Ranchu Goldfish Update June 2013

The weather has been mild in the last couple of days and last night the ranchu began chasing much earlier in the evening. Unfortunately nothing came of it, but it was nice to see the chasing behaviour once again.

I have been waiting for a delivery of bloodworm and during this time the ranchu were being fed solely pellet for a few days. Interestingly the whilst the water quality appeared to be of better quality for longer, chasing behavior did not occur at all during this period. 

Todays image is of another female. This particular fish has shown decent growth since i acquired the group, particularly in its length which i'm please with as i like longer ranchu (though still strong). Whilst this piece has obvious weaknesses, i am pleased with the scaling and length of head, and body. 

I follow a number of Japanese breeders through various blogs, all provide a wonderful insight into the ranchu culture in Japan. I was shocked to read recently of one particular breeder who became the victim of a fish house burglary which emptied seven of his ponds of 60+ parent ranchu! A sad but clear example of just how highly valued good ranchu are in modern Japan.

Warm Weather and Lazy Ranchu!

As we enter June we are forecast a spell of weather warmer than we have previously had. The evenings are now much milder and i am planning to start trying to manage the pond temperature so that it can be kept more closely to an ambient temperature.

In recent days there has been very little chasing behavior observed, even following heavy water changes. I'm wondering if my current feeding routine is perhaps a little heavy for them and the warm pond temperature perhaps a little too much for spawning conditions. Full bellies + warm water = lazy ranchu!

The ranchu in todays image is a fat female. She has a good volume of headgrowth and although its a little untidy in its growth she didn't have far off this amount of growth at 6 months, so i will be keen to see her spawned and the quality of her fry.