Naja gold beginning to lose the black pigment on its mouth.
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| Naja gold beginning to lose the black pigment on its mouth. |
About eight mutations in angelfish have resulted in the many
color variations that exist today. Five of these mutations
(dark, stripeless, marble, smokey, and zebra) were discussed in
Part 1. This article will deal with the three types of gold
angelfish (Naja gold, Hong Kong gold and "New Gold") that have
been widely available in the hobby. Commercial production of
golds today is limited almost entirely to the new gold, which is
gold its entire life (unlike the Naja gold) and has better color
than the Hong Kong gold, in which the juvenile resembles a faded
silver angelfish.
Naja gold pair in two stages of color change to gold. The male now has only a small black area remaining.
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| Naja gold pair in two stages of color change to gold. The male now has only a small black area remaining. |
The Naja gold (sometimes called Wingate gold), which was the
first gold angelfish on the market, appeared in 1970 (Axelrod,
1970). The male now has only a small black area remaining. It is
the only one of the three golds that looks like wild-type
(silver) for the first nine months, more or less, of its life.
The first noticeable change is loss of black pigment on the
mouth. Then black pigment continues to disappear on the lower
part of the fish, while the dorsal areas simultaneously become
black. Within a few days or weeks, the time varying among
individuals, these black areas disappear as the amount of dark
area diminishes, resulting in a gold-colored fish with black
pigment remaining in the eyes of most individuals. Naja golds
are the only angelfish I have seen that have atypical eyes; my
impression is that I can see into the eye's interior.
In the Hong Kong gold (Anon., 1971), the juvenile is similar
to wild-type but its dark markings are paler. At maturity, this
striped pattern disappears and the fish is gold. Immature Hong
Kong golds have an equilibrium problem. When their light is
turned on in the morning, or if you shine light at them
horizontally instead of from above, they are likely to swim in
several head-first somersaults. This behavior has not been
observed in the adults that I have had.
The new gold angelfish is gold its entire life. I have
examined fry (one day before they became free-swimming) with 10x
magnification, and found that they have a reduced number of
black pigment cells (appearing as black stipples) compared with
wild-type. The new gold never has the dark stripes that are
present in the juvenile Hong Kong gold. New golds do not have
the eye variation that occurs in Naja golds.
New golds were imported into the U.S. from Singapore in 1973.
Earl Wellwood (1974), a Canadian aquarist, stated that he had
about 5000 new golds before he sold any. When I talked with Mr.
Wellwood in 1976, he told me that he thought the new golds on
the market originated from his stock. Unfortunately, his article
did not give the date when he first sold new golds, and
therefore he did not make it clear whether or not he released
his new golds early enough for these fish to have been raised in
Singapore and exported in 1973. I have seen no information on
the origin of the Singapore new golds. Ross Socolof (1975)
reported new gold angelfish that appeared in stocks at his fish
farm, and he also said that new golds turned up in stocks at
another Florida fish farm. It is impossible to know, from the
information that I have, whether the mutation to new gold
occurred only once or more than once within a period of about
three years.
Foreground: Naja gold, fully changed to gold.
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| Foreground: Naja gold, fully changed to gold. |
It was stated (Anon., 1971) that many angelfish that were
supposed to be Naja golds did not breed true and that gold
parents produced silver young. I do not know of any documented
cases of Naja golds producing young that never turned gold.
However, I know several aquarists, including myself, who bought
young silvers that were sold as Naja golds and that never turned
gold. It seems likely to me that the price of $5 each for
juvenile Naja golds could have been reason enough for some
dishonest dealers to mislabel young silvers and sell them as
Naja golds. Evidence that Naja golds actually may breed true
became available to me when I visited Adelbert Boxley several
years ago. Mr. Boxley, in Kansas City, had bought some Naja
golds from a supplier who told him that the fish were from gold
parents and were guaranteed to turn gold, which all of them did.
He gave me six juveniles that were offspring from his golds, and
all six of these later turned gold (before they were one year
old).
I got all wild-type offspring from a cross of Naja gold x new
gold. Twelve of these were kept for one year, when they were
still wild-type. Thus it appears unlikely that Naja gold is due
to a single dominant gene with complete penetrance (always being
expressed). The possibility that Naja gold is due to a recessive
gene has not been tested, as far as I know.
Foreground: New Gold with one dose of the dominant gene for veiltail.
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Foreground: New Gold with one dose of the
dominant gene for veiltail. |
Crossing Hong Kong gold with black, I obtained only black
lace offspring. The F2 included 29 wild-type, 49 black lace, 12
black, 4 Hong Kong gold. It is concluded that Hong Kong gold is
due to a recessive gene; also, that the genes for dark and Hong
Kong gold are not alleles (occurring at the same location on a
chromosome), since mating fish heterozygous for both dark and
Hong Kong gold produced some wild-type offspring.
A blushing (two doses of stripeless) female, mated to a Hong
Kong gold male, produced 100% stripeless non-gold offspring. The
332 fish in the F2 included 68 wild-type along with some each of
blushing, Hong Kong gold blushing, stripeless, stripeless Hong
Kong gold, and Hong Kong gold. It is concluded that stripeless
and Hong Kong gold are not alleles, since wild-type appeared in
the F2 and since Hong Kong gold blushing (two doses each of Hong
Kong gold and stripeless) would not occur if these two genes
were alleles.
Crosses of new gold x new gold produces 100% new gold
offspring. No new golds were produced by matings of new gold x
marble, new gold x black, new gold x smokey, or new gold x
zebra. Each of the backcrosses of new gold x F1 of these five
crosses produced some new gold progeny. Also, a 3:1 ratio (146
wild-type, 50 new gold) was counted for the F2 of new gold x
wild-type. Thus, new gold is due to a recessive gene.
I would advise anyone who wants to raise Naja golds to obtain
stock from a source that can be trused to supply offspring from
Naja gold parents. From then on, these should be mated only Naja
gold to Jaja gold if the purpose is to raise this type only.
Probably Naja gold stock is no longer easy to locate since new
golds have been replacing Naha gold commercially.
Hong Kong gold breed true and also should not be outcrossed
with any other color if you want all Hong Kong gold offspring.
The same situation exists for new gold, which breeds true.
Literature Cited
Anon. Peter Wong rings the gong in old Hong
Kong.
Trop. Fish Hobbyist 19:6-11. January, 1971
Axelrod, Herbert R. Naja’s angelfish.
Trop. Fish Hobbyist 18:4-13, January 1970
Socolof, Ross, B. Gold, gold now and red, red
now.
Buntbarsche Bull. No 47:24. March-April. 1975
Wellwood, Earl. A Canadian creation.
Canadian Fish Fanciers 1 (4):16-17. 1974
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