Suppose you are a pet owner and want to consider keeping a fancy fish. Then as a pet owner of a fancy goldfish, I tell you that these are exotic, colorful, and one of the most mesmerizing varieties that can add a touch of beauty and tranquility to your home aquarium. From dazzling angelfish to graceful Betts, you will get fancy fish in all shapes and sizes, and every fancy goldfish has its unique personality and care requirements. If you are ready as a pet owner to dive into the world of fancy fish, then explore the fancy goldfish types and get ready for an exciting journey with this beauty.
Types of fancy goldfish
There are ten most common and popular fancy goldfish types whose prominent characteristics are as follows:
Oranda goldfish
- Color: It is available in a variety of colors orange, yellow, calico, chocolate, gold, black, blue, red, and white.
- Red cap Orandas have white bodies, and as their name suggests, they have bright red-head caps.
- Tiger Head Orandas have growing caps over their whole head
- Size: Maximum size is 7 to 9 inches
- Pattern: It is single-colored or bi-colored in pattern
- Tank size: Maximum tank size required 20 gallons
- Diet: Oranda prefers high-quality flakes with live/ frozen food like brine shrimp and bloodworms
- Appearance & Behavior: Oranda goldfish come to the world by selective breeding and have many unique traits, especially colors, that make oranda for sale a good choice. These goldfishes are pretty peaceful and can comfortably live with other temperate fish happily. Oranda goldfish specifically have a delicate, textured growth on their head known as wen or head growth.
The wen (large head outgrowth) continues to grow throughout oranda’s life. It doesn’t affect oranda’s health unless it obstructs its vision. As it does not contain blood vessels, it is trimmed by a professional, especially when wen is small, and this fancy goldfish is young. Sometimes mature orandas have this growth that almost covers the entirety of their face. As the bodies are round, they have the same characteristics of a double tail.
Orandas are not efficient swimmers; that’s why they need floating food. A heater is required in an aquarium, and it can be kept with other types of fancy in a goldfish tank. Due to the variety of colors, it is a favorite fancy goldfish for sale, especially panda oranda, which has two to three colors but is famous for black and white.
Fantail
- Color: Orange, yellow, white, black
- Pattern: Single-colored, bi-colored, calico, and koi
- Size: 6 to 8 inches
- Tank size: 20 gallons
- Diet: Fantail’s diet includes goldfish pellets supplemented with live or frozen foods such as shrimp. Fantail goldfish are not strong swimmers like other single tail goldfish; therefore, goldfish flakes are not recommended.
- Appearance & Behavior: Fantail is one of the most popular and unique fancy goldfish breeds. It is known for its outstanding appearance with a double fin and large double tail. Fantails with long tails are sometimes coined “ribbon-tail.”
It has an egg-shaped body, but when we view it from above, along with the tail, it gives a triangular shape. Fantail is primarily available in bi or mono colors, but the calico subtype is also in the race. It has a normal or telescope eye.
Fantail goldfish is one of the most recommended fancy goldfish. They require more care than single tail goldfish but are still easy to care for. The fish tank requires a heater because this particular fish type prefers warm water.
This gorgeous fantail is an amazing and beautiful addition to your fish tank. It is one of the least problematic fish in fancy goldfish breeds; therefore, people who try to cultivate long tail breeds should initially invest in fantail to get results.
Similar to their counterparts, the common goldfish, the fantail exhibit distinctive character traits such as their enthusiasm for feeds and tendency to swim towards caretakers. Their egg-shaped body prevents them from swiftly moving in the water and makes them appear to wobble slightly or sway as it swims. It also processes a high dorsal fin.
Bubble eye goldfish
- Color: Most probably solid gold, orange, red, brown, blue, white, calico, black
- Size: 4 to 6 inches
- Tank size: 20 gallons
- Pattern: single-colored, bi-colored, tri-colored
- Diet: Bubble eye goldfish feeds include brine shrimp, whether it is live or frozen, bloodworms, tubifex worms, and daphnia. Freeze dried food is preferable over live food to save them from parasite and bacterial infections. You should feed them pellets instead of floating flakes because these fishes are known to ingest air while eating.
- Appearance & Behavior: Bubble eye goldfish have two distinct fluid-filled sacs on each cheek; these sacs look pretty but cause problems while swimming, and bubble eyes can have poor vision. They have double tails and lack the dorsal fin. They grow up to 5 inches long as an adult. They have color combinations of red and white, red and black, or calico pattern color.
Except for protruding eyes, bubble-eye goldies are similar in body shape to the Ranchu goldfish and lack a dorsal fin. Their body structure makes them weak swimmers, and needs special care in a fish tank to avoid injuries.
It is less recommended because it needs special care and attention, and you will have to remove sharp objects from an aquarium to have a bubble eye in your fish tank and place a prefilter sponge around the filter intake. Their bubbles are very fragile and pop up when damaged. It cannot cause much damage to the eye, and bubbles might regrow, but there is still a risk of infection.
Butterfly telescope goldfish
- Color: It is available in single colors white, black, and red. Black and white are the most common; in combination, it has black & red, white & pure, and black & white; however, they are rarely seen in lavender color.
- Size: It is about 7 to 8 inches
- Pattern: It is a single colored, bi-colored, tri-colored calico panda when it comes to pattern.
- Tank size: You can take a 20-gallon tank or aquarium to add these fishes
- Diet: It includes unshelled peas, spinach, zucchini, blanched romaine lettuce, and cucumber. You can also feed them with live or freeze dried foods such as bloodworms, insect larvae, tubifex worms, or brine shrimp. Young goldfish should have high protein in their diet to grow and get a healthy body.
- Appearance & Behavior: It has a curved, round, hunched body with a clumsy wobbling swimming style and a long double tail with a butterfly appearance. Butterfly goldfish comes in hooded and telescope-eye varieties. Its double-tail fin is spread out and flattened. Its caudal fin looks like a flying butterfly from above.
This breed of goldfish also has normal eyes. Like veil tails, these are also popular because of their fancy fins that look beautiful. Its body looks like Ryukin’s body type except for the butterfly-like tail fin.
Putting these fancy fish in an aquarium is hard, but you can keep them in a pond. Scales can be nacreous or matte, and the most desirable color of this beautiful butterfly tail goldfish is a panda.
Lionhead Goldfish
- Color: Its prominent colors include orange, white, red, chocolate, black, gold, blue, and calico
- Size: 5 to 8 inches
- Pattern: It is single colored or bi-colored fish
- Tank size: 20 gallons
- Diet: Loinhead goldfish eat a mixture of plant matter, including algae and meat food. A healthy basic diet includes high-quality fish flakes and pellets. Freeze dried food includes protein-rich meat, bloodworms, brine shrimp, mosquito larvae, etc.
- Appearance & Behavior: You can easily recognize Lionhead goldfish with the lack of their dorsal fin on their back. They have a classic round body, double tail, and prominent hood that sometimes cover their entire face and head.
This fancy type of goldie has an egg-shaped appearance that was initially bred to look like a lion dog or Shishi. These goldfish wens are like orandas but have larger cheeks to resemble puppies. Their wen extends towards their cheeks that covers their gill plates. They have straight and arched backs with a short double tail fin that does not droop, giving the Lionhead a stiff appearance. Full length rarely exceeds 6 inches but may require a heavy tank or pond maintenance to survive.
Veiltail Goldfish
- Color: Red, white, and orange
- Size: Maximum size is 7 to 8 inches
- Tank Size: A 20-gallon fish tank is enough for these fancy fish.
- Pattern: Veiltail goldfish is available in single colored and bicolored combinations.
- Diet: Veiltail goldfish diet includes a portion of high-quality pellets and fish flakes. You can give them frozen bloodworms and brine shrimp that contain plenty of meaty protein. In veggies, veiltail goldfish includes zucchini, lettuce, and blanched veggies.
- Appearance & Behavior: The Veiltail boasts a distinctive physique characterized by a compact and rounded body, complemented by its strikingly elongated tail spanning an impressive length of 3 to 4 inches. Adding to its allure are the flowing dorsal fins that lend the fish an air of elegance and grace. Too much decoration for a fish tank looks glamorous and glittering. However, keep in mind to have an aquarium with plenty of swimming space that is not filled with too many decorations in case of veiltail.
As veiltail are not good swimmers, their delicate fins easily get stuck on the rocks and driftwood and cause bacterial infection. This breed is best known for its large fins and a tall dorsal fin that resembles a sail.
Its fins are similar to betta fish out of all goldfish types. These fins are long and flowing but are prone to injury; thus, the goldie should be kept in the tank with no sharp and rough objects. Its double tail is graceful and long, and its paired anal fins are well-developed and touch both substrates when it swims along the tank floor.
The veiltail body is round and lacks a dorsal hump that may appear more compressed towards the tail. Fish grow a maximum of 12 inches and are not fast swimmers. You can keep glamorous veiltail goldfish with other fancy goldfish breeds.
This fish breed never hunt food by themselves; instead, they use floating food and are poor and weak candidates for aquariums because of their poor swimming skills and friable fins. The veiltail have metallic, nacreous, or matte scales and with a lot of color combinations in which the most dominant color is with the splashes of a secondary color across their body.
Shubunkin goldfish
- Color: It is present in orange, blue, white, and black
- Size: Shubunkin goldfish is an excellent pond fish whose length is about 9 to 18 inches at adulthood
- Pattern: Its common patterns include powder blue, red pattern over blue, orange with black colors, and calico color pattern.
- Tank size: The tank should be at least 15 to 20 gallons
- Diet: Shubunkins feed on insects and small crustaceans. You can give them some live and frozen foods to feed them. Occasionally feed them with Daphnia, tubifex worms, blood worms, krill, and brine shrimp.
- Appearance & Behavior: It is a slim-body single-tail goldfish with the most prominent calico coloration and a spotted combination of blue, orange, black, and white. These fishes are classified into three subtypes that are as follows:
- American/Japanese shubunkin
- London shubunkin
- Bristol shubunkin
- Shubunkins have nacreous scales in combination with matte scales. You can see the dark spots underneath their pearlescent scales instead of on the upper side of the scales.
It looks like a classic comet goldfish, and its tones and fins make them different from the orange goldfish. Shubunkin has smooth taper bodies with an expansive dorsal fin that is always standing erect. Its most prominent feature is its color.
It has shades of yellow, orange, red, white, gray, and blue. Blue spots in Shubunkin fish are unique because they are rare in other goldfish.
Black Moor Goldfish
- Color: It is present in black color
- Size: Its adult size is 7 to 9 inches.
- Pattern: Single colored
- Tank size: 20 gallons of water tank
- Diet: Its balanced diet includes high-quality fancy goldfish pellets and a good portion of meaty protein such as bloodworms, krill, and frozen brine shrimp
- Appearance & Behavior: Black Moor is one of the unique types of fancy in all goldfish varieties. Its popularity is based on its dramatic-looking telescope-eye goldfish breed. Black fancy goldfish are the most easily recognizable breeds because of their unique single color.
One of another Fancy goldfish types is Black Moor Goldfish.It has a rounded egg-shaped body, double fins, and protruding telescopic eyes, but it is less delicate than bubble eye goldfish. These eye protrusions are angled forward, thus becoming the cause of their poor eye vision.
But still, Black Moor needs a safe and comfortable environment to protect their eyes. If any injury occurs to their eye, it leads to infection, pain, blindness, or sometimes loss of the eye as well.
This type of goldfish needs special care and prefers high-quality water and high maintenance. Telescope fancies do best in the indoor aquarium, but with the black moor exception as black moors is a cold water fish and enjoys water conditions of 68° F and 75°F spending much time hiding underneath wood, rocks, and lush plants. You will see metallic and nacreous scales and are relatively found in color morphs like calico, panda, and red panda.
PearlScale Goldfish
- Color: This outstanding goldfish is available in red, white, blue, and calico
- Size: It is a maximum of 4 to 6 inches in size
- Pattern: Patterns are of single-color or bi-color
- Tank size needed: PearScale goldfish needs 20 gallons of water tank
- Diet: PearlScale is omnivorous and eats all kinds of fresh, frozen flakes foods and also vegetables. Their feeds include brine shrimp, blood worms, daphnia, and tubifex worms. You can also give them lettuce and peas.
- Appearance & Behavior: PearlScale is an unusual fancy variety of goldfish with a round golf ball-shaped body. They are easily recognizable by nacreous thick domed scales. These unique fish scales differ from other water creatures.
The calcium deposit on their scales looks like the fish body is covered with tiny shining pearls. PearlScale fish have paired fins except for the dorsal fins, like other goldfish with double fins. Its short rounded body is of only an orange size.
When it comes to caring, it isn’t easy because of the requirement of pristine water conditions.
PearlScale goldfish are sensitive to change and cannot handle a short period because of their delicate nature.
Like other delicate fancies, this fish breed also needs a heated tank. PearlScale never swims well due to inbreeding and poor breeding stock; that’s why they are prone to swim bladder disease that sometimes can be deadly for your finny friend.
If, due to any injury, PearlScale loses its scale, it returns but without its shining pearl appearance.
Internal organs are very compact in their small sound body, so overfeeding is dangerous for them. Temperature fluctuations and Ph also affect this shimmering and splendid beauty.
Wakin Goldfish
- Color: You can see this beautiful Wakin goldfish in red, black, orange, and calico.
- Size: Maximum size is 10 to 12 inches
- Pattern: Single or Bi-colored patterns make it more unique and beautiful. Common color combinations are red and white, along with dark brown, yellow/orange, and calico.
- Tank size: You need a 50-gallon size tank to put these fish breeds in it.
- Diet: It feeds on typical available goldfish flakes or pellets in combination with live or frozen foods and common shrimps.
- Appearance & Behavior: Wakin is a lean goldfish with a long streamlined body, an upside dorsal fin extending along its spine, and a beautiful double tail just a little smaller than a fantail. It is another fancy goldfish type that is easy to care for and put in ponds and aquariums.
Wakin goldfish are a mixed breed and don’t need any particular requirement other than space to grow and swim. Some of them that are raised in ponds grow up to 19 inches in length. Wakins are sometimes mistaken to be predecessors of fancy goldfish breeds.
They are hardly seen in the United States and are more common in Asian countries. They have elongated tails often longer than the comet goldfish and are thought to be a hybrid of a comet, fantail, and common goldfish.
Wakin is a rare breed that is very easy to care for and easily survives in a large fish tank. But it is recommended to have these fancy friends in a pond. Wakins are rare in double-tailed varieties of goldfish, just like a smaller version of Koi.
Bright orange-red blotches on a clean base of pearly white scales and a pop of red make them one of the most attractive and magnificent water creatures in ponds and aquariums.
Combining a double tail with a large dorsal fin makes this fish an outstanding and fast swimmer. You can keep it with other goldfish types, including Shubunkin and Comet.
Conclusion
Finally, we say fancy goldfish is an incredibly fascinating and gorgeous group of fish with a wide range of colors, varieties, and characteristics. From celestial eye goldfish with upward-facing eyes to the most glittering and strikingly beautiful butterfly tail goldfish, all fancy goldfish types are worth watching to beautify your indoor aquarium.
But these fish breeds need special care and attention to live happily with their owner for a long time and enjoy endless enjoyment and wonder. So if you are a fish enthusiast or want to be a goldfish owner soon, then fancy goldfish are an excellent addition to your fish tank or aquarium.
