[hobbyist] General Question About Breeding Goldfish, Specifically Orandas Options

[therue]

Hi everyone,

I'm new to goldfish, but have kept freshwater fish all my life and am no stranger to fish keeping.

I've recently taken an interest in fancy goldfish - especially Orandas, so I was wondering if anyone with experience could provide me with some guidance and point me in the right direction.

To start off, I'm not planning to become a commercial breeder or anything like that, my interest is purely from a hobbyist perspective. With that beign said, I have a few questions below, hopefully some of you could help shed some light for me on the subject.

1. if one wants to breed orandas as a hobbyist, what would be a good amount of fish to start off with? obviously, i know this depends on how much space, equipments he/she have... but on average, what would be a good minimum amount (1 pair, 2 pairs?) capable of allowing you to play around with the gene pool and developing/producing some good variety of permutations in colors?

2. Since i'm doing this for fun and as a hobby, naturally I want to buy young fish so i can experience the joy of seeing them grow and mature (in a good enviornment with proper nutrition) as well as learning more about the fish and discovering what food works best (duckweed, earthworm, peas, algae, etc, etc) But, how early do orandas start showing their colors/patterns? Obviously purchasing adult fish is probably what most breeders would do since they can just select the fish with the pattern/coloration they're looking for with more precission. But what about for someone like me who not only want to be able to select good potential breeders, but at the same time, get them at a young age and experience the best of both world?

3. If i want to try breeding certain colors/variations, would it be better to start out with fish with single color? and gradually working towards the colors/patterns I want? I'm guessing, if i start out with fish with multi-colors, it would probably make it harder to control?

4. At the moment, i'm planning on getting a tank/tub similar to the one shown in this youtube video:



the lady in the video has 2 tubs that are about the same dimension, except one is deeper... the shallower one is about 60 gallon, while the deeper tub is 127 gallon I believe.

I think i will try to find something similar for the main area for holding my fish, while also getting a more conventional glass tank (40 gallon roughly, which is good to hold about 2 fish) so i could use that for either spawning/breeding, or quaranteen in case a fish gets sick (when none of the fish are breeding)? What do you guys think about keeping them in a tub like these? compare to regular tanks?

5. If in the future i end up with 5-6 fish in a big 120 gallon tub, how do you guys choose what fish to use for breeding? do you guys let nature take its course? just keep all 5-6 fish together int he community tank and see which one mates with which? or hand breed them by squeeing the eggs/semen from the selected fish you want to breed? (if so, how do you deal with the unexpected pregnancy? from the community tank?) lol i could imagine that becoming a lot of work and could easily overwhelm you when your'e not prepared to have so many breedings going on at once or the desired breedings between pairs that you're looking for.

I just recently moved from the u.s. and am currently residing in Taiwan. I know that majority of the higher quality fish tend to come from china/thailand/singapore, and although Taiwan local fish shops have fish that they claimed are from these regions, and yes, some do look pretty decent, but since i'm in Asia as well, should i just go straight for the source and just try to purchase them from a reputable show quality breeder from thailand, singapore or china? (the delivery fee is going to be very negligeable since Taiwan is so close to those countries)

What are some top notch places to get high quality fish for breeding purposes when it comes to Orandas? [] and what exactly is the difference between the singapore/china/thailand types?

sorry for such a length post, but hope to hear from everyone !