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Quote:

Originally Posted by pykoh

Pat,

Thanks for your reply. The first question you throw back to me is a very general one. Different type of fishes have different types of requirements for their well-being. As for ranchus, I keep most of mine in a rented outdoor pond (size about 8 feet by 6 feet) with plenty of sunshine at a fish farm. I feed them food like Japan Ranchu Lord, Fish Born, Chanko and etc. I do regular water change (at least once a week, 100% change). I must admit that our temperature and water in Singapore may not be conducive to ranchu. Any other recommendations to me?

As for Nichiran standard, I do know about it but do not claim to be an expert in it, e.g. about width and/or length of the head, setting/distance of the eyes, backbone thickness, tail seat, Oza, scaling, swimming posture and etc. I constantly improved myself by looking at real fishes or pictures of Japanese magazine esp. those featuring ranchus that took part in various Japan competitions. I also talked to other hobbyists and try to participate in the limited ranchu clubs that we have in Singapore. It may or may not be enough, but if it is not enough, what do you recommend that I do to improve myself further? Any suggestions that you may have to improve the standards in Singapore?

Last but not least, I'm no trouble maker, just a very curious/inquisitive hobbyist. I know and met a few of your Singapore friends (e.g Mr. Lim HN, Mr. David Hou and etc)and you can find out from them what kind of person I'm like.

Hope I have answered your questions and clarified any doubts you may have.

Thanks and Best Regards
P Y Koh

First I would like to suggest that you find some vegetable in addition for your fish. This is very important for the scale and colours. In Thailand, we have this floating vegetable (called duckweed in english) which is very small and very rough to the touch. (Japanese keepers also use this.) Just like people, fish also need to have salads. Some friends of mine in Bangkok could not possibly find time to find this vegetable to feed their fish, thus they substitute with spirulina capsules (some also just let the algae form on the side of the pond alot). They would open the capsule up and feed the fish since they are babies and his ranchu also develop a very good colour and complexsion. For the water, I think that as long as it is not underground water, all water is pretty much ok. (no chlorine) I raise my fish in a big pond with a large filtration system filled with coral pieces and it has raised the water ph in my pond to be over 8.3 (which is not ideal) but the fish seem to be coping with it quite well and the growth has not suffered any. As long as when you change the water , you do not let the temperature change more than 5 celcius, your water should be quite alright.

On the raising of the awareness of the international competition standard (Japanese ranchu standards), I plan to be posting many more threads that will take care of all this concern, since all the pamphlets and information that I will post were provided for us by Mr.Kashino and Mr. Mita at his last ranchu seminar on standard in Bangkok last year. Mr.Kashino, Mr. Mita and many other Japanese breeders have organized ranchu seminars regularly every year during their visits to Bangkok. Furthermore, we will be looking forward to cooperating with the local ranchu enthusiasts and organizations to arrange more competitions that will utilize Japanese judges. This alone will help to alleviate all of the ranchu enthusiasts' concern about the quality of their fish.

Last but not least, my comment earlier was my initial reaction to your comment about the "re education" of people. I thought that it was a jab at me for trying to spread the wrong message to people to sell my own fish. Any one who has surf the ranchu web, whether in the RG, AF, Yahoo Ranchu, Petsfanatics, and ranchushop.com, may have read some of the threads I have posted before. All will find that I always want to talk about ranchu and trying to spread the right information in how to take care of and breed ranchu. I have posted from feeding to breeding information in hoping that more people will get the message. As far as I know, in the past no one was willing to do anything to help the ranchu hobbyists, even among Thai keepers. Ranchu is such a secret and every one who has anything to do with it always seem to try to keep the circle close to outsiders. I have to apologize to you if I have offended you, but it was not my intention. As you are a serious ranchu keeper, like I am, I just want to find the truth about the fish in hope of raising our fish to be as beautiful as possible. It is true that the Absolute Fisheries is in the business of selling ranchu in accordance with the Nichiran standard, and with the standard being raised accordingly, one can argue that we will benefit from that. But I think that if all dealers compete for your hard earn money with quality, then it's not all bad.

In the future, if you have any thing that I can be of help with about ranchu, I would hope that you will not hesitate to let me know.

With best regards, and sawasdee krap

Pat