M-M-M-MY SHUBUNKIN

justintheodd

Exodon
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I had a couple other curiosities maybe yall can straighten out:

These were sold as "longfin fancy shubunkin". I know not the differences between bristol, longfin, london, etc. Would my fish just be a hybrid of american shubunkin and some other fancy?

I keep these at room temperature, 65-70F, slightly higher when the batterys charging 😁 and they are super active, much more boisterous than i expected for a fancy type goldie. What are the limits for keeping these fish long term? Could i keep them comfortably in my tropical tank at 75-78F? And how would they fare in a community with other mid-large cyprinids like balas, tinfoils, etc.?
shubunkin goldfish are not nearly as tolerant to tropical temps as most other fancy goldfish, as they are cold water fish. the ideal temp range for those fish is usually anywhere from 60-70 degrees so you should be fine temp wise as is. I would not really advise you keep them in a tropical tank if you want to have happy little Goldies! hope your goldfish live long and prosperous lives!
-Justin
 

jjohnwm

Sausage Finger Spam Slayer
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shubunkin goldfish are not nearly as tolerant to tropical temps as most other fancy goldfish, as they are cold water fish. the ideal temp range for those fish is usually anywhere from 60-70 degrees so you should be fine temp wise as is. I would not really advise you keep them in a tropical tank if you want to have happy little Goldies! hope your goldfish live long and prosperous lives!
-Justin
Back in the day, it was "common knowledge" that fancies were less hardy than common goldfish in terms of surviving very cold water, i.e. under the ice on ponds. That sounded reasonable back then, especially if referring to the more extreme fancies with misshapen bodies, which already looked like they were having a hard time bumbling through life under ideal conditions.

It seems reasonable, to me at least, that the fancies are also less-tolerant of the opposite extreme of temperature; I'd bet folding money that as temperatures rise and oxygen levels drop, the globular fancies will feel the stress before a standard goldfish. They're the same species, but...

Shubunkins, when compared to things like Ryukins, Lionheads, etc. barely even qualify as fancies. They're mostly a colour morph, with perhaps slightly longer finnage, but they're still pretty close to a standard goldfish in form. Logic dictates that they would be essentially just as cold-hardy, or hardy in general, as a standard wild-form goldfish. They're all the same species.

My goldies aren't fancy, they're re-purposed feeders who just lucked out and landed a gig with a guy who doesn't use live fish as feeders. When they were small...under 2 inches...they all looked fairly long-finned and Comet-like, but as they grew most of them became less streamlined, with less elongated fins, looking just like wild fish. Oddly, a few kept their longer fins and even had them grow longer. I'm thinking that perhaps culls from fancy and semi-fancy breeding projects get tossed into the pools with the commoners and inject a bit of snooty DNA into the mix?

All of them live quite comfortably outdoors even after ice starts to form on the pond surface...and all of them live quite comfortably in the unheated basement tank that can get down to below 60F during cool snaps, and up to nearly 70F during the summer. They share that tank with Cichlasoma dimerus and Gymnogeophagus rhabdotus cichlids, Garra rufa and G. flavatra, Buenos Aires tetras, Hypostomus laplatae pleco, Corydoras paleatus cats (probably got a new name now...) i.e. a bunch of not-so-tropical fish. Everybody does well, I have the same enthusiastic bubbling mass of fish at the front of the tank when I walk up to it as seen in the pics by Backfromthedead Backfromthedead and even fish that get aggressive with one another like the C.dimerus when temperatures soar in mid-summer are very peaceful and phlegmatic down at or below 70F.

The non-fancy goldies that spent the summer outdoors, with virtually no supplemental feeding done by me, grow faster and bigger and more colourful than their siblings who stayed indoors all summer, with generous feeding. Again, the indoor fish max out around 70F, while the outdoor ones can get much warmer than that during midsummer.
 
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AR1

Redtail Catfish
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You charge your batteries on the top of the tank?
Not too surprising for me since i always thought of Backfromthedead Backfromthedead as the mad scientist type of person lol
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Backfromthedead

Potamotrygon
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Jul 12, 2017
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shubunkin goldfish are not nearly as tolerant to tropical temps as most other fancy goldfish, as they are cold water fish. the ideal temp range for those fish is usually anywhere from 60-70 degrees so you should be fine temp wise as is. I would not really advise you keep them in a tropical tank if you want to have happy little Goldies! hope your goldfish live long and prosperous lives!
-Justin
Understood 👍
 
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Backfromthedead

Potamotrygon
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Back in the day, it was "common knowledge" that fancies were less hardy than common goldfish in terms of surviving very cold water, i.e. under the ice on ponds. That sounded reasonable back then, especially if referring to the more extreme fancies with misshapen bodies, which already looked like they were having a hard time bumbling through life under ideal conditions.

It seems reasonable, to me at least, that the fancies are also less-tolerant of the opposite extreme of temperature; I'd bet folding money that as temperatures rise and oxygen levels drop, the globular fancies will feel the stress before a standard goldfish. They're the same species, but...

Shubunkins, when compared to things like Ryukins, Lionheads, etc. barely even qualify as fancies. They're mostly a colour morph, with perhaps slightly longer finnage, but they're still pretty close to a standard goldfish in form. Logic dictates that they would be essentially just as cold-hardy, or hardy in general, as a standard wild-form goldfish. They're all the same species.

My goldies aren't fancy, they're re-purposed feeders who just lucked out and landed a gig with a guy who doesn't use live fish as feeders. When they were small...under 2 inches...they all looked fairly long-finned and Comet-like, but as they grew most of them became less streamlined, with less elongated fins, looking just like wild fish. Oddly, a few kept their longer fins and even had them grow longer. I'm thinking that perhaps culls from fancy and semi-fancy breeding projects get tossed into the pools with the commoners and inject a bit of snooty DNA into the mix?

All of them live quite comfortably outdoors even after ice starts to form on the pond surface...and all of them live quite comfortably in the unheated basement tank that can get down to below 60F during cool snaps, and up to nearly 70F during the summer. They share that tank with Cichlasoma dimerus and Gymnogeophagus rhabdotus cichlids, Garra rufa and G. flavatra, Buenos Aires tetras, Hypostomus laplatae pleco, Corydoras paleatus cats (probably got a new name now...) i.e. a bunch of not-so-tropical fish. Everybody does well, I have the same enthusiastic bubbling mass of fish at the front of the tank when I walk up to it as seen in the pics by Backfromthedead Backfromthedead and even fish that get aggressive with one another like the C.dimerus when temperatures soar in mid-summer are very peaceful and phlegmatic down at or below 70F.

The non-fancy goldies that spent the summer outdoors, with virtually no supplemental feeding done by me, grow faster and bigger and more colourful than their siblings who stayed indoors all summer, with generous feeding. Again, the indoor fish max out around 70F, while the outdoor ones can get much warmer than that during midsummer.
Hmmm i have two contrasting opinions here. I have heard they are among the hardiest goldfish, but my "longfin" variant makes me wary, perhaps more fancy blood in them than shubunkin. I'll probably just keep them separate for the time, but some other sub-tropical fish may be in the cards.
 

jjohnwm

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...I have heard they are among the hardiest goldfish...
I believe it. They're barely altered from the original state; bright colours and perhaps longer fins are minor alterations to the ancestral form, unlike round bodies, growths on eyes and heads, missing fins, etc. It makes sense that being closer to the natural goldfish plan, they would be hardier in general than the oddballs fancies.

Fancy goldfish were selectively bred for one reason; to look the way that they look. Nobody was also selectively breeding them for temperature hardiness or intelligence or fighting ability; they were bred strictly for looks. Does it really seem reasonable that the very highly altered forms also happen to have developed more tolerance to sub-optimal conditions of temperature or oxygen content?

I think a much more logical interpretation is that fancies proved...very unsurprisingly...to be less tolerant of extremely cold conditions than more natural breeds of goldies...Comets, Shubunkins, etc...and repetition of this eventually came to make it sound as though the less-extreme fancies needed the cooler temps, while the truly weird far-out fancies needed the warmer ones...when what they really needed was simply less extreme conditions.

The extreme fancies will almost certainly be more sensitive to any sub-optimal conditions, including temperatures that are either too high or too low. The less-extreme "semi-fancies" will be much closer to the ancestral wild fish in terms of adaptability and general hardiness at either extreme.
 

FINWIN

Alligator Gar
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Dec 21, 2018
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I believe it. They're barely altered from the original state; bright colours and perhaps longer fins are minor alterations to the ancestral form, unlike round bodies, growths on eyes and heads, missing fins, etc. It makes sense that being closer to the natural goldfish plan, they would be hardier in general than the oddballs fancies.

Fancy goldfish were selectively bred for one reason; to look the way that they look. Nobody was also selectively breeding them for temperature hardiness or intelligence or fighting ability; they were bred strictly for looks. Does it really seem reasonable that the very highly altered forms also happen to have developed more tolerance to sub-optimal conditions of temperature or oxygen content?

I think a much more logical interpretation is that fancies proved...very unsurprisingly...to be less tolerant of extremely cold conditions than more natural breeds of goldies...Comets, Shubunkins, etc...and repetition of this eventually came to make it sound as though the less-extreme fancies needed the cooler temps, while the truly weird far-out fancies needed the warmer ones...when what they really needed was simply less extreme conditions.

The extreme fancies will almost certainly be more sensitive to any sub-optimal conditions, including temperatures that are either too high or too low. The less-extreme "semi-fancies" will be much closer to the ancestral wild fish in terms of adaptability and general hardiness at either extreme.
A truly lovely speech, but...

What are you trying to say? Asking for chubby friends in tanks everywhere. Bring a pin.

1732662881674.png
 
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jjohnwm

Sausage Finger Spam Slayer
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Mar 29, 2019
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A truly lovely speech, but...

What are you trying to say? Asking for chubby friends in tanks everywhere. Bring a pin.
View attachment 1553085
I don't know what's worse: the way that fish looks...or the fact that somebody actually wanted it to look that way. :yuck::crazy::barf:
 

FINWIN

Alligator Gar
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Dec 21, 2018
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I don't know what's worse: the way that fish looks...or the fact that somebody actually wanted it to look that way. :yuck::crazy::barf:
Yah those are called balloon pearlscales...a more distorted version of regular pearlscales. They literally don't swim, just wiggle in place at the bottom. I don't get it either. Not sure how popular they are on the market. Even the small ones look like golf balls.
 
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