirin.
This is a very important concern as there are many new breeds and lines that are more appealing to the new keepers, but in terms of business profits, it's kinda hard to use red caps as a strong source of profit. I strongly agree that this breed should actually be preserved because this is a live cultural picture worth 100 years of stabilizing the genes. I admire the Chinese Goldfish Community for making such effort and feel sorry at the same time that red caps are being extinct to the point where the people who saw it climb the top of the market also saw it drop down. I think I will be grooming a red cap next time just to show appreciation for this breed.
I could not conclude that. In fact, China goldfish community is probably the top leading one in terms culture, breeding history, and modernization. Visionary people always see the threat before us. People’s taste changes with time. Like Ranchu is the most popular breed for now. Who not which one will be dominant or fade away 50 yr from today.
