Vegetable for Ranchu?

I have received many PMs from ranchu hobbyists from SG asking me how they can improve the over all quality of their ranchu. As most of the ranchu keepers will be providing either, live food (dapphnia, red blood worm, live or frozen) or the pellet food of various kinds. I would like to also recommend that vegetable should be added to the diet as well. This is the easiest way of improving the beauty of your fish. Fish that are kept where they get a lot of sunlight will be more colourful and have better health and growth. They will already get a lot of algae from their ponds. If you have problem with sunlight, then you really need to add vegetable supplement for your fish. In Thailand there is duck weed ("Pham" in thai), algae and spirulina available. There must be similar products available else where too, I bet. Try out a few to see how your fish reacts to them.

This is also very important for keepers in Japan. The following are pictures of Mr.Kashino in Okayama as he searched for vegetable supplements for his ranchu. Mr.Kashino can find duckweed right around his neighbourhood, and a few pictures will illustrate how he does this. I hope that you will enjoy the pictures and try it out. Your ranchu will love you for it. Sawasdee krap.

picture 1. Duck weed can be found in waterways.
2 - 5. Mr.Kashino collecting the plant for use.

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After the collection, it is very important to clean it out thoroughly before giving to the fish. The duckweed can be floated in the ranchu pond all through out the day.

Picture 1. Cleaning
2. Duckweed ready for use
3. Amount given per one pond
4- 5. Ponds with the added vegetable

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Thank you very much Mr.Kashino for your assistance and very nice and illustrative pictures.

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Absolute Ranchu can i check with you. Is spirulina & chlorella flakes which can get from LFS serve same purpose as duckweed. Can our tosai ranchu eat this product.

Is spirulina & Chlorella consider vegetable food for ranchus, which we can get from our LFS. If yes i would like to try this. Can you advise us.

I think experimenting is one of the trill of this hobby. I think you cannot go wrong feeding them these products. The manufacturer goes through extensive testing before putting it on the market. As for ranchu, high protein diet is very important especially if you are feeding them dried food.

Look for products with added amino acids. For normal GF protein content of around 40% to 45% is OK, but for ranchu try to go for 50% and above.

Spend time observing your ranchu and see how they response to your feeding. During the first year or so, they should grow by about 1 cm a month plus and minus.

Water condition is more important than the feed. Practise good housekeeping for your tubs.

Chlorella is better for smaller fish, while spirulina is good for bigger fish. With spirulina, you have to be a bit careful about how the product is treated prior to packaging. Some of my friends bought some that turned his fish orange (not golden) and really messed up the fish.

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Yes you can and you can start them from black babies stage if you like.

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