It's been a good week

Now the work begins. 

Troubling Times

Origin of Chinese Goldfish and Sequential Loss of Genetic Diversity Accompanies New Breeds

Origin of Chinese Goldfish and Sequential Loss of Genetic Diversity Accompanies New Breeds

Abstract

Background

Goldfish, Carassius auratus, have experienced strong anthropogenic selection during their evolutionary history, generating a tremendous extent of morphological variation relative to that in native Carassius. To locate the geographic origin of goldfish, we analyzed nucleotide sequences from part of the control region (CR) and the entire cytochrome b (Cytb) mitochondrial DNA genes for 234 goldfish and a large series of native specimens. Four important morphological characteristics used in goldfish taxonomy–body shape, dorsal fin, eye shape, and tailfin–were selected for hypothesis-testing to identify those that better correspond to evolutionary history.

Principal Finding

Haplotypes of goldfish rooted in two sublineages (C5 and C6), which contained the haplotypes of native C. a. auratus from southern China. Values of F_ST and N_m revealed a close relationship between goldfish and native C. a. auratus from the lower Yangtze River. An extraordinary, stepwise loss of genetic diversity was detected from native fish to goldfish and from Grass-goldfish relative to other breeds. Significantly negative results for the tests of Tajima’s D and Fu and Li’s D* and F* were identified in goldfish, including the Grass breed. The results identified eye-shape as being the least informative character for grouping goldfish with respect to their evolutionary history. Fisher’s exact test identified matrilineal constraints on domestication.

Conclusions

Chinese goldfish have a matrilineal origin from native southern Chinese C. a. auratus, especially the lineages from the lower Yangtze River. Anthropogenic selection of the nativeCarassius eliminated aesthetically unappealing goldfish and this action appeared to be responsible for the stepwise decrease in genetic diversity of domesticated goldfish, a process similar to that reported for the domestication of pigs, rice, and maize. The three-breed taxonomy–Grass-goldfish, Egg-goldfish, and Wen-goldfish–better reflected the history of domestication.

Goldfish and Lotus Netsuke

Topview Ranchu Japanese Import Group squeeze

First two fish are the females, then 4 males.  All crosses were made.

Obituary: Dr Joe Smartt

From: Practical Fish Keeping

Copyright © Ray Rich

It is with great sadness that we inform you of the death of the goldfish expert Dr Joe Smartt.

Joe passed away peacefully at the Grange Nursing Home, Hedge End, Hampshire, on Friday June 7 in his 82nd year following a long illness which was stoically borne.

Joe was born in West Ham, London, on September 9th, 1931 and was educated at the nearby Forest Gate primary school. He gained degrees and qualifications at Durham, Cambridge and North Carolina Universities and, after working in Africa on a number of significant plant breeding programmes, he was offered a lectureship in genetics at Southampton University in 1967 and in 1990 he achieved the status of Reader in Biology.

Southampton University also honoured Joe by awarding him a DSC in 1989 for his work on the genetics and evolution of crop plants. In 1996, after 29 years of loyal service and distinguished research in evolutionary biology, Joe retired from the University.

Joe had a lifelong passion for all kinds of music and traditional  instruments, steam trains, goldfish breeding and judging, and folk dancing; he was the founder of the University's first Morris men troop, the Red Stags.

Joe was clearly a man of many parts and The Goldfish Society of Great Britain has been very fortunate in benefiting from his friendship and work on Goldfish genetics. He joined the Society in 1984 and began his regular contributions to the Bulletin, largely on Goldfish genetics, in 1986; stopping only 3-4 years ago when his health deteriorated.

He became the Society’s Scientific Adviser in 1988 and in acknowledgement of his work on Goldfish genetics he was awarded a Fellowship in 2000. He published two books on Goldfish genetics which, as far as I am aware, are the only books on Goldfish genetics written in English.

The books are "Goldfish Breeding and Genetics", written jointly with James (Jimmy) Bundell and "Goldfish Varieties and Genetics" which has "text book" status.

He was also a regular contributor to the Practical Fishkeeping magazine.

In 2006 he achieved the Society’s highest accolade by being appointed our President, which was followed by the award of Life Membership in 2009.

One of the World’s gentlemen, Dr Joe will be greatly missed by his family and friends throughout the world and in particular by his "goldfish friends" in the UK and the USA.

Our thoughts are with Joe’s wife Pam and his daughters Helena and Frances and his brother Tony at this sad time.

Published: John Parker Monday 24 June 2013, 10:53 pm
Views: 563 times
Filed under: obituary Joe Smartt goldfish expert genetics 

Topview Ranchu Japanese Imports Spawnings

Wakin Spawn Japanese Imports

These were bred by a Wakin specialist in Japan. Happy to carry on his traditions in America. 

They are in greenwater, the eggs will incubate in greenwater and they fry will grow in greenwater eating daphnia. One more fish to picture but he jumped back in to the pond. 

Got Daphnia?

From fish food, to ammonia, to greenwater, to daphnia, back to live fish food. Ecology. 

Japanese Born Topview Ranchu GoldfishGarage.com

700 gallons of Sarassas

I installed this tank 6 years ago and set it up for trout. They get big an ugly and then some local minnows were put in. Then they died and the tanks sat for 4 months empty.

Now it's a Sarassa tank! Bye bye trout tank. 

SxK Topview Ranchu goldfishgarage.com

5 month old fish.

Evolutionary Trends of the Pharyngeal Dentition in Cypriniformes (Actinopterygii: Ostariophysi)

http://openi.nlm.nih.gov/detailedresult.php?img=2892034_pone.0011293.g001&req=4

one-0011293-g001: Localization of the fifth ceratobranchial in the goldfish, Carassius auratus (Cyprinidae) and dental plate for this species.1, 2 and 3 are general views of the whole goldfish skeleton with the fifth ceratobranchial, bearing the pharyngeal teeth, painting in red. 1: Lateral view; 2: Ventral view; 3: Posterior view. 4 is the dental plate for this species with three conventional views: A: Occlusal view; B: ventral view; C: dorsal view. The dental formula for the goldfish is 4/4 (there is, on each side, one row of four teeth). Moreover, on one side, replacement teeth are visible as they are not attached to the pharyngeal bone (pointed by red arrows). The tooth shape is “compressed”.

Mentions: Figure 1 shows the example of a plate for a Cyprinidae species, Carassius auratus, with the orientation of the dentition within the animal body. All the plates for all the species are presented in Figure S1 and a selection of diverse morphologies is presented in Figure 2. From this dataset we extracted the dental formula and we qualitatively described the tooth shape with reference to various previously described morphotypes [4], [33]. In Cyprinoidea with several tooth rows, the tooth shape was determined for teeth on the ventral row as they are the biggest and the most differentiated. By rotating 3D reconstructions, it is easy to distinguish functional teeth from replacement teeth because the latter are not bound to the bone (see teeth pointed by red arrows on Figure 1).

Abstract: The fish order Cypriniformes is one of the most diverse ray-finned fish groups in the world with more than 3000 recognized species. Cypriniformes are characterized by a striking distribution of their dentition: namely the absence of oral teeth and presence of pharyngeal teeth on the last gill arch (fifth ceratobranchial). Despite this limited localisation, the diversity of tooth patterns in Cypriniformes is astonishing. Here we provide a further description of this diversity using X-ray microtomography and we map the resulting dental characters on a phylogenetic tree to explore evolutionary trends.We performed a pilot survey of dental formulae and individual tooth shapes in 34 adult species of Cypriniformes by X-ray microtomography (using either conventional X-ray machine, or synchrotron microtomography when necessary) or by dissecting. By mapping morphological results in a phylogenetic tree, it emerges that the two super-families Cobitoidea and Cyprinoidea have followed two distinct evolutionary pathways. Furthermore, our analysis supports the hypothesis of a three-row dentition as ancestral for Cyprinoidea and a general trend in tooth row reduction in most derived lineages. Yet, this general scheme must be considered with caution as several events of tooth row gain and loss have occurred during evolutionary history of Cyprinoidea.Dentition diversity in Cypriniformes constitutes an excellent model to study the evolution of complex morphological structures. This morphological survey clearly advocates for extending the use of X-ray microtomography to study tooth morphology in Cypriniformes. Yet, our survey also underlines that improved knowledge of Cypriniformes life traits, such as feeding habits, is required as current knowledge is not sufficient to conclude on the link between diet and dental morphology.

Fiberglass pond Craig's list score

Drove an hour to Salem last night. Got there around 11:30 and got back on the road at midnight. Well worth the drive for this awesome condition fiberglass pond.

From the add: 

Edo Nishiki Japanese Import Spawn

Female

Male

Male

Plus one male unpictured.

Suzuki x Kageyama sxk topview Ranchu goldfish Pets

Columnaris disease in fish: a review with emphasis on bacterium-host interactions

Original PDF:

http://www.veterinaryresearch.org/content/pdf/1297-9716-44-27.pdf

A few snippets:
"An in vivo immersion challenge of F. columnare in chan- nel catfish and goldfish (Carassius auratus L.) revealed decreasing mortality as salinity goes up, with signifi- cantly lower and no mortalities when salinity reaches values of 1.0‰ and between 3 and 9‰, respectively [79]. If the fish can be adapted to salt levels of at least 1.0‰, this method could be used as a possible prevent- ive measure in columnaris disease."

"Besides optimizing and adjusting management prac- tices, chemical agents can also be adopted as a prevent- ive approach. Davis concluded that the development or intensification of columnaris disease could be prevented by treating the fish for 20 min in a copper sulfate (CuSO4) bath at 37 mg/L (1:30 000) or by adding copper sulfate to pond water at 0.5 mg/L [4]. Dipping the fish one at a time in a 1:2000 copper-sulfate for one to two minutes was also proven to be effective in the preven- tion of the disease. Rogers suggested the addition of po- tassium permanganate (KMnO4) to the water at 2 mg/L[119]. Darwish et al. also confirmed the prophylactic value of KMnO4 at doses around 2 mg/L [120]. Prophylactic treatment of channel catfish with 15 mg/L chloramine-T reduced fish mortality from a F. columnare infection from 84–100% to 6–14% [121]. Thomas-Jinu and Goodwin demonstrated the efficacy of prophylactic- ally given oxytetracycline against mortality in channel cat- fish and also reported zero mortality for the combination of sulphadimethoxine and ormetoprim in feed prior to bacterial challenge with four highly virulent strains of F. columnare [111]."