Fantail Goldfish

Diet:

Omnivorous, like the standard Goldfish, Fantails will consume anything they can swallow. A healthy diet of Goldfish flake and pellets supplemented with the odd treat such as blood worms is ideal.

Behaviour:

Like the standard Goldfish, Fantails are peaceful, active fish but will eat small fish if they can swallow them. Care should be taken that the fish isn’t able to swallow gravel/substrate as these can become stuck in the mouth/throat. Due to their fanned tails, they are quite slow swimming, so a strong current is not ideal.

Sexing:

Sexing visually is almost impossible. To determine sex you will need to vent.

Breeding:

Fantails will breed in captivity quite easily but are likely to eat their own eggs. Like standard Goldfish they are egg scatterers. For a full breeding guide, click here.

Notes:

Fantail Goldfish are a man-made species. Due to their short bodies, some studies have shown that their immune system isn’t as strong as that of a standard Goldfish, so warmer temperatures are often recommended to assist in keeping the fish healthy.

Standard Fantails seem to be the hardiest but there are many varieties of Fantail now commonly available, these include:

Oranda

Ranchu

Ryukin

Lionhead

Telescope

Bubble eye

Pearlscale

Celestial eye

and probably many more weird and wonderful varieties.