I'm told goldfish can change color as they grow. Is that true? I had goldfish in an aquarium many years ago, and I never noticed any of them changing color. Now I have feeder fish in my pond. They are growing like crazy and seem very happy. Two of them had black fins, that now seem to be fading away. They are practically all orange now. I liked the black. Can they really be changing? Is this a sign of something wrong? Or is this normal?

Thanks

Grandma, yes, from my experience, gold fish do change color/pattern. Some are born with color while others (most) are born without color; what I call an uck color. Changing from uck to color is an individual thing; some turn fast while others turn slow. I have one uck that's going on two years old.

One of my goldfish was a bright orange with black tips -- quite the stunner, in my opinion. Now all of her tips have turned white but she's still one of my favorites. Now, I don't know about ucks. I didn't start out with ucks, but I now have my first crop of babies and I see quite a few ucks. I think it will be kind of fascinating to see what they turn into!

Goldfish change color and can do so throughout their lives although most changes occur when they're young. All start out as brown/gray/blah. Shunbunkins color up the earliest and don't change too much, mostly just the patterns. A common goldfish might go from the bronze natural color to orange, then orange with black fin tips, then orange, then orange with white fin tips. That sort of progression has been pretty common with my goldfish. The black tipping on the fins is almost always transitory.

I'm so disappointed. I loved the black fins on the orange fish. I don't know how old they are because they are just common feeders. Very small when we bought them about 2 months ago, and now about 4" or more from head to tip of tail. I can't believe how much they've grown. We bought another feeder for fun last week, just so we could see how much the others had grown compared to the new one.

We also bought one fancy one - I don't know the name. Small and calico colored, like my calico cat was before she died. I hope it doesn't change. That's why we bought it.

My little Icon pic is of Spot ( hubbys favorite ). This summer he not only lost his spots and his black tail, but also his lipstick. I was hoping he'd at least keep that. I can't wait for the new babies to get SOME KIND OF COLOR, I'm getting eyestrain looking for 'see-thru' strings with eyeballs swimming by. lol They are starting to get bellies, but they still look like guppies.

Grandma, if you're in a freezing zone, be careful with the fancy multi-colored one you just added. I assume you mean fancy tail (split tail of sorts); If so, I have one too, and also a black moore. I have to remove both before winter, as they can't take the cold like the other single tail gold fish can.

If the calico goldfish has a single tail, it's a shubunkin. If it has a split tail, it's probably a calico fantail. The calico patterned goldfish won't lose their multiple colors but the spots sometimes move around a bit. For the most part though, they don't change much.

Fantails and other multi-tailed goldfish are more apt to be caught by predators. When my pond was new, I got fantails and black moors (which are black telescope-eyed fantails). I started with 9 fancy fish. A year later, about three were alive. A few years later, and only one was left. That last one after about 8 years when the heron came through. Fancy goldfish can survive down to freezing but don't take it as well as common, comet, and shubunkin goldfish. They are more delicate.

And because the fantails are slower, fantail females would get more beat up at spawning season being chased by their faster single-tailed suitors.

The one I'm definitely sure of that's a female is our fancy fantail. This past winter was our first with them out in the pond and they did fine. She does get pushed around/and pushed up quite a bit. At least I'm glad her red/white coloring is here to stay. Went out to the pond again tonight, we don't have 2 UFO's, we have 3 and they're black!!! The other fry are brown mottled. Is there a fry distinction between the red/white comets/fancy (single and fantail) and the common feeder goldfish? I'm off to start answering my own question. lol

The fancy goldfish isn't all that fancy. It's just more colorful. Single tail. We are in Florida, so not much chance of freezing water. It can get cold at night, but it warms up again during the day. Even if it gets below freezing (which it can), it doesn't stay there long enough to hurt the fish.

Thanks everyone, for your answers.

I have a fancy g-fish. when i bought him i thought he was calico. now he is pure oarnge and just recently he started getting black spots on his back fins.

It seems goldfish are always changing as far as colors go.

When very small, most goldfish fry look the same. As they age, there are differences. Telling a comet from a common (feeder goldfish) is more about the tail length than color. Comets have longer tails. Since I started with both comets and commons a decade ago, I have some goldfish with long fins and some with short, and they can be any color combination of orange, red, white, and natural. The color transitions may vary by type of goldfish. The true common goldfish that end up orange in the end start out brown/natural and then get some splotches of orange and then the black fin tipping, and then maybe some white, and then to all orange. I've also had many retain white and some that are all white.

So I guess we won't know who the parents are until the babies are full grown and done with their color changes. We're up to 5 (2 inch -/+) and 5 alittle smaller that are almost solid black ( saw 2 with white looking bellies) and then 2 smaller mottled brown. We're going to need a better filter next year. <_<