When you clicked on this thread, you probably thought "How do I pronounce that second word?". Well, to start off, it is pronounced
Sha-BUN-ky. He got his name because he is a Shubunkin Goldfish. Before I get super deep into his story, this is what he looks like:
image.jpg
Okay, so to start the story, my friend decided to make a pond. And, since I am a crazy fish maniac, I decided to help her pick out the fish. We picked out three Sarasa Comets and three Shubunkins. We brought them back to the pond, acclimated them, and let them out of the bag. Then, I got onto the task of naming them. The Sarasas all looked identical from the top, so I got bored and named them Goldy 1, Goldy 2, and Goldy 3 (I must not have had my coffee that morning!). With the Shubunkins, it was easy to tell them apart. The smallest one (later named Miss Minnie) was all white with one big orange splotch on her back. The largest (Mr. Fred) was all orange with some black and white speckles on his nose. He was pretty, but the middle sized one was breathtakingly beautiful. He was basically what the ideal Shubunkin Goldfish would be. So, we named him Shubunki in honor of his beautiful coloring. Two months later, my friend called saying all the fish had died and that the pond was leaking. She asked me to come over to help empty out the pond to replace the liner with a new one. Since we didn't have a syphon hose, we just took turns dumping out buckets of gross pond water (water that hasn't been filter in a couple months is pretty gross). Then, while I was scooping out one of the last buckets of water, there was a big spray of water and a flash of color. It was a live fish! We scooped it out and put it in some extra pond water. Since my friend decided she didn't want to put anymore fish in her pond, she gave it to me. Thankfully, I had a spare 10 gallon tank at the moment. So I brought the fish home, popped him in a Ziplock bag, and started acclimating him. After a couple of hours, we let him into the tank and could see him clearly for the first time. It was obviously Shubunki, with his beautiful calico coloring. Somehow, he managed to survived in an unfiltered pond with no food for two months. He did have a large nick in his tail fin and some missing scales, but otherwise he was unhurt. He was not as skinny as you might think. He was actually a little chubby. He must of had a feast on those pond bugs!
Now, he lives happily in a 33 gallon aquarium where he can hopefully live out his life in peace!
I love to take pictures of him and will probably update this thread quite frequently. But, sometimes he gets a little jittery when the camera comes out, so sorry if I don't have any pictures to post.