Chakoteya wrote:


but it's as good a way as any to say hi!!

We put in this enormous (8000l) pond last summer, and the fish really
like it. So much that last month we spotted 6 black young fish. We
weren't trying to breed but well, you know goldfish, the martini's of
the pond world (anytime, anyplace, anywhere.)

So the really silly question is - how old/big do they have to get to
start turning gold?

Sorry, you're wrong. It's not a really silly question :-)

The answer, though, is the typical "it depends". I've seen them start to
change in weeks, and others that didn't change for a year - typically
around 5cm. It can be really quite spectacular as a fish develops a small
hint of gold on his back, then as the days go by the gold patch gets bigger
and bigger.
--
derek