Thank you for a very good question that many keepers are pondering at home too. I am a firm believer in the promotion of overall good growth, for I believe that it is the best way towards a balance adult fish. One thing that we all have to do is give the fish a chance and provide good diet and environment in the long run. Large fish will tend to develop their heads a bit later in life, once they have reached their potential size while smaller fish the head formation tends to come earlier. Fish kept in too deep water over 50 cms (SVR in particular) the head will come out less than shallower water (30-40 cms). For TVR, the head growth seems to be less of a problem, provided that you do not feed the fish with pellet feed exclusively. If you feed your fish with only pellet feed, your fish's head and development will not be maximized. Furthermore, if you are serious about growing your GF, you have to take them out of the aqurium tank and put them in ponds, for they do grow best in them. The more room you can provide the fish, the better they will develop for you. I keep 3 fish in a 150 cm X 120 cm X 35 cm fiberglass ponds.

Clean water, good balance diet, and plenty of sunlight and vitamins. I am a firm believer in live feeds, dapphnia (all the way to adult size), red worm, mosquito lavae and tubiflex worms. Each represent a different equation that the keepers has to study up on the feed and proper application and treatment. Live feeds does provide excellent growth, but also have many parasites problems which are very easy to take care of, by the way. And they tend to soil the water much easier, thus more frequent water change. The more live feeds you could provide the better your fish overall growh will be. I also give vegetable (duckweed), vitamins (Goldawick), pellet feed (once a day, Saki Hikari small floating pellet, koi formula, soak with water and GW vitamins 10 minutes prior to feeding) and steam eggs for some of the SVRs and even TVRs. The most important thing is that you have to start with a good fish from a decent bloodline or breeding programs, and you have to do the work every single day the same until the last day of your fish. That's the secret in promoting the best head, health and body for your ranchu, in my humble opinion. Feel free to interject any comments that you may have from your own experience, I always find that there are a lot of knowledge that we all could learn from the observation of our fish.

One caution for using live feeds (not frozen) is that they always come with parasites problems. Do medicate your fish regularly every 7-10 days with parasites medicine in order to keep this problem at bay. Parasites like Anchor Worm and Fish Lice, are very difficult to get rid off 100%.

Hope that this helps a bit, feel free to ask more questions if you like, will try to answer the best way I know how. Cheers and sawasdee krap.

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