Colours Shapes and Sizes Make for Different Types of Goldfish

The types of goldfish vary, and the characteristics that make this diversity evident are recognized in their scale colouring, the shape and size of the goldfish, the look of their tails, and of course, by their different names. Nevertheless, regardless of how one goldfish may look, or if it has a different title from the next, all goldfish come from the same family, originating from the gibel carp found in the streams of China.

The only reason why there are so many unique looking types of goldfish is because they have been purposely bread to look different.

Why? It may or may not come as a surprise to you but appearance matters to goldfish enthusiasts, and may be something you will want to consider yourself when looking at the types of goldfish that are available on the market.

For instance, did you know that goldfish are available in more colours than just gold? In fact, there are goldfish that are coloured yellow, red, bronze, blue and even black! What?s more is there are some goldfish that have a mixture of colours in their scales. However, although goldfish scales can come in more than one shade, hue, or splash of colour, many types of goldfish are also categorized by their tails.

There are four types of goldfish tail categories that you can consider when selecting your goldfish. The four categories include the single tailed, double tailed, double tailed without dorsal fin, and the double tailed with dorsal fin. While each type of goldfish in these categories has differences within their own groups based on their colour, body and fin size, the one feature which remains constant within their grouping is their shape. Take for example the single tailed goldfish, which has three goldfish within its category: Comets, Commons and Shubunkins. Although each of these types of goldfish has a slender body shape, Comets generally have gold scales and a long single fin tail, whereas the Shubunkins is bigger in size, and has calico coloured (a mix of violet, orange red and black) scales.

Aside from these noted differences, you will discover that the single tailed goldfish, as well as the double tailed goldfish, share the same slender body shape characteristic; while both the double tailed goldfish with the dorsal fin and those without, feature an egg shaped body. Moreover, the double tailed with the dorsal fin, and those double tailed without the dorsal fin are unique types of goldfish that have exotic characteristics. Some of these characteristics include a wen (head growth) seen in the Oranda and Pearlscale goldfish, and telescope eyes, as seen in the Telescope and Moors goldfish.

As you can see, there are many aspects to consider when it comes to choosing from the different available types of goldfish. Just remember, depending on the fish you want, certain care methods will be required that are based on different characteristics for each of the goldfish types.

Mark Sturge is webmaster of goldfish-answers.com. A site where you can learn all about goldfish care and the different types of goldfish to choose from.