QuestionOur 3000 Gal Pond has Koi and a couple of large Goldfish. After last years spawn the baby fish turned out to look like neither.
They lack the barbels around the mouth as is common in Koi and wild carp. The baby fish range from an olive color to bronze and have no barbels. They look like a goldfish but there is no orange coloring at all. Could these fish have come from another source or is it possible for goldfish to revert back to a carp color in their young?
AnswerGoldfish do in fact often come out a bronze-ish color. The barbels you speak of are only common with koi, but some goldfish do have them. If they were koi, they would have distinct barbels by the time they were three months of age. Based on your information, I guess that they are goldfish. They will probably turn orange over the next year but some of them will keep their dark color.