Golden Orfe

Looks how to spot one

Scaled, streamlined cyprinid

A slim, torpedo-shaped fish built for open-water swimming. The ornamental form shines in tones from pale white-gold to deep orange, often with a few dark speckles on the upper head and neck. The wild ide is silvery, and a rarer blue-backed form also exists.13

Personality what they are like

Peaceful and sociable. Young orfe happily join mixed shoals, and in a pond the group tends to cruise together just under the surface. They can start out a little shy but soon learn when food is coming and gather for it.132

Daily activity how busy a day looks

An active, fast swimmer that spends most of its time moving around the upper water layer. It needs open swimming room rather than a cramped space, and moves down to deeper water when it gets cold.312

Grooming and care the hands-on bits

Needs clean, well-oxygenated water, more so than koi or goldfish. Wild ides live in cool water of roughly 4 to 20 C, with a pH of about 7.0 to 7.5 and moderate hardness. A pond with good aeration and filtration and a deeper area for winter suits it.123

Home where they are happiest

An outdoor pond fish, not an indoor aquarium fish. FishBase notes it is unsuitable for home aquariums and would need a tank over 2 m long, so a roomy garden or park pond is the right home. Provide open water for swimming and a deeper zone where the fish can rest in winter.123

Food basics what goes in the bowl

An omnivore. In the wild it eats insect larvae and adult insects, snails and other small invertebrates plus some plant matter, and big adults also take small fish. In a pond it readily accepts floating pond-fish food and also snaps up mosquito larvae and insects at the surface.123

Company who they like around

Keep as a shoal of several fish rather than singly. It mixes well with koi and goldfish in the same pond. Young fish are especially gregarious, while very large wild adults roam in smaller groups.123

The story where it all began

The ide has a huge natural range across Europe and northern Asia, and Carl Linnaeus gave it a scientific name in 1758. People have long fished it, both for food in eastern Europe, where it is still netted along the Danube, and as a sport fish. A golden colour form was selected and bred specifically to decorate ponds in parks and gardens, where its habit of swimming near the surface makes it easy to watch. The species was brought to Great Britain in 1874 and to the United States in 1877, and the golden orfe went on to become one of the best known ornamental pond fish. It stayed the leading decorative pond fish until koi became widely available in the 1960s. Silver and blue forms are also kept today.1234

Recognised by the official bits

IUCN Red List

Wild species Leuciscus idus assessed as Least Concern2

Linnaeus (Systema Naturae)

Species first described scientifically by Carl Linnaeus in 17581