"Jason Garner" wrote in message
...
In my local Fish suppliers :-

I finally brought some fish for my pond, the assistant took me over to a
huge tank of fish and asked me which ones I liked. I had a look and then
said I would like some of the multi coloured Goldfish he said they are
Shubunkins so I pointed to one that had a large stripe down its back "I'll
have that one please" he looked at me with a totally blank look on his
face
and said "that's a Goldfish" after that I just picked ones I liked the
look
of and didn't bother to ask him what they were.


Sounds about as user friendly as the place I go to.

ME: I'd like some fish out of the tabk over there please
LFP: Fine, heres a bag, write the stock # down and bring us back the bag.

Meanwhile there's frigging numbers everywhere and they don't have a queue in
any event. So why the hell don't you just walk over to the tank and get my
fish.

Problem is I now don't know what I have, Stripe is obviously a Goldfish
and
Vader (totally black) has a really long tail so I assume he is a Shubunkin
as for the other five they don't really have any distinguishing features
that I can pick out apart from their different colours and they don't
really
look like either of the other two.

Last year I bought "Lionheads" from Walmart at $4.00 a shot. They all turned
out to be common Goldfish, except for one that has a split tail. This group
bred and two survived, Mutts all.

This year I bought some feeders from said LFP, I think they might be Comets.
Their fins turned black after a couple of weeks in the pond. So I think the
LFP had too much Ammonia in their tank.


Bearing in mind that as soon as I get near the pond they all dive under
the
pump to hide from me is there any way I can tell what types of fish I have
from say 4-5 foot away please?

I looked at pictures in books but didn't find that any help.

Many Thanks,
Jay