Category Archives: cow ranchu

calico ranchu, cow ranchu

The Diary of a Goldfish Breeder 2025 (1)

Update on Cow & Calico Ranchu

As a follow up to Diary 2024 (5) and (8), I would like to refresh our memory that I was left with these fellows:

The bad news is that all are male.

So, to continue the project, I acquired several Cow Ranchu from a local breeder, two male and two female specimens. Too bad, they did not last long. I did not have a chance to take proper pictures of them. Here is a lousy picture using my handphone:

My first instinct was to cross the three male Ranchu (left picture) with these cows. They did not carry black fish nor cow pattern in the offsprings. Some were white, sakura and calico with dotted black patterns. I got rid of the white. Here are two offspring that I keep. Both of them are female:

The first to lay eggs was the calico. It was about three months ago. So, this diary is about the offspring of this calico female. The sakura lays eggs recently and the offspring is just 2 centimeters long. It will take a couple more months or so to update on them.

Since the calico female was so productive, I mated her with several male fish.

First, I mated her with her uncle. Remember the calico fish in the upmost middle picture? It has turned into a calico with lots of black patterns:

Before
After

So, just to be more systematic, the first cross is this:

Male
Female

And the offsprings I kept after lots of culling are:

1
2
3
4
5

Fish 1 seems to inherit the strong black pattern from the father. I treasure this strong black pattern feature for the next breeding.

Fish 2 seems to be a balanced mix from both parents, creating a pleasant pattern. I do notice there is a large block of black pattern in the back, which is good. If the fish can get rid of the red, blue and little dotted black pigment, it will be left with white color and that large black block. It will be a beautiful cow ranchu.

Fish 3 is the closest to the cow pattern I am looking for. I hope I can create more of this pattern. So, this fish is my first priority in the next breeding.

Fish 4 is weak, since it has no large black pattern. It has only few small dotted black pigments. It has no red and less of the blue shadow, which is good for a cow. I think if I cross this with a Ranchu with strong black pigment, there is a chance it will produce beautiful offspring. So, I keep it as a reserve.

Fish 5 shows that this cross can produce black / grey offspring, and also offspring with metallic scale. This is good, since this kind of fish might come handy in the next crossing.

The second cross is between the cow and the calico female:

Male
Female

And these are the results:

1
2
3
4
4 from sideview

Do notice that this cross does not produce any black / grey nor metallic fish.

Fish 1 is a sakura which I will not use.

Fish 2 is a weak color. The red is not a strong red. It is more of a pale orange color. And the black pigmentation is weak. I will not use it.

Fish 3 is a calico with weak red and black color. I will not use.

Fish 4 is interesting. It is almost totally white with minimal blue coloration and red color, which is what I need. Too bad it also has less black pigment. But as the sideview picture shows, the black pattern is interesting, reminding me of a belt pattern. I think it is nice to see how the offspring will turn out when crossing this with a fish that has strong black pigment. I only keep this one from this crossing.

The third crossing is a metallic tricolor ranchu with the calico female. This tricolor comes from a black fish (also calico offspring from my previous breeding project) that turns into this spectacular pattern. There is only one specimen of this.

Male
Female

And the results are:

1
2
3
4

I think fish 1, 2 and 3 are pretty similar. They are dominated by white color with a little bit of red, blue and black which make them nice to see. They all have not so large but also not too small black pattern. I decide to keep them all.

Fish 4 show that this cross carries the black / grey and metallic gene.

Last crossing is between a black uncle and the calico female:

Male
Female

Let me show the results:

1
2
3
4

Fish 1 and 2 are calico with weak black pigmentation. The red color is stronger than the 2nd cross. I do not think I will use these two.

I guess my reader will know for an instance that I will keep fish 3 for the same reason I mention in the analysis of the previous crossing above. So also with fish 4. I will keep all black / grey fish at this moment.

Now my task is to wait for them to mature.

Wish me the best.

Thank you.

Standard
cow ranchu, tricolor ranchu

The Diary of a Goldfish Breeder 2024 (8)

Update On: Cow Ranchu & Tricolor Ranchu Projects

For friends who follow my Cow Ranchu projects and anticipate much (like myself), I must inform two bad news. First, all the offspring from both the Cow x Black and Cow x Sakura result in 100% male fish! That is a disaster for a breeder. Before I finish lamenting, there was an outbreak in my farm that cost me almost all of them. The Cow x Sakura line was totally wiped out. Fortunately, I managed to save few from the Cow x Black line.

These three patterns from the Cow x Black survived:

My main plan was to cross the first pattern type (the left picture) with the black colored sibling. But it was not possible since all were male. As a change of plan, I buy another female Cow Ranchu and cross it with the first type. Too bad the female cow died after delivering her first offspring before I took any documentary of her. I might post the result later on. But for now I can report that there is no single black in the offspring. After this mating, I sell all the first type pattern since I do not think I need them for my project anymore. I still keep the second type pattern and the black. And here the interesting news comes!

The black offspring turn into two handsome princes!

I kept two best of them. One of them turn into a black gold, and another one into tricolor pattern!

Aren’t they handsome?

I find that the black color is so persistent in them. It makes me full of hope. At least, not for my Cow Project, but for my Tricolor Ranchu Project! It is like getting a lottery!

Of course, I know that the stability of the pattern here is under question. Will they stay? Well, I am still observing. And when I cross them with fish from my Tricolor Project, how is the compatibility knowing that they come from Cow lineage?

Now, let me update on my Tricolor Project.

The project had shown a good progress. My latest offspring consists of some male and female shark ranchu (bad body form) with strong tricolor pattern. I highlight the strong pattern here. After I achieve that, the rest of the project becomes easier. I just need to improve on the body formation.

But when the outbreak kills lots of my fish, I am left with one female only! I was heartbroken. If this single fish died, then I must restart this project that I have done for several years. So sad.

This is the survivor:

I mated this female with the two male Ranchu above. Frankly, it is hard for me to make a prediction of what will the offspring be. My hope is to have Tricolor Ranchu, of course.

First try, all the eggs cannot hatch.

Second try, no luck. I begin to suspect this female is infertile.

But I still try.

Third attempt, same result. Not even a single offspring. Actually, at this time I also mated this female with a ryukin just to make sure that the infertile ones were not the male. Same result, The possibility of the female being infertile is high!

Yet, I still try.

In the fourth attempt, I mated the female with the two princes above, with a ryukin, and with a tricolor Oranda! And guess what? All hatched perfectly!

If you ask me how come, I do not know.

Now, I am raising all of them. They are 3 cm in length right now.

Then, I try again to mate the female with the two princes for the fifth, and sixth time, and nothing hatched. The female resumes her infertility.

Well, I have no explanation for this. But I thank God for the one successful shot (the fourth attempt).

And let’s see the results in several months to come.

Standard
calico ranchu, cow ranchu

The Diary of a Goldfish Breeder 2024 (5)

In this Diary I will report the results of the cross between Cow Ranchu and Black Ranchu in this video:

The black is actually an offspring of my previous Cow Ranchu (Milk Cow Variant). Let me show the results and I will compare them with the offspring of Cow x Sakura reported in the previous diary (#4).

Here are the offspring:

The first category are fishes with large black markings in the shape of large blocks / islands. In these results they have red color. If they are free from the red color, they will come close to true Cow Ranchu, I think. At least when being watched from the top. Interestingly, from the side viewing, the black markings extend to one side of the body (sadly, only one side) to appear like large belts.

I think this is an interesting phenomenon. The project can be directed to create Cow Ranchu and Ranchu with Belts.

This one also has a belt in one side of the body, but the black marking does not extend to the top of the body. I will put this in the same class as category one, I think.

All these four will be in my breeding plan.

This is the 2nd category. It has lots of black marking, in the shapes of large blocks and dots. But the black marking does not produce a belt appearance. It is more towards irregular pattern. It can be considered as calico with lots of orange color. I am still undecided whether to use this in the project or not.

This third category is also interesting. They are close to the pattern of snow leopard, except that the snow leopard does not have blue and the black dots are smaller and many.

The fourth category resembles calico but a weak one. The blue and white are dominant while all the other three color are minimal. I do not think I can use them to propel this project.

The fifth category is the almost white fish. I notice that the black color is stubborn, though minimal.

This sixth category is the Sakura. Once again, the black color still appears in a minimal proportion.

And the last category is the black color. They always come out from the Milk Cow crossing. Of course, I will use them as my main ingredient in this project.

So, to compare with the Cow x Sakura, let us examine this table:

In the cross with Sakura, we do have offspring #4 (left) which has beautiful proportion between the red and white color (roughly 30% – 70% or 40% – 60%). This is different from #3 (left) which is dominated by red color. And #4 has no trace of black pigment. We do not see this variant in the Cow x Black offspring.

The offspring that comes up only from the Cow x Black are the #1 (right) and #3 (right). Yes, the cow / belt variant and the (somewhat) snow leopard variant only appears in the cross with black. I find this finding interesting.

The beautiful calico variant only appears in the cross between milk Cow and Sakura. This is also a thing to ponder.

The black appears on all of the crossing.

I think there is a lot to think about from this observation. I will make my next breeding plan based on this information. Tell me if you find any interesting interpretation to this information.

Standard
cow ranchu

The Diary of a Goldfish Breeder 2024 (4)

My experiment with Cow Ranchu is still ongoing. After so many attempts, I still have no clue of how to produce the color pattern. I had bought Cow Ranchu many times with limited success in breeding them. I grew suspicious concerning whether the fish (both male and female) had been treated in a certain way to prevent successful breeding. I had few offsprings, though. But at this point, none can be categorized as cow. The suspicion makes me reluctant to buy more import of Cow.

Yet, when an seller imported them once again, I was tempted to try this project once more. But I did not want to buy many. This time, I bought just one male. In my mind, this will be my last attempt to buy Cow Ranchu. If this also fails, I will stop buying them. To my surprise, this male is very vigorous! I bred him twice, with different female, and they gave me lots of offspring. He died afterwards. I have not taken a decent picture of these parents, but I have short videos of them.

In this diary, I will show the offspring from the first cross. It is between this male Cow Ranchu with a Sakura Ranchu. Well, it is not really Sakura since it has several black dots. But the dots are minimal, so it is closer to Sakura pattern. This Sakura is the result of my previous experiment with previously imported Cow Ranchu.

The Male
The Female

I am interested in knowing what color patterns are produced. And it is interesting to compare with the next diary where I cross the same male Cow with another fish.

I just take the pictures from top view for quick reference and classify them based on the color pattern. Here are they:

Many become Calico with good pattern quality. By definition, calico should have five colors visible. These offspring have blue, white, red, black, and orange / brown color. The blue color is strong. All the color is in good proportion. Actually, I like these offspring. But for my purpose (in understanding cow), I will not use them to further my project. So, I will sell all of them.

The second category is with lots of orange color and with no blue, so I put this in a different category from the calico. Perhaps, this fish can be said to have four color: orange, black, white, and the black pigment under the orange color (I do not know what to call it, it is definitely not blue). I will not use this one for my project, either.

This third category can be called three colors since it has red, white, and black color. But the black pigment is so minimal that this category can also be called Sakura. I am interested in this category. There is a story to it. I once bought a strikingly beautiful three colors transparent Ranchu from a farmer. This is the fish:

Such a marvelous color, isn’t it? Too bad, the breeder only had one. I asked him to find similar pattern in the batch and he could not find any. Upon questioning him how he came up with this color, he said he crossed the Cow Ranchu (from my lineage) with a Sakura Ranchu! He described the Sakura to have lots of red color with minimal black markings and several metallic scales in the body. This description matches the third category of the offspring I am talking above! That’s why, I will use this third category to further my experiment. If my experiment with Cow Ranchu takes a different turn to result on this kind of three colors, I do not mind at all! (Note: the three colors is female. It grew large in my facility and died without ever producing any egg).

The fourth category is the true Sakura. Actually, I do not think I will need them for the Cow Ranchu project. But one has an excellent body quality, which whets my appetite to breed it. I am sorry I have not taken the pictures right now. Hopefully, I will have the pictures next time.

The fifth category is the totally white / almost white fish. I am still considering their usage on this project. So I am undecided right now and will keep one. Perhaps the totally white one.

The last category are the black metallic fish. This is what I learn from the presence of this category. The fact that Cow Offspring (the milk cow variety) always produces decent number of black offspring means that black fish are involved in the making of milk Cow variety. Well, it is my conclusion. I can be wrong. But unless proven otherwise, I will keep this category and use it in my cow project.

And this is the end of my report today.

Enjoy!

Standard
cow ranchu, The Diary of a Goldfish Breeder 2023

The Diary of a Goldfish Breeder 2023 (11)

Project #12: Cow Ranchu

Update: Cow x Black

I would like to report the result of Cow Ranchu (male) x Black Ranchu (female). These are the parents:

The offspring consists of two types: the grey / wild color, and the transparent color. I cull the grey out early. So, I do not know whether they will turn into some other color or will continue to be grey. I keep the transparent color only.

I also cull out the defects in finages from the transparent color. I end up with 7 of them. Let me first show them from top view.

1. The black pattern is a combination between type 1, 2, and 3 mentioned in my previous writing (diary #10). The blocks, dots, and irregular pattern appear here. I cannot say this is desirable. But it is not a bad thing, either.

2. The black pigment exist throughout all the offspring. Unlike my offspring of cow x cow which yields lots of casper fish (totally white), the existence of black color in this cross is a good thing. I can say that the black pigment of the black ranchu contribute to the abundance of black color here.

3. The red color is dominant and is not a good thing in a cow project. I will say that this red color is due to the black ranchu genetics, also because underneath the black coat of a black ranchu is actually a red / orange color. This is visible when we (accidentally) scratch the skin of a black ranchu.

4. Some of the fish shows thick peduncle, following the genetics of the male parent. This is interesting.

Now, let’s examine the side view of the fish. The pictures are in the same order.

1. One interesting observation is that all of them have white belly! The red color tends to be dominant in the upper part of the fish, while the abdoment tend to be white.

2. All have hints of black pigment in the fins.

3. Black pigments in the body tend to be more in the top part of the body, and get lesser below.

4. The tails are large since both parents have large tails.

My Plan:

Actually, I am not sure whether to use them further for my cow ranchu project or not. It seems that I will have a hard time getting rid of the dominant red color here. It is still interesting to see the result if I cross them back to cow, though. Will the cross diminish the red? It is possible. Will the black color stay? It is also possible. And if this happens, then I will have fish with good black quality (though the pattern type is unpredictable) with less red color.

Crossing them back to black might also be interesting. Observation sideview number 1 reminds me of my attempt to produce Kirin ranchu years before. Kirin tend to have dark color on top of the body and light color in the abdoment. Well, this cow x black shows red color on top and white in the abdoment. And the black pigment tend to be more on top. This seems to be half way in the process of making kirin. So, crossing back to black arouses my curiosity.

But I am not sure I will have time to do all these. I have some other crosses with cow which results I will compare with this. If the other crosses produce closer results to cow, I might prioritize them. If that happens, then this cow x black project will be terminated.

Concerning crossing back to black, I must buy another black ranchu which I am somewhat reluctant to do. Black ranchu is out of my projects. I will think twice to enlarge my projects right now. So, I do not think I will do it.

As a conclusion, this cross might not continue. But it helps me understand crossing better.

Standard
cow ranchu, The Diary of a Goldfish Breeder 2023

The Diary of a Goldfish Breeder 2023 (10)

Project #12: Cow Ranchu (Discourse on Criteria)

There might not be a formal standard of Cow Ranchu yet, as far as I know. For my own purpose in judging the quality of Cow Ranchu, I employ several three criteria.

First is the shape of the black pattern. I divide the black pattern in cow (and calico) into three types as illustrated below:

Type 3 is actually a category to include everything else which are not type 1 and 2.

Three fish below illustrate the three types of black pattern:

In my opinion, the most suitable pattern for cow ranchu is type 1. So, I am aiming at that pattern.

The second criteria is the presence of red color in the fish. Of course, for a good cow ranchu, the red color should be none. By this, I do not say that the presence of red is ugly. Not at all. In fact, it can enhance the beauty of the fish. But it is not a cow.

The fish above has a type 1 black pattern. It has lots of red color. Well, it is better to categorize her as three color (until people invent another more interesting name) and not as “perfect” cow ranchu color.

Third criteria is the quality of the color, namely the white and the black color. When the fish has too much black inside (to give the appearance of blue), while it is a desired color in calico, I think it is not desired in cow. The presence of the blue only gives the impression of dirty white color. The same case happens with the pink color as a result of the lack of guanine in the inner skin. So, in my opinion, the more pure the white (some call it milky white) the better.

The black color quality is also important. The desired black color is the one in the outer skin (or in outer part of the skin), not the one inside. And the deeper the black, the better. The border of the black color should be clearly defined.

Those are the criteria of the cow ranchu I have in mind.

Note: In my observation, these black patterns are not constant throughout the life of the fish. The block (or island) pattern can start from a tiny dots, which grows larger and larger. The dots in calico can grow from none (or few) to many. And in some low grade fish, the black pattern can also get dim or even vanish.

Standard
cow ranchu, The Diary of a Goldfish Breeder 2023

The Diary of a Goldfish Breeder 2023 (8)

Project # 12: Cow Ranchu Update

At the end of last year when I tabulated my projects (https://hermantogoldfish.com/2022/10/28/the-diary-of-a-goldfish-breeder-2022-18/) I mentioned that my Cow Ranchu Project was stagnant. I only had two male fish with weak qualities. They are growing old now, so I must come up with a plan quickly to keep this project going. Let me first show the current state of the two male cow ranchu.

In terms of the curve shape, the second fish is a bit better. But in terms of the pattern and color, the first fish is my choice since it has darker black color with more pronounced pattern (large spot with clear cut borders). This project is about color and pattern, so I choose the first fish as my alpha male.

The plan I had was to acquire several female fish to cross with my cow. I did manage to buy a female cow ranchu, two female calico ranchu, a female tricolor transparent scale ranchu, and a black ranchu. I take this moment as an opportunity to experiment with these crossing to understand more about the cow ranchu variant. Here are the female troops:

This female cow ranchu is nice in picture. But she has several defects. First, she is a bit stunted at the size of 11 centimeter. Second, she has a swimbladder issue which makes her swim sideways sometimes. Concerning the color, it is a true cow coloration with lots of strong black patterns. This is the reason I still use her despite her weaknesses. And she produces lots of eggs when being fed properly. (She competes for food poorly due to her swimbladder issue) I will report the result when the offspring come of age.

This calico has thick backbone, better curve shape, short tail, and larger headgrowth than my cow ranchu specimen. I think those positive points will be good combination to improve the overall quality of my cow ranchu line. Concerning the color, the black patterns tend to be in dot shapes all over the body. This kind of pattern is different from the cow pattern. Even if this fish lost her orange color, her pattern does not belong to the cow pattern. But yes, the black pigment is dense, which is a good point. I do not know what the offspring will be. I have the newly hatched babies with me now, but must wait for them to grow more before I can report the update.

I bought this girl together with the first calico. They are from the same farm. The backbone is thick and the headgrowth is good. The melanin appears in dotted shapes. The tiny tail shape caught my attention. I guess it will be fun to see what will come out of crossing her with my cow. However, this fish has an issue with its deportment, probably due to its structure. She has problem with swimming and will prefer to stay with head down. And she does not lay eggs so far. I will wait for her to lay eggs for a little more time.

This girl is interesting! It is a superb pattern! She belongs to the transparent scale category, but she is not a calico. It is more suitable to categorize her in the tricolor variant. If she lacks the orange color, she will definitely be a beautiful cow ranchu! And a better one than my cow. You see, my cow still has blue color (dark pigment under the skin), but this fish is almost fully milk white! The origin of this fish is also interesting. The breeder in the village is my friend. He mated my cow ranchu line with a sakura that has lots of metallic scale all over its body. And among the offspring, there is only one specimen like this. I am very grateful he let me have this fish. And I think, the sakura that he used in the crossing is not a key to produce this pattern. He can only produce one fish with this pattern! So, the appearance of this pattern in his breed is purely luck, I think. This fish laid eggs once but all the eggs are infertile, to my disappointment. I will wait for her second batch to confirm whether she is infertile or not. Hopefully not. And if she is fertile, there is still a doubt lingering in me that crossing her with my cow might not produce the desired result. Well, let’s see.

I always have a question if the production of cow ranchu involved black ranchu in the first place. So, I want to cross black ranchu with my cow ranchu to see what will become of them. And yes, I have the offspring ready to report. I just need to find time to take the pictures. Please wait patiently.

So, this is the update of my cow ranchu project. Still struggling. But I hope you find these attempts interesting as I do.

Standard
cow ranchu, The Diary of a Goldfish Breeder 2022

The Diary of a Goldfish Breeder 2022 (15)

There is a bit of drama in my cow ranchu project.

After many years of failure, I finally acquired a productive female. She was of an ambiguous background. I got it from a local breeder, which was not the logical place to get a cow ranchu. So far, cow ranchu in Indonesia was imported. Its appearance in a local farm was considered impossible. Some friends even said that it came directly from a calico parents. Anyway, she was productive. She laid thousands of eggs, which was way too much for my small capacity.

I managed to mate her once with my own cow offspring – the only one. (When I say my cow breeding project so far was a failure, it does not mean I fail 100%. It just mean I do not get the result I want. Well, getting only one beautiful offspring certainly is far from my expectation.)

Somehow, I had great confidence in this pair. But they choose a bad timing to mate. My facility was starting a major renovation for the next two months, and I was going abroad after that. Obviously I could not raise all of them. I could not even breed the second batch. My hands were tied.

So, I made a move which some considered weird. I kept only 20% of the eggs which I thought I could still manage, and I gave away freely the rest to a goldfish farmer friend in the village. I believed these hatchlings would have better care in the village. I only asked him to spare some for the purpose of Contest Keeping in my city and ten fishes for myself.

In turned out that it was the last time I could mate them. I had a chance to mate the female with a yellow sakura oranda for my yellow cow ranchu project. Then the female died. You can imagine my sadness of losing her. After that, my male cow ranchu’s health deteriorated. For two months his life was only being in and out from the quarantine tank several times. At last he was gone forever.

Now my only hope was in the offspring. But it was a faint hope. A disease wiped all of the offspring in my place except one. Yes. I was left with one cow ranchu – and I was not proud of its quality.

Frankly, this project was playing tricks on my expectation. Not long ago I was so glad to the prospect of success, but then, I was left with almost nothing.

I was glad that my friend from the village gave me ten offspring though they were still small and we could not judge the quality accurately at that time. I lost five of them. But I am glad I successfully raise five of them. And now they are in the breeding season!

The quality I had was a bit below expectation, but I am very grateful to have them. At least I have something to work on. Wish me the best!

The most productive female:

The not so productive female one but very active to eat the eggs in the media:

This female is not productive at all, never lays any eggs. She loves to eat the eggs on the floor, but never disturb the eggs in the media during the mating:

This is the most handsome male so far:

The not so handsome one:

Standard
calico ranchu, cow ranchu, The Diary of a Goldfish Breeder 2022

The Diary of a Goldfish Breeder 2022 (4)

Update on my Cow Ranchu projects. I use a female with two males separately.

This is the first match, the female and the male:

I bought the female from a local farm and I do not know whether it is a local breed or an imported fish. My guess, it is an imported fish. The male is my own offspring. I have a feeling that they are from the same lineage (I mean, their parents / grandparents might come from the same farm in China).

And this is the second match, where the female is the same fish:

The male is an imported fish from Chine (through Vietnam, as I was told). It is sold with the label of milk cow since its white color seems to be free from bluish shadow. So, it is safe for me to assume that the female and the male come from different farm lineage in China.

And their offspring shows different results!

These are the offspring from the first match:

They are dominated by the white (or pink) fishes. Some develop red color to become calico. Some have black patches, some black dots. And the black coloration grows. None are purely white (or Casper the ghost) – all have some hints of black coloration. I have high confident that they will be beautiful color as the melanin develops more intense.

Here are some close ups:

But the second match shows different result:

There are the white (pink) with hints of black pigments as well as the calicos. But there are also the Casper (without any black pigment in the body), the Tiger (with red pigment dominates the body), and also three more unidentified variants.

This is the Casper:

This will be the Cow, I guess:

This is the Calico:

This is the Tiger, and I am sorry I forget to take the topview picture:

These two are the first unidentified variant. They have white and purplish coloration with black dots:

These two puzzles me, since they have green color (like wild fish) but with some part of the body being purplish. And their scalations are transparent:

And the last one is similar to the previous two but without any purplish color. And at first, I thought the color was metallic scale with wild color. But now it develops transparent scale in its stomach, and the metallic scalation becomes blur. I am not sure how will it develops:

For me, it is interesting to see that these two matches produce different result. It shows that many fishes labeled as Cow Ranchu might carries different genes. Some can yield true cow coloration (with small percentage of calico) just like my first match, but some can produce all sorts of transparent scale variations as the second match shows.

The greenish ranchu is another interesting case to watch. I am enthusiastic to see what they will become. Will they produce interesting color? Or will they be just dull coloration subject to cull out?

Standard
cow ranchu, The Diary of a Goldfish Breeder 2022

The Diary of a Goldfish Breeder 2022 (1)

This new year I got a pleasant surprise that could propel my cow ranchu project. But first, let me update the color development of my cows. It is interesting to see how the black pattern grows.

This is my Alpha male. He is my own breed – my only success so far. The last time I took his pictures (last year), he looked like this:

And now, he turns into this beauty:

Impressive, right?

Last year I bought several more. The seller called them Milk Cow Ranchu since they were dominated by white color and the black came in few large patches. But the color progress proved them not so much different from my own breed. This makes me wonder whether I do something wrong in my keeping or it is the genetics. Here are their pictures before and after:

Male fish (Before):

After:

Female fish (Before):

And she turns into:

The transformations are almost magical! That is the wonder of Cow Ranchu!

Yet, this Cow Ranchu project proved to be quite a challenge for me. Three years of trial yields only a single good fish (the Alpha Male). During these years I have acquired many cow ranchu from different lines (and they are expensive!), and still no success. The female above gives me no satisfaction, either. It yielded few eggs. Most of the eggs did not hatch. Some of the hatchlings remained at the bottom, unable to swim. And those who could swim and grow, had so many problems with the quality and swimming ability.

Dec 29, 2021. A Friend notified me about a local online auction featuring cow ranchu. So far, there were rumor about local farmers being successful in breeding cow ranchu. But as far as I knew, none had been released into the market. When I took a look at the auction, I immediately realized that was a genuine cow ranchu since I saw her resemblance to one of the line of cow ranchu I acquired so far. Many local farmers tried to create cow ranchu from the local calico available here, but none was successful. The only option was to breed from imported parents, just like I did so far. When I saw the fish in auction, I could not determine whether it was an import fish or a local breed. But it did not matter to me. Then friends told me that it was a “tired fish.” They said the fish had been used as female parents exhaustively to the point of being unproductive anymore, and that was the reason it was on auction. Well, I did not buy that story. The news that she had been used in breeding was a good news to me! Concerning the fish being tired, I had a determination to treat her well to induce her to breeding again. So, without further ado, I won the auction. Concerning her real background, I felt no need to investigate. There are things better left unquestioned. Here she is:

She turns out to be very productive! When she came to my place, even in the quarantine stage, she laid thousands of eggs! What a blessing! Of course I did not hatch the eggs since she was still in quarantine alone. After that, she laid lots of eggs again. In my rough calculation, the hatching rate was around 90%. And the fry were healthy and able to swim well. Two days ago, I examined the two weeks old hatchlings and I found their quality satisfying (in terms of the smooth curve and erect tail). Now, I am waiting for the color to develop into true cow or not. In my heart, I am very satisfied. Perhaps this is a bit too early, but I feel that my cow ranchu project has already been successful, and I need to move on to a new project. I will tell you what is in my mind at the end of this essay.

The fish laid another thousand of eggs for the third time last week. I know I could not take care of them. My farm is small, and I need to do some renovation next months. I have dried lots of my tubs for now. This will pause my breeding activity for at least a month.

But I felt reluctant to let the fry go to waste. What to do?

In this case, I decided to share. I clarify my thinking that this breeding activity is mainly a hobby for me, not so much for profit. Yes, I sell my fishes when I had too many, but selling is not my main purpose. So, I send all those thousands of new hatches into a farmer in the village. He will be able to raise the fry better than me. This is also an opportunity for me to learn not too attach to selfishness.

What is the new project I have in mind?

I am thinking of crossing my sakura yellow goldfish with the cow ranchu!

When the cow ranchu become more available in the market and not unique anymore, I will be on my way to create yellow cow ranchu! Let’s picture cow ranchu but replacing the white color with yellow! Another two years of project 😊

Standard