Category Archives: purple ranchu

purple ranchu, The Diary of a Goldfish Breeder 2023

The Diary of a Goldfish Breeder 2023 (6)

Project #11: Purple Ranchu

There is no shame in struggling. This blog is not a hall of achievement, but a diary of a journey. My purple ranchu has not yielded desirable result. But I think this does not discourage me at all.

In the previous diary 2022 (19) I posted the update of this project. The fishes have grown large and they are late in breeding. Some of them are semi purple ranchu, while others are purple and blue. No brown color here. Yes, I think I lose that lineage. Too bad. But I am sure I can easily revive them again. The offspring from these mixture will produce some brown color.

Semi purple 1 (male):

Semi Purple 2 (male):

Semi Purple 3 (male):

Purple 1 (Suspect female):

Purple 2 (Suspect female):

Purple 3 (Suspect female):

Purple 4 (male):

Blue with golden stain (female):

Well, observing their back curve, they are very rough. Not smooth at all!

But I see some interesting desirable features in them, namely the wide body (measured from top to bottom) and the small tail. Those two alone are good materials to produce beautiful ranchu unique enough compared to what is available in the popular market. Actually, I do not know why these “monstrous beauty” develop such features. I am not aware of any parent fish with such characteristics that I use in breeding. I take it as God-given, special for me. And I will try to work with these features as best as I can.

I love the wide body type because it portrays masculinity well. It reminds me of the Hulk.

The tiny tail is a feature gaining trends in Indonesia right now. I am glad I get this feature out of nowhere.

The weakness of these fishes are the rough back curve, the shape of the tail (mostly curved instead of straight, with bad angle). The headgrowth is in need of improvement also. Those are my homework.

To complicate the matter, these suspect females do not produce eggs so far. The only one that lay eggs is the blue one. Yes, it is the worst quality of all the females here. And it is not even purple. Adding to that, it is also difficult enough to arouse her to lay eggs. She will produce eggs only when I have kept her for 5 days in medication (with salt and methylene blue). She laid eggs twice with that method. No other normal methods will do for her. Strange, right? Her appearance is a bit unique for a blue fish. I was thinking she was a grey fish. But when I look at the head, tail and abdomen color, I realize she is a blue fish.

The only male purple ranchu is in no better quality. But I still use him because he is the only purple. His color might not show purple enough in this picture because he just come out from the quarantine tank (with methylene blue). You know, when the purple fish is dip in a highly concentrated methylene blue water, the fish tend to lose its purple color for a while to make it looks like blue fish. The purple color will reappear after several weeks.

So, I need to start this project with unsatisfactory parents. Will I succeed?

I am enthusiastic, for sure. I think I need two to four years to bring this project to satisfaction. And of course, I will open my eyes on the market to look for better materials to cross.

I only take the video of the long purple one. Enjoy.

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blue ranchu, brown ranchu, purple ranchu, The Diary of a Goldfish Breeder 2022

The Diary of a Goldfish Breeder 2022 (16)

Update on several ranchu projects.

In my plan, I am supposed to concentrate on my ranchu projects this year. But I must confess that I am too occupied with tosakin instead of focusing on ranchu. It is already October. The year will end soon. I have not made any significant progress on my brown, purple, and blue ranchu projects. But I think I still need to report my progress here.

To follow up the diary #6, most of the offspring are not satisfying in terms of the quality. I took a big risk by sorting out almost all of them. I kept only one female from each type. And I am not proud with the quality.

Yes, there is a bump near the tail area. The color is good, though.

This purple ranchu has a rough back curve.

This tricolor is actually a blue ranchu that lost some of its melanin. She has been in this stable color for months. I hope she will continue to be like this. However, the back curve is very bumpy.

I mated these three with my two male semi-purple ranchu:

The results are few. They are 7 cm right now. And I think I see some interesting quality. Thank God!

I will take their pictures when they are older and provide the update later on.

Have a nice day!

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purple ranchu, The Diary of a Goldfish Breeder 2022

The Diary of a Goldfish Breeder 2022 (6)

I must revise my understanding about the breeding of blue, brown and purple crossing.

Several weeks ago I crossed semi purple ranchu with semi purple ranchu. What I mean by semi purple is the cross between purple ranchu and red ranchu. The phenotype (outward appearance) is red / red-white / wild color. To refresh our memory, these are the pair I used (female, male, and male):

In my understanding, the result will be as shown in this illustration:

SP = Semi Purple

I mentioned earlier that the result consists of two different visible color: the light colored fry and the dark one. The light colored fry will become purple, and the dark colored one will become grey (which might eventually turn into red / red-white / stay grey). Based on this understanding, I usually cull out the dark colored one.

I have done these crossing with oranda and ranchu several times and I have revised my understanding. The light colored ones do not turn into solely purple, but also brown fish! So, without any crossing back to brown, I get brown color as a bonus. This will make my life easier. I do not need to make the brown as a separate project. But in this revised understanding, I still cull out all the dark colored ones.

This time, when I breed the semi purple ranchu above, I decided to keep the dark color fry. My initial purpose is to see if some of can become my Basic Ranchu Material. To my surprise, as the color become more visible in several weeks, the dark color turn out to be not only grey fish but also blue fish! So, I have been wrong all this time by culling out all the dark ones! So, once again I must revise my understanding to be like this:

Here are the real offspring:

  1. purple ranchu
  2. brown ranchu
  3. grey / green / wild colored ranchu (that might turn into red/red white)
  4. blue ranchu

Knowing this, I can simplify my projects. Instead of three projects of blue, brown and purple, I can just do one. The purple project will yield all the three color types I want. Is not that great?

But there is a certain doubt lingers. Why does the semi purple cross produce all the three color types? In my understanding, there is two possible solution:

  1. the purple genetics I use is not pure.
  2. even the pure purple genetics carries all the three color types with it, which will be reintroduce when being crossed with another fish (in this case a red fish)

Possibility number one is likely to happen, since I crossed my purple to many other color which I did not keep track diligently. I tried to purify the purple by mating purple with purple. I also mated purple with brown, and purple with blue, which yielded several percentage of purple goldfish (which I guess the purple gene is not pure in this case). And I do not know which purple I use to produce the semi purple ranchu above.

So, yes, I cannot answer which one of the two possibility is true. If number 1 is true, then to reduce my three projects into one will only work if I use the impure purple genetics. If number 2 is true, then I can reduce the three into one in all cases. Hopefully someday someone else can clarify this by doing a better experiment with diligent journal.

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Purple goldfish, purple ranchu, The Diary of a Goldfish Breeder 2022

The Diary of a Goldfish Breeder 2022 (2)

Last year I made a plan to focus on improving my lines of Oranda. This year I will focus on ranchu breeding. Although I was preoccupied with Oranda last year, I managed to start early with my Purple Oranda improvement project. I bought a very bulky male ranchu. Unfortunately I did not document him well before he died. He was a large red white fish, with a very thick backbone. In fact, it was the backbone feature that attract me to buy him. The headgrowth was minimal, and no funtan. I mated him with a small, weak, and thin purple ranchu from my own line. But she had funtan feature in her headgrowth. I am sorry I take no picture of her, either. At that time, my purple ranchu vigor has decreased drastically, perhaps due to successive generations of inbreeding. My bad. I should be more responsible with my lineage.

Anyway, I took only one shoot from that mating pair. As expected, the results are all red white or red / orange fish. I selected the best few to prepare them for breeding. They looked promising. Most of them had strong and thick backbone. The majority also had wide body depth. Those are two features I am looking for. The back shape can be categorized into two: the round one and the flat one. The headgrowth is varied between minimal and lushly. Some might be categorized as hybrid or lionchu type of headgrowth. Satisfying stocks!

However, there is an alarming development. They have come of age, and no sign of mating activity! I have tried to induce the mating with no avail. At this point, I have no more purple ranchu in my collection. So, if these semi-purple fishes are sterile, then this purple ranchu project is doomed. My mind wanders far away. I already think about mating the male semi-purple with my female brown ranchu. This strategy can surely revive the purple ranchu. But, I only have two female brown ranchu left. And the same problem occurs. They have become so big with no sign of being productive. The most extreme thought I have is to start from zero again: to cross my purple oranda with ranchu. It will be another painful and long process..

Here are three male semi-purple ranchu:

There are two female, yet one is not in the best condition when I take these pictures. So, I only take this one:

This female has a problem with swimming straight. And she has a small tumour in her back. Yet, she is full of vigor, especially in the feeding time 😊 She is always the first one to devour the pellets.

Last month (Januari) I started to renovate my breeding area. I was compelled to move many tubs indoor. These fishes are among those I put indoor. It came as a surprise when in a certain morning I found them chasing this female! I was very happy.

I usually operate under the principle that the first eggs are weak. So, it is my custom to let go the first eggs. But in this case, I decided to collect the eggs. I fear that I might not have the second chance.

I hand-spawned them. I only used the first and second male, since they have the desirable round back bone shape. And they hatched well several days ago! Thank God!

After this first mating, they do not mate anymore. I quickly realize that they are not in a healthy condition. Perhaps due to the unfavorable climate. Many fishes fall ill at this moment. Right now, they are in quarantine. I am so glad I make the right decision to collect their first eggs.

These are some of the offspring:

I want to point out that the offspring of semi-purple goldfish will consist of two different color: the light one and the dark one. The light one is the purple color, which usually falls into 25% of the offspring. The dark one will become red or red white (50% of them are semi-purple and another 25% are true red / red-white). The following two pictures show the color comparison:

These two colors must be separated as early as possible since the light ones are usually weaker and cannot compete for food well with their darker siblings. I separated them one by one as soon as they are able to swim (the 2nd or 3rd day after hatching).

Yet, there is always one type of offspring that puzzles me. It has light color but there is a dark area in its body. I encounter this phenomenon always. Yet, I have never separated them to see what they become. I usually put them under the light color variation. But I cannot trace what they become when they grow into adolescence. I hope someday somebody can look into this in more detail. This is the appearance of the fish:

The latest update is that I have done my first culling yesterday. I have with me about 50 light color ones and 50 dark color ones. I am excited to see how their body quality will turn out.

Thank you for reading 😊

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