Tri-color swordtail, is popularly known as Sanke or Showa swordtail when the fish’s body has Red, Black, and White. The name "Sanke or Showa" was borrowed from Koi fish. However, the name Sanke and Showa was long used interchangeably to swordtail hobbyists, rather than a clear distinguish in Koi hobby.
For your further reference, it is said that, Sanke implied White base color on Koi, while Showa, black is dominant in fish background. The creation of Sanke / Showa is pretty much straight forward. You can always create them by cross breeding “red and white” swordtail to a strain of swordtail carrying black pigment. Thus, resulting many varieties of tri-color which I would help you to tell the difference below. Swordtail with black pigments: Popularly, painted swordtail is top candidate. Black pigment on Painted swordtail is scattering along the fish body, but also appear in patch, which is really attractive when expressing in evenly distributing manner. Nevertheless, it’s challenging to control melanomas in Painted swordtail derived strain. One more issue if you ever noticed, Painted swordtail usually has black pigment heavily concentrated at lower body, rather than upper part. The next beautiful candidate is Berlin swordtail. Please don’t mistake Berlin swordtail, which having very fine black spot from head to tail, to Hamburg swordtail (the body is full black). To my opinion, Berlin swordtail is charming in its very unique way. Occasionally, you would see another variety of tri-color swordtail originated from the cross breed with Tuxedo parent. Some breeder of this variety would try to scale down the thick expression of black patch on lateral side of the fish in order to reveal the red and white pattern, to make the fish a harmonious look. What do you know about Red and White swordtail? Kohaku “red eye” swordtail: Kohaku was once favored by fish market that many pet stores were proud to bring them in. At the moment, Kohaku is harder to find in any local fish store for many reasons. Among the reasons, as far as I learned is that US fish farm no longer try to keep them. As the matter of fact, the import fee would make Kohaku swordtail a bit pricier, together with high risk of loss during transportation could have discouraged sellers. In addition to that, being inbred for a long time had degraded the fish line in all coloration, health, and reproductivity. Kohaku “red eye” is actually the albino form of Kohaku. While expressing albinism, Kohaku show brilliant contrast of red and white. The red is described as strong, vivid rubra, while the white color looks milky, solid, not pale or gray as in non-albino form. A variety of Kohaku, which is even more attractive is Tancho swordtail. Still, the name Tancho is rendered from Koi fish, describing those white swordtails with one small little red spot on the top head. If red pigment cover most of the head, the swordtail is referred to Red cap, rather than Tancho. Unfortunately, both varieties are not true breed until now, occasionally appear from Kohaku litters. Peppermint / Pinto / or Marlboro swordtail: Three names, interestingly, refer to one fish strain! Different from Kohaku, Marlboro has unfixed pattern. So, you know Kohaku swordtail popular shows Red head, white upper body, red lower body to caudal part. Marlboro instead express full red on their body since young age, then experiencing the diminishment of red coloration over the body. The level of red pigment reduction is varied by individuals, from very minimal of bald head and clear finnage, to complete loss of red pigment to reveal background or base color, which could be silvery bluish, or white, or dull gray.
2 Comments
Todd R.
1/3/2023 06:09:02 pm
I know this is an old blog post but it’s worth a shot if anyone is still monitoring this blog. What an amazingly interesting article! I found it particularly interesting as 2 years ago I acquired some Tri-color swords that were sold to me as “Taisho Sanke” off of Aquabid.
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