the fish belong to a friend and are in California, but he will not ship. i will have to drive down to get them. he has 21. they range in quality but are all better fish than i have been able to find under $100, before shipping. i cannot afford to buy them all by myself and cannot keep them all anyway. i would want maybe 6-7. if there are others interested in sharing the cost of about $30-50 each

these are the fish breeding this last year. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ip_e0YBPHpQ

i will go get them in October�"just in time to let them acclimate to overwinter outdoors (or you can keep them indoors).

it is a rare chance to get top-view ranchu in utah. i have only seen ranchu offered once before at a "reputable" pet store in Davis county. they wanted $60 for what they had labeled Japanese Ranchu. i would not have even called them ranchu. i would have identified them as lionheads and of poor quality at that. definitely not Japanese. as far as i know there is no mass exporting of Japanese Ranchu, period. let alone to a store in Davis county. oh, and they were all brown/green. all Japanese Ranchu are red or red and white (edo nishiki are calico ranchu, but technically a different breed). probably commercial grade Chinese fish (aka what even the chinese won't buy).

my point being, $50 for a full grown goldfish of any breed, save commons, is a good deal. these are better than pet store quality, a breed you cannot buy at a petstore and they will still be less money. i am pretty good at sexing goldfish and will do my best to identify the sex for you if your intent is breeding (my dream would be to get a few people breeding ranchu locally). to breed you really should have at least 2 males and of course a female. the more fish you have the better they breed. i would recommend at least 4 to insure a good spawn. ranchu can hold their own with other goldfish and even koi providing they are not too large.

i won't take money until i bring the fish home, but would need a soft commitment to be confident enough to purchase the lot and bring it back. any interested parties, please send me an email at kendal.liddle@gmail.com and let me know how many. if i get them it will sort them by quality and divide the price and then it will be first come first served or we can do a lottery for picking order or whatever works best.

please spread the word to anybody you think might be interested.

thanks,

kendal

i don't know why it remains on top of the discussions. i really love pond fish and these are the so called kings of gold fish to Asian fish keeping cultures. these are fish of quality you cannot readily find in the US and just do not exist in utah at all to my knowledge. the cost is much less than koi of comparable quality and more suited for smaller ponds (and are small enough to be kept in an aquarium if you don not wish to overwinter outside). in fact the cost i am offering is less than the cost petsmart charges for common breeds of similar size but far lesser quality.

for any water gardener with a pond less than 500 gallons, this is about as good as you are going to get value wise on fish. if you know goldfish, you won't be disappointed. most people don't care or understand the difference until they see one. unfortunately for me i did see the difference a few years back and can't be satisfied with anything less than quality fish.

nobody has taken me up on this yet. it is the wrong time of year and people are not looking for fish. i think i will still go get them because it is a once in a lifetime opportunity i don't expect to have again. i will probably over winter them and let the local pond shop sell those i don't want on consignment after i spawn them in the spring. i am sure i can sell them there given the prices i see people buying the inferior fish at.