What increases Goldfish fin growth?

Question

I have had one particular goldfish for about 3 years now and it has extremely beautiful long frilly tail and other fins. I bought him as a feeder (29c goldfish) along with about 6 others who all decided not to survive. So he lived alone for about 2 years in a 5 gallon.

Last year I bought about 8 other goldfish who, after being fed well and time in the 'quarantine' tank are all about the same size as my first fish. They all live together now in an 80 gallon tank. But none of the new fish are developing the frilly tails that make the first one so pretty. Is this just random genetic variation or are there ways to encourage more fin growth? The variables as I see them are solitude, less water to swim around in, diet (the 5 gallon had a lot more algae growth than the 60 gallon) or just random genetics. The fact that 8 other fish have not managed to grow any additional frills or tail length makes me lean away from genetics. Thoughts?

Answer 1

The one with the longer fins is probably a comet and the new ones are probably commons. So nothing you do will be able to change how their fins are, it is just the type of fish you have.

I added 2 links, the first one is about commons and the other is about comets. You can look for yourself and see what you have.

Answer 2

Well, actually it is genetics- let me assure you. You thought that 8 fish not growing the long fins ruled that out, but long fins are a rare mutation that is recessive. That 1st fish that survived just happened to have the long fin gene. When you get feeders, it is a roll of the dice as these fish are not bred for any spacific trait. Thats half the fun. If you must have long fins, you can pay a little moe and buy long fin varieties. I like the short fin ones, myself. Good luck, jason (Phoenix Phish Care)

Answer 3

Ok the first thing is you cant feed them nothing special for growth fish, iguana's, snakes, they grow according to the size of the tank the bigger the tank the bigger they grow and be careful with the change of water to much it can cause them to go in shock or even catch a disease you can get a couple of algae eaters all they do is eat all the algae and fish poop so it saves on the cleaning and if your pump is good you shouldn't have to clean your tank no more than once every other month or even ever two months its like animal kingdom around here good luck

Answer 4

its very random genetics. goldfish genes are not very well fixed. the fish you buy in a store can change colors, shape, proportion -- everything. large well proportioned fish are very pricey for this reason. most little fish with good proportion don't grow up to be good proportioned adults. your frilly fins are probably a veiltail. their are at least a dozen recognized varieties of goldish (like orandas, lionheads, comets, fantails, moors, etc) add to this the fin and color and other things and you have a goldfish gene pool explosion.

Answer 5

when u buy the cheap goldfish, they're mixed with 2 species, common gold fish, and comet goldfish. comet goldfish have the long beautiful tails, other like the common goldfish have just normal short tails.