CHINESE VEILTAILS

Photographed in Hong Kong, December 2003

Adult red-eyed red metallic veiltail

Chinese red-eyed red metallic veiltail Chinese red-eyed red metallic veiltail
Chinese red-eyed red metallic veiltail Chinese red-eyed red metallic veiltail

This is a superb fish with 100% self-colouration (i.e. the single body colour extending right to the edges of the fins) and very unusual red eyes. A second such individual was seen in the same collection, more orange-yellow in colour rather than red.

Notice the very slight trace of the ryukin dorsal hump (but one seldom seems to see a veiltail without this). Notice also the shorter, round-tipped paired fins compared with the longer, pointed-tipped paired fins of Western veiltails, and the slightly greater fork in the tail. The fish has a good, upright dorsal fin (i.e. not drooping to one side) and relatively straight, uncurled pectoral fins.

For their strength of body colouration, such fish would make a valuable outcross in attempting to recreate the pure self-coloured red metallic veiltails that seem to have been lost from the hobby in recent years. (Contact the Website Author for the source of these fish).

Young metallic veiltails

Chinese white and red-white veiltails young Chinese red metallic veiltail

Left: white metallic and red-white variegated metallic veiltails from a strain with shorter, more rounded paired fins than the red fish above. Right: very fine, deep red body colour in a young veiltail. The fins of these fish should lengthen with age.

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