Veiltail

Every fancy goldfish is a trade, and the veiltail made its trade in the fins, as far as they will go. It carries a double caudal fin with no fork in it, hanging in broad square folds that can approach the length of its own body, above which sits a dorsal held as high as the standard can manage.

It is the most dramatic goldfish there is. It is also a fish that spends every minute of its life carrying that, and nearly everything below follows from the fact.

Identification

Two features, and the second is the one people forget.

The tail has no fork. This is the whole breed. A veiltail’s double caudal is long, broad and square-cut across the trailing edge, with no fork and no notch, and it is well spread but carried below the horizontal, so it droops rather than fans. Any fork, any notch, and it is not a veiltail however long the fins are.

The dorsal is tall and erect. Carried high and well developed, and the standard gives it nearly as many points as the tail. A long-finned fancy with a low or drooping dorsal is a long-finned fancy, not a veiltail.

The body underneath is a short, deep egg shape with a smooth back — no shoulder hump, which is what separates it from a ryukin at a glance. Eyes are normally ordinary; the telescope-eyed version is the broadtail moor, usually solid black, which is a telescope wearing this finnage.

What kind of goldfish do I have sets out where this sits among the other double-tailed fancies, and why the tail is the thing to judge by.

How it develops

The finnage arrives last, which is why a juvenile veiltail cannot be verified as one. A young fish of this breed is a deep-bodied fancy with unremarkable fins, and the square unforked trailing edge that defines it only declares itself as the tail lengthens.

Young fish fill out with age, and no published source gives a finer timetable.

So most fish sold as juvenile veiltails are a forecast rather than a fish. Buying an older fish, or buying from a line whose adults you have seen, are the only two ways to be sure — which is the argument breeding goldfish makes about lines rather than pairs, and the reason what kind of goldfish do I have treats juvenile identification as a separate problem.

The care requirement arrives on the same schedule. A young veiltail has little tail to carry and needs less accommodation; as the fins lengthen the decor and flow requirements on this page start to matter. Set the tank up for the adult rather than for the fish you brought home.

Why the finnage is the care problem

This is the section that matters, and it is the reason this page exists separately from the fantail.

A goldfish fin is thin tissue over fine rays, kept intact by a healthy slime coat and clean water. Make it much larger and three things change at once:

It is often the first tissue to show bad water. Fins can fray, split and recede before anything else on a goldfish shows trouble, which is why torn fins is so often a water-quality page in disguise. On a veiltail that early-warning property becomes a liability: the fish has vastly more of the tissue that goes first, and vastly more to lose.

It adds drag. A long unforked tail adds resistance, and a veiltail is generally described as slower than a fantail of the same size, tiring sooner and less able to hold itself against flow that other fancies ignore, although the swimming studies have measured fantails rather than veiltails.

It catches on everything. Ornament edges, plastic plants, unguarded filter intakes, gravel with corners. And regrown fin often comes back shorter or a different colour, which on a fish judged entirely by the outline of its fins is a permanent mark rather than a cosmetic one.

Aquarium requirements

100 litres minimum for one, and more for each additional fish. That is the same floor as much faster breeds, for a different reason: a veiltail needs swimming room in proportion to a body that is far longer than its measurement suggests, and it needs the dilution that volume provides because poor water shows early on a fish with this much fin.

Gentle flow, deliberately arranged. Spread a canister’s outflow with a spray bar, or use a filter whose outflow is inherently soft. A veiltail held against the glass by a current is not swimming, it is being pinned. The filtration guide covers the options; the requirement here is capacity without velocity.

Nothing sharp, anywhere. Run a finger over every ornament, every plant and every join. The decorations guide sets out the test, and on this breed it is not optional. Silk or live plants rather than plastic, smooth rounded stone, and every intake guarded with a sponge.

A steady temperature, and not too cold. Many guides give 18 to 24 °C and some breed societies 15 to 20 °C. Cold water slows fin healing considerably, which matters more here than anywhere else — the temperature guide covers the bands and the reason autumn is when small damage becomes a real problem.

Water quality treated as the breed’s requirement, not as general good practice. Ammonia and nitrite at zero, nitrate low and steady, tested rather than assumed. The water parameter checker will interpret the readings.

Personality and behaviour

Placid, slow and undemanding in temperament — a calm fish that drifts rather than darts, and one that does not compete for anything.

That last part is the practical issue. A veiltail is often the last fish to the food in the tank, and it will be outfed by most fish sharing the water with it, without any aggression being involved at all. The chasing and bullying page makes the general version of this argument: food competition is one of the things that harm fancies, and it needs no conflict.

Feeding

Arrange it rather than assume it.

Sinking food, because a veiltail struggles at the surface and gulping air compounds the buoyancy risk that comes with a deep compressed body. Sinking versus floating covers why this is the default for every deep-bodied fancy.

A consistent spot, so the fish learns where food arrives and does not have to search for it.

Watch it actually eat. With slower tankmates this is straightforward; with anything quicker, feed in more than one place and confirm the veiltail is getting a share. The feeding calculator sets the quantity, but the quantity is not the problem here — the distribution is.

Soak dry food before feeding, keep portions small, and use the vegetables and rest days that overfeeding covers.

Common health considerations

In the order they actually occur:

Fin damage and fin rot. A common problem, and the one the whole regime is built around. A frayed or receding edge is a water test, not a medication decision.

Fungus on damaged fin. Opportunistic, and it takes hold on tissue that was already injured in water that was not clean enough. Fungus and cotton growth covers it and is one of the few cases where treating is genuinely indicated.

Buoyancy trouble. The deep, compressed body may predispose to it, as with a ryukin’s, and the usual precautions apply: soaked sinking food, small portions, vegetables, no surface gulping. Floating upside down has the full treatment.

Being outfed. Not a disease, and a common reason a veiltail declines. Weight loss on a fish in a tank with faster company is a feeding arrangement problem before it is anything else.

What goes wrong, in order

What you see	What it usually is	Where to go
Frayed or receding fin edges	Water quality, before anything else	Torn fins
A split appearing overnight	Something sharp in the tank	Decorations
White cottony growth on a tear	Fungus on damaged tissue	Fungus
Fins held tight against the body	Stress, chill or poor water	Clamped fins
Floating, or struggling to stay down	Often diet, though other causes exist	Floating upside down
Thinning fish in a mixed tank	Outcompeted at feeding	Tankmates

Choosing one

Many fish sold as veiltails are not. Judge the fish:

• Look at the trailing edge of the tail. Any fork or notch and it is a long-finned fancy of no particular type. That is not a bad fish — it is simply not this one, and it should not carry the price of one.
• Look at the dorsal. Tall and erect, not low or folded over.
• Look for existing damage. Splits, notches and a ragged edge on a shop fish tell you about the shop’s water, and they will not fully resolve.
• Watch it swim. It should move deliberately but under control. A fish labouring, listing or resting constantly on the bottom is not simply being a veiltail.

The general checks in choosing and bringing home a goldfish all apply, and the fin inspection is added on top of them.

Is a veiltail right for you?

Yes, if you want the most spectacular goldfish there is, you have a large calm tank with nothing sharp in it, you are prepared to arrange feeding rather than scatter it, and you will look at the fins every week.

No, if this is a first goldfish, if the tank has a strong filter outflow or resin ornaments, if there is a comet or a common in it, or if you want a pond fish. And no if you are buying on the look alone: a fantail gives you the same body shape, much of the grace and none of the fragility, which is the sound recommendation for most people who are drawn to this breed.

History and origin

Long-finned goldfish were bred in Japan through the nineteenth century, but the veiltail as a defined type is largely an American achievement. In the 1890s Franklin Barrett of Philadelphia crossed a Japanese fringetail with a Chinese telescope-eyed goldfish, and the type was established in America by about 1900, though sources differ on the dates, which is why the fish is still sometimes called the Philadelphia veiltail.

The trajectory since then is the ordinary one for a demanding standard: the type is hard to produce, a spawn yields relatively few fish that meet it, and the fins that define it damage easily in commercial conditions. So the name survived while the fish became scarce, and many shop fish carrying it today are something else.

That is worth understanding rather than lamenting, and the showing guide explains the mechanism: goldfish standards are set by societies rather than by any central authority, they differ between countries, and a breed whose standard is genuinely difficult tends to survive in the hands of the few people who are chasing it deliberately.