Side View Ranchu and Other Ranchu GF Species

Hi RBT, is there any way to enhance the body length of a ranchu?

Hi Allan,

Thanks for your kind understanding. I think that a nice SVR does not need to be very big to be beautiful. It is the nature of the fish since we appreciate them in tanks. However, every one I know like to make their fish just a bit bigger any how so here are some pointers.

The physical body of a regualar SVR tends to be more rounded than their TVR counterpart due to their historical development by early breeders. However, the size of the fish will be in accordance to how you develop your fish. What kind of fish you use to develop the SVR? What characteristics of the parents fish that you like to pass along to their offspring? These are just some of the questions that you will have to consider. Not every SVR can go over 4". In the old days, I rarely see any big fish around, but nowaday, monster fish are every where. This is the result of the development of the fish here in Thailand.

Personally, I use TVR to develop my SVR, thus I do get quite large SVR in my farm. I am not the only one to be doing this in Thailand right now. Many breeders used to use Lionchu to mix with SVR to develop the fish to gain headgrowth and good backs but there are quite a lot of short comings in the offspring as well such as the size, for ex. By using TVR, you will prosper the proper headgrowth, and will gain size as well. However, the culling technique requires a tad different criterion. (However, a good TVR, is also a good SVR, but not necessarily true, vice versa.)

A big fish will look rather funny when they are young, you will need to learn to appreciate them, or else you will be stuck with short and medium fish since they tend to look much better at younger size.

With regards, to your question about how to improve size of the fish. There are a few things that you can do. Before going to the set up and technique, one thing is very important if you want big fish, you will first need to buy fish that are going to be big. (I will be happy to show some pictures of this in the future for all members soon.)

First thing that you can do is to reduce the amount of fish in your pond or tank, second you can increase the size of the tank or pond, itself. Big fish do not grow very well in small space. Another good way to increse the size of your fish is to feed it quite a lot of different types of food, and may be even add some vitamins to the diet to help the growth rate. Food wise, I recommend a good mix of live feeds (dapphnia, blood worm, mosquito lavae), good protein feed that's easily digested such as omelette, which you can add quite a variety of food additives such as spirulina and any other kind of vegetables, or egg tofu (which you could find in plastic tubes already made at the market). Finally you will need a good source of vegetable (duck weed for examples) and pellet feed. Remember less is more, and it is always good to do some checking about the different applications and recipe for each different kinds of feeds since they all are quite different. Feed small meals but many many times.

One last suggestion about growing fish big is that you should do more water change for larger size fish (or drip water in the pond continuously), for they will get more appetite. However, this is a very dangerous method since there could be adverse results with the fish such as bloating and colour fading. I recommend that only expert keepers utilise this method.

I hope that this helps a bit. Often time when I explain a little, readers become even more confuse. So if you do not understand any part, please ask me aight.

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Hi RBT, tks for sharing!