Blue Oranda, Brown Oranda, Purple goldfish, The Diary of a Goldfish Breeder 2021, Yellow goldfish

The Diary of a Goldfish Breeder 2021 (2)

Date: 24 Feb 2021

Out of the four projects to establish my line of blue, brown, purple, and yellow oranda, three are already on the way since January. Each project presents its own difficulty.

Blue Oranda

My previous line of blue oranda was not bad, though they have not acquired the Basic Material’s body form. But the quality was declining at the end of last year. Somehow, my latest offspring regained the old version of blue oranda form with its long and slim body shape. Well, it is not bad. Just that it goes out of my plan. I decided to let most of them go. I was surprised to find myself with only single blue oranda left in my pond. I think I took a great risk in selling them. If something bad happen to this last Mohican, I will lose my line.

It is a great relief when this blue female oranda laid eggs this January. I quickly paired her with my male Basic Material. I collected the second batch of the eggs and not the first batch since I believe the first batch is usually weak. I will not expect the blue oranda directly from this cross. The blue oranda will appear in the F2. So far, the offspring has a good body shape and erect tail. But it is too early to judge them. In my calculation, this F1 (and also F2) will not have the complete Basic Material body form yet. Their shape will be transitional. I will need to mate the F2 with the Basic Material form again (probably the offspring of the current Basic Material) to have my objective realized in the F4. The plan is so straight forward. If everything is on course, then this project will be successful in two years (assuming that each step needs 6 months for the fish to mature and ready to mate).

At least, the first step has been done, and is on the right track. What can go wrong is if all the offspring die, or all of them turn out to be of the same sex. That is why I think the wise course is to keep the female blue oranda with me till the production of F2.

Brown Oranda

This project is behind the schedule.

I kept a pair of brown oranda from my previous line. In January, I mated my female brown oranda with the male Basic Material. Yet the result was weak. In my analysis, the bad result was due to the female brown oranda getting old. So, I got rid of the offspring and executed plan B. Actually, I had the option to cross the male brown oranda with the female Basic Material. Unfortunately, the female Basic Material was unproductive at that time. Glad that I had plan B.

My plan B depends on the offspring from the previous brown oranda. Somehow, I managed to breed the pair before they became weak, and I raised six youngsters. Six was more than enough, I thought. Right now, they are three months old, not ready to breed yet. So, I need to postpone this brown oranda project perhaps for three more months until the young brown oranda mature. Sounds like a good plan, isn’t it? Too bad, two of them died last week due to disease, and three more died this morning. I am left with one youngster, which is still in medication right now. I do not know whether it will survive or not. And I have not checked its gender yet. Hopefully, this last fish will survive and I can run the plan B three months from now. But I must admit, this plan B is not safe right now.

What happens if plan B fail, that is, if the last fish dies also? I have plan C.

Last year, I did not make a clear plan for my breeding project yet. So, I bred whatever project that came to my mind. One of them was making a brown oranda with large headgrowth without bothering about the body shape. So, I crossed the brown oranda with my tricolor goosehead. The offspring have red white and grey coloration, and is now five months old, almost ready to breed. When I decided to establish my line using the Basic Material body form, I thought about getting rid of this brown goosehead project, since I did not want to have too many overlapping projects. Glad I have not done that. So, if plan B fails, I still have this plan C. If I need to execute this back up plan, then this project will take six to nine months longer. It will take two and a half or even three years to complete.

Purple Oranda

Things get a bit messy here. Before this project to establish my purple oranda line, I already started several projects. First, I already bred my original line and now I have six young purple oranda about three months old (the same age as my young brown oranda). Second, I already mated my original purple oranda with my tricolor goosehead oranda to create purple oranda with large headgrowth. Right now, the F1 is already five months old and ready to spawn. Third, I already crossed my original purple oranda with the Basic Material body shape (I use the parent of my current basic Material in the cross) and the F1 is seven months old. So, with these stocks, I can have plan A to C in readiness. But it is hard work to maintain all of them.

From these collections, which one should I use as my plan A?

Of course, the most logical thing is to use the third project. I already have the F1. I will just need to breed the F2 and it will yield purple oranda with transitional body form. Then I will continue with crossing the F2 and the Basic Material again, and will achieve my goal in the F4. This will make the project be finish in one and a half year! Sounds great!. And that was what I did. I mated F1 x F1 in January and came up with the F2. But I anticipate two problems.

I only have one female in the F1, and she has a defect in her tail. The tail is folded. And I am worried that this trait might be carried forward to the offspring. So far, the offspring (F2) looks fine. But it does not mean that they will be free from defect, since folded tail might occur later. Hopefully the result will be mixed, so I can select the non-defect one to use. If all of them are defect, then I have some options. I might still mate them with the Basic Material line in the hope that the gene from the Basic Material will correct the defect. Or I can start over using the original line, mating them with the Basic Material (basically, this means I redo what I have been doing half a year earlier) with the consequence of taking a longer time for this project to accomplish. I do not know which one is a better strategy yet. I think for now I will just observe, and decide later according to the situation.

The second problem has happened. Some of the F2 are losing its purple color and are turning into white! This is bad. How can this happen? In my analysis, it is because I use red-white Basic Material fish in the previous cross. The purple color is basically a variant of black pigmentation. It will be stronger if I use black fish in the cross instead of red-white fish (let alone a dominantly white one). Actually, there were some grey fish in the F1, but I got rid of them, thinking that the colored one (red-white one) is better. Now I realize my mistake. The grey one might yield a more long-lasting purple color (this is still my guess). Yet, this is already happening. I have the option to continue with this F2, hopefully selecting the strong purple color if possible; or I can introduce black oranda to the project. But the introduction of black fish will complicate the project, since the black fish is not the Basic Material.

Well, so far, I need to observe how the F2 turns out. Will they have folded tail? Will they become all white? And I will think of solution later on after the observation.

Yellow Oranda

About seven months ago I crossed my original yellow oranda with the parent of the Basic Material. I kept two females from the offspring (F1). The first one is free from defect and is my first choice to breed. The second one develops a folded tail. As weird as it may seems, my first choice does not lay eggs up to now. The productive one is one with defect. I have no choice but to breed the defect one (F1 x F1). Unfortunately, more than 90 percent are single tail! I do not know why. But my guess this has something to do with the original yellow goldfish that I use (yellow comets – single tail). So, I discarded this batch. Now I am waiting for the first choice to lay eggs. Meanwhile, I run the back-up plan.

The key to my back up plan is my original female yellow goldfish (actually, she is yellow-white, very interesting color). She is very productive. I have several options:

I can breed her with another original yellow goldfish
I can mate her with the existing F1 (which already contain part of the Basic Material genetics)
I can cross her with the Basic Material

Which strategy is the best? Option 1 is to retain the original yellow goldfish in case something happens and I need to start from scratch. Option 2 has the same purpose but with a better body shape (since the result will have 25% of the Basic Material genetics). So, by this logic, option 1 can be discarded. Option 2 is even better than the option 3 in terms of the lesser time to complete the whole project. It seems that option 3 can be discarded also. But there is one possible problem to worry about. How if option 2 results in many single tail goldfish? If that happens, then option 2 cannot be used. But at this state, I do not know what will happen. So, I just do both option 2 and 3 simultaneously. And I have done them last week, with good egg hatches. So, now there are two sub-projects going on in this yellow oranda project, while waiting for the F1 x F1 to happen.

To complicate the matter, I also have another side project, which is the yellow sakura project. My aim here is to create transparent scale oranda with yellow and white color. I do not know how they will look like. I am not sure if this can be achieved as I expected. But it is nice to try. I have started this project about six months ago and already have the F1. The appearance of the F1 is just a red-white sakura with a few black stains. But the genetics is half yellow. I already breed this F1 x F1 and has one yellow white transparent color oranda (with a few black stains). It is very young, still less than two months old, but it already looks yellowish-white. I need more time to confirm the color. Apart from this F1 x F1, I also mate the original female yellow in the option 2 and 3 with this male F1! I am hoping to get some more yellow sakura with less black stains. But this project does not incorporate the Basic Material’s body shape. So, this will be a side- project. I do not know if I am too greedy or if I can be justified doing this. But this certainly complicate my yellow oranda project – an interesting complication.

Blue Oranda, Brown Oranda, Purple goldfish, The Diary of a Goldfish Breeder 2021, Yellow goldfish

The Diary of a Goldfish Breeder 2021 (1)

Date: 19 Feb 2021

This year is the 21^st year of my breeding activity. In accordance to my New Year resolution to “celebrate my potential”, I see the need to be more focus in the area of my goldfish breeding. Though breeding is just a hobby for me – an obsessive one, I must admit – I need a clear direction. So, in the beginning of January, I assessed my breeding situation and made plans. The most feasible thing for me to do turns out to be establishing my line of Oranda.

I have been working with color experiment for many years already. I played with the blue, brown, purple, and yellow color in metallic goldfish. Right now, I have the blue oranda, brown oranda, purple oranda, and yellow oranda. I used many different sources to create them. For example, to create brown oranda, I crossed the brown pompom goldfish with red oranda; to create yellow oranda, I crossed yellow commet with red oranda. These different sources resulted in different oranda shapes. Though they are oranda, my brown and yellow oranda look very different. To make things complicated, I sometimes used several different lines of oranda in the crossing. So, for each type of color, I might have more than one shape variation. It is a bit overwhelming to maintain all of those variation.

Now it is time to simplify things. I want one uniform shape in all my colorful oranda variety. It does not mean that I will not keep other shapes. It just means that I should have my primary shape for oranda. It will be my line: my signature.

In order to do that, I need a basic material to work with. This, I think, is very important. I will induce this basic material into my colorful oranda so that I will have the blue, brown, purple, and yellow oranda with the shape as close as the basic material. Of course, the real basic material is only an idealism in my imagination. It does not exist. In reality, I need to find one close to my idealism. Or at least, a satisfying one. This non-existence of my ideal oranda creates a possibility to continually improve the basic material in the future.

For the past several years, I had my eye on a certain red-white oranda shape developed by a breeder friend. I especially admired its body form. I acquired that line, and mixed it with my fishes. The offspring becomes my basic material right now. In today’s diary, I would like to talk in length about this basic material. Let me first show the picture:

The Male

The Female

Basically, if I can create blue, brown, purple, and yellow oranda with such shape quality, I will be quite satisfied. And that is my current goal. Don’t you agree that those fishes will be gorgeous? These projects might take one to two years to complete.

Now let me go deeper.

What I admire in these two basic materials is, first of all, their body shape. The body length is medium; it has a good thickness (especially in the peduncle area); and it has a good body width (measured vertically from the back to the stomach). The female is slightly longer than the male. If I must choose the body length, I will choose the female. This preference of medium body length differs from the current trend of a shorter oranda. I know I do not really follow the trend.

The back curve is also good enough. It has a good height: higher than the headgrowth as required by a good standard, yet not as high as the oranda-ryukin hybrid. The current trend in the market is a very high oranda hump, which is fine with me, but I do not follow it. If I compare the male and female here, the male has a slightly better height.

My first concern about the body shape is that the peduncle of the female is positioned a bit upward / high. It makes the fish looks slightly imbalance – but only slightly. Fortunately, the male does not show this weakness. I think this weakness might occur in the offspring once in a while.

The bigger concern is the shape of the abdomen. The male has a good egg-shaped abdomen, though if it can be stretched a bit further back will be nicer. Yet, the female does not have the egg-shaped abdomen. I do not know yet if the stomach can be fuller later on in its development. It is yet to observe. But it is reasonable that some of the offspring might carry this weakness, since I saw the same case with the original line (from my breeder friend).

The scalation looks beautiful. The red color is not deep red, but is more intense than just orange color. There is a possibility that the red can be improved using color enhancer food. But the color is not my concern here, since I do not intend to breed the red or the red-white color as my main oranda. I will need to breed them still just to have enough basic material for the next breeding, but my main purpose is to have the blue, brown, purple and yellow oranda.

Concerning the headgrowth, I have come to a realization that my line will be more of the goosehead type of headgrowth. Looking back to the past several years when I have not decided at what type of headgrowth will my line be, I was already working many times with the goosehead type. And now, I am settled with it. The pictures above were taken two months ago. Now, the fishes have developed the headgrowth more. They have a larger growth on the hat area. Beautiful. The headgrowth was not excessive as in my tricolor oranda line, but it is not small, either. I might want to have a little bit more, if possible, so that the main identity of the fish (the headgrowth) will catch more attention when one sees it. In this basic material, the headgrowth is also seen below the eyes. I think it is the gene from the original line. For my line, I do not desire it and wish to minimize it later on. For now, I must expect that this trait (headgrowth below the eyes) might still occur in the offspring.

Last but not least, I must talk about the tail. The tail is of medium length (or between medium and long). It is a good length for me. I do not want the medium short or even a short tail. The degree of erection of the tail is good enough. It is not very spectacular, but it is considered good. The thickness of the tail tissue is good enough, though I will welcome a thicker one. There are three concerns about the tail. First, the lower tail lobe is not round. So, the lower tail cannot cover the anal fins well. The anal fins are too exposed. I also see this in the original line. And this weakness is uniform in the line. So, I need to plan a long-term repair for this, which is not easy if I cannot find this trait in the existing market. I have made several efforts, though. Yet, it is still a long process. For now, I must accept this weakness. Second, the lower lobes of the female (and some of its sibling) have small folds. The male does not have this. I guess this defect might occur once in a while in the offspring. Third, it was examined that the left and right lower lobes sometimes become imbalance when one of the lobes curls inward when swimming. The curl is not symmetric between the left and right lobes. Not all the sibling develops this, and I certainly do hope that this is not a hereditary defect. It is also possible that this type of tail needs special care so that it does not developed into imbalance curl inward. Perhaps this type of tail is not suited to deep water or strong current. I still need to observe this.

Anyway, after analyzing the basic material and see that they are obviously not perfect, I must say that I will be satisfied to have the basic material shape exist with blue, brown, purple, and yellow color. It is feasible for me to do. I also want to incorporate the tricolor into this basic material shape, but the difficulty is greater. I will save it for later.

kehidupan dalam air

Towards My Line

Ada sesuatu yang sedang berubah dalam diriku.

Sulit mendeskripsikannya.

Mungkin begini: dulu aku tau, sekarang aku TAU; dulu aku mengerti, sekarang aku MENGERTI. Ada hal-hal yang dari dulu aku sudah tau, tapi mengapa sekarang aku kembali pada pengetauan itu tapi secara berbeda? Ada suara dalam diri yang mengatakan: dulu kamu tau, tapi sebenarnya kamu belum tau; sekarang baru kamu tau.

Membingungkan?

Dalam memelihara ikan, dari dulu aku tau bahwa para master memiliki line mereka sendiri. Ikan-ikan mereka memiliki tanda tangan mereka: seragam dalam keunikannya. Itu menjadi idealisme para breeder. Aku sudah tahu itu belasan tahun, dan sering pula menyampaikan aspirasi itu kepada teman-teman sesama penghobi. Tapi sekarang aku sadar, sebenarnya aku tidak tahu apa-apa tentang itu.

Kalau ditanya, seperti apakah line ikan-ikanku? Maka aku akan menjawab tidak punya. Mungkin ada teman-teman yang mengatakan line ku seperti ini atau seperti itu. Tapi mereka keliru, karena ikan-ikanku terus berubah dari tahun ke tahun. Ada keinginan tertentu, maka aku mencoba mencetaknya. Ada ikan lain yang memiliki fitur menarik di pasar, maka aku mencoba menyuntikkan fitur itu ke ikan-ikanku. Dan ini tidak hanya sekali dua kali. Fitur-fitur unik yang berbeda-beda itu melimpah dalam dunia ikan koki. Aku terus bereksperimen dengan mereka sesuka hatiku. Akibatnya, aku konsisten berubah terus.

Tapi di tahun ke dua puluh satu kegiatan breedingku ini, aku sampai pada suatu kesadaran tertentu. Seperti pengelana yang akhirnya memilih untuk menetap “settle” di suatu tempat, demikian petualanganku dengan fitur-fitur ikan mulai mereda. Setidaknya, dalam jenis Oranda, aku mulai melihat bakal line-ku seperti apa. Gambaran itu makin lama makin jelas.

Aku sampai pada kesadaran bahwa “establishing a line” itu berarti tidak lagi mendua hati. Ibarat seseorang yang berjumpa dengan banyak wanita mengagumkan. Ada wanita yang fitur utamanya adalah kecantikannya. Dan harus kukatakan, kecantikan itu pun sangat bervariasi. Ada wanita yang daya tarik utamanya adalah intelektualitasnya. Meski tidak semua menghargai itu, bahkan banyak pria yang merasa takut pada fitur itu. Ada wanita yang begitu baik hatinya; ada pula wanita pekerja yang begitu berwibawa dan berprestasi; dan banyak lagi. Pemuda ini mengagumi semua keunikan-keunikan itu dan tidak dapat memutuskan mana yang akan dipujanya. Bahkan mungkin setelah menikahi seorang dari mereka pun, ia belum sepenuhnya yakin bahwa ia sudah memilih dengan tepat. Tapi, setelah bertahun-tahun menikah, di titik kesadaran tertentu, barulah ia mantap hati. Ketika hatinya sudah mantap, ia tidak lagi mendua hati. Benar, masih tetap banyak keutamaan di luar sana yang menarik. Tapi tidak mendua hati berarti memilih satu orang wanita untuk ditaruh di dalam hatinya, dan sudah tidak lagi peduli kepada yang lain. Demikian juga dengan membangun line ikan koki.

Aku tidak tahu, mengapa line yang muncul pertama secara jelas dalam diriku justru Oranda. Dulu waktu kecil aku pernah terkesima dengan seekor Oranda yang aku beli di pasar. Warnanya merah putih, namun merahnya sangat merah dan putihnya sangat bersih. Tapi tidak lama aku yang waktu itu masih kecil memeliharanya, ikan itu mati. Dan aku tidak pernah menjumpai oranda seindah itu lagi di masa mudaku. Ketika aku memulai hobi breeding, Oranda adalah ikan yang paling tidak favorit bagiku. Bentuknya yang berjambul mengingatkanku pada tante-tante dengan rambut disanggul tinggi sewaktu ke pesta. Terlihat berlebihan berdandan. Aku tidak suka. Namun sejak aku diajak seorang teman untuk menulis buku tentang apresiasi ikan koki, aku belajar banyak darinya tentang apresiasi Oranda. Jangan melihat Oranda sebagai tante yang sedang berangkat ke pesta. Jangan juga melihat Oranda sebagai badut yang lucu. Bukan, Oranda bukan itu. Oranda adalah seorang raja yang berwibawa. Jambul itu bukan rambut yang disanggul, atau topi seorang badut, melainkan mahkota seorang raja! Pandanganku tentang Oranda mulai berubah sejak itu. Jujur dahulu aku tidak mau memelihara Oranda. Aku akhirnya memelihara Oranda hanya untuk membuat sesi foto sebagai ilustrasi buku tersebut. Tapi makin lama memelihara makin aku bisa melihat keindahannya.

Ada Oranda line si A, ada pula line si B. Ada Oranda yang berjambul goosehead, ada yang tipe lionhead, dan segudang tipe lagi. Ada yang short body, medium, hingga long body. Ada bentuk tubuh yang langsing hingga yang lebar. Belum lagi berbicara tentang berbagai jenis ekornya. Sangat bervariasi. Dan runyamnya, aku bisa mengapresiasi keragaman itu, hingga tidak bisa memiliki line-ku sendiri. Tapi kini, setelah 20 tahun breeding, mulai jelas bagiku idealisme Oranda mana yang kupilih untuk menjadi line-ku. Dan itu berarti aku harus merelakan keindahan-keindahan yang lain.

Tentu saja aku tidak ingin sama dengan line teman-temanku yang sudah establish. Untuk masalah bentuk aku akan mengadopsi line tertentu, dengan sedikit modifikasi bentuk, tapi dengan modifikasi besar pada warna. Line Oranda ku adalah blue oranda, brown oranda, purple oranda dan yellow oranda dengan bentuk seperti foto di atas.

Tidak lagi mendua hati terdengar seperti sebuah prinsip yang sederhana. Tapi tidak mudah mencapainya. Ini masih sekedar masalah ikan, belum lagi masalah menerapkannya dalam kehidupan.

“Establishing a Line” juga berarti menerima kelebihan dan kekurangan ikan itu. Tidak ada ikan yang sempurna. Mungkin sempurna di fitur tertentu, tapi di fitur yang lain ia tidak seindah ikan orang lain. Mungkin juga fitur dalam line yang sedang dikembangkan ini bukan fitur yang sedang naik daun. Tapi, hati yang tidak mendua juga adalah hati yang bisa menerima. Ia sempurna di mata breedernya, sempurna dalam kelebihan dan kekurangannya. Apa kata orang tidak lagi menggoyahkannya, apalagi menyinggung hatinya. Ia puas.

Tidak berarti breeder itu tidak akan melakukan perbaikan apa-apa lagi. Perbaikan tetap dilakukan. Variasi juga tetap dikembangkan. Namun pergumulan akan garis besar utamanya sudah selesai. Sama seperti seorang suami yang sudah menerima istrinya apa adanya juga masih kadang bertengkar atau mengkritik, tapi itu bukan lagi hal besar.

Itulah yang kini kulihat tentang membangun sebuah line yang dahulu tidak kulihat.

Dalam kategori Oranda, aku makin jelas, dan aku masih butuh mungkin dua tahun untuk sampai pada angan-angan tersebut. Dalam ranchu, aku masih belum menemukannya. Dalam tahun-tahun mendatang mungkin ranchu ku masih akan sangat bervariasi dan tidak dapat disebut sebagai sebuah line yang solid. Aku masih perlu “njajan” hingga menemukan tambatan hati.

Ya, tidak apa-apa. Satu per satu saja. Dijalani dan dinikmati saja.

Hermanto 26 Januari 2020

cow ranchu, Purple goldfish

Cow Projects 2020

This is the second time I breed my cow ranchu. There are two ongoing projects. First, I cross my remaining cow ranchu (male) with his own offspring (or niece – since I used several male to produce her). Second, I cross the same cow ranchu with a female purple ranchu out of curiosity.

The first project (cow x cow) resulted in weak body shape offspring. But it is not my main interest. My interest is in the coloration of the offspring. At the age of roughly three months old, they are still mostly transparent white. Few have red patches. Some have black little dots and / or black patches “inside” (beneath the scale). Black marking on top of the scale (outside) is rare in these offspring. If they do, the black marking is in the shape of patches, not dots.

The fully white ones are nicknamed Casper by my friends. I was informed that these Caspers and the ones with black dots inside will develop the black color outside later on. It is certainly my hope to see it comes true. But so far, I do not see it coming. None of them can be claim as cow ranchu yet.

Let me refresh our memory with the pictures of the parent:

I do this first project twice. So I have collected two batches. Since the first batches were on medication when I took these photographs, I only managed to take pictures of the second batches. And these are the results. Each fish is displayed from left and right side.

The second project (cow x purple ranchu) has a different result. The offspring looks more like calico with a satisfying color composition. To compare this with the above project, this second project does not produce Caspers. They have black patches inside (not dots), but also white dots outside (not patches at this stage). I am eager to see how these dots will develop later on. And to compare with my previous project of crossing the cow with blue ranchu, I do not get any kirin-like color in this crossing (cow x purple) as I get one in the previous crossing (cow x blue). This comes as a surprise to me, since the blue and purple color are closely related. I expected to see a kirin-like coloration in this project, but it does not happen. I am still curious though about what will happen if I cross these offspring back to a purple ranchu.

These are the parent fishes:

And the offspring are:

I already cull out the fishes from these two projects. Those with weak body shape are eliminated (I give them freely to friends). So, the next update will not contain all of the fishes portrayed here.

Enjoy.

cow ranchu

The Transformation of my Cow Ranchu (2019 – 2020)

As I mentioned before, I bought five cow ranchu from an importer in Indonesia (Jakarta Goldfish Centre). They came from De Quan Farm in Fu Zhou, China. Only one male survives until now and he has been my favorite so far. One amazing feature of the fish is the growth of its black pigment. When I compared the fish before and after, I can hardly recognize him. So, it is confirmed that the black pigment in cow ranchu can grow.

This is the picture taken on December 2019:

And this is him in October 2020:

Marvelous, isn’t he?

However, the growth of the black pigmentation on the offspring is quite challenging. Until now (almost 4 months old), the black pigment does not seem to grow at all. Most of the offspring are white with some black spots underneath the transparent scale, which look like bluish or shadowy color. I am hoping that the black pigment can come out to the outer layer of the transparent scale. Some people reported that it usually happens late on the fish. Hopefully they are correct. The rest of the offspring resemble calico. I will post their pictures on the next posting.

Feel free to share what you think about the transformation of this cow ranchu on the comments below 😊 Thank you.

kinranshi

Kinranshi version 2.0

In my previous attempt, I crossed topview ranchu (Andou line) with wakin. I called the offspring Kinranshi since they looked similar to the Kinranshi goldfish type I saw in a book. I already made a post about that project.

Now, to move the project forward, I crossed the Kinranshi back to topview ranchu. I used three lines such as Andou, Kudou / Murakami (the seller was not sure about the line of this particular fish), and my own line (forgot to record). The results are varied. They are not yet conformed to the standard of topview ranchu, so I called them Kinranshi version 2.0.

Some of them are thin and long, some have thickness on their backbone, and some are shorter. Some have collapsed tail and some have wide-spread tail. The head growths are also varied. I am glad to see these rich variations. It triggers my imagination how to direct the next development of them.

Here are the Kinranshi 2.0:

kehidupan dalam air

Beningnya Batin

Itu pertama kali aku jatuh cinta pada kehidupan di dalam air!

Pamanku, yang waktu itu masih muda, punya piaraan baru. Ia mengajakku datang melihat-lihat piaraannya itu. Di lorong sempit yang dia jadikan taman itu, aku melihat sebuah jedingan bekas copotan dari kamar mandi yang dijadikannya tempat memelihara ikan. Wadah dari semen itu sebenarnya kecil saja, tapi bagiku yang belum genap berusia sepuluh tahun, jedingan itu terasa besar sekali. Aku melongok ke dalamnya dan tiba-tiba aku menemukan sebuah dunia lain. Sebuah dunia yang begitu bening! Aku bisa melihat pasir hitam yang ada di dasarnya. Ikan-ikan kecil beraneka jenis sibuk berenang di antara beragam tanaman air yang ada di dunia lain itu. Ada yang berkejar-kejaran, ada yang sibuk mencari makan di sela-sela daun atau di dasar, dan ada pula yang bersembunyi di balik bebatuan mungkin sedang bermain petak umpet dengan temannya. Seakan ikan-ikan itu tidak peduli pada kisah dan keluh kesah dunia manusia. Mereka punya kisah mereka sendiri. Berbagai perasaan berkecamuk dalam jiwa kecilku. Aku belum pernah merasakan kesegaran seperti ini. Pada saat itulah, aku jatuh cinta pada kebeningan itu.

Aku belum mengerti tentang ikan pada waktu itu. Bahkan aku sempat menanyakan ini ikan air laut atau air tawar. Pertanyaan yang bodoh, mana mungkin guppy, neon, dan platy dipiara di air laut! Aku ingat pamanku menangkap seekor ikan gepeng transparan untuk ditunjukkan padaku. Namanya ikan kaca, katanya. Ikan tersebut bening seperti kaca, sehingga kelihatan tulang-tulang badannya. Tidak ada ikan koki di sana. Perjalananku sampai mencintai ikan koki masih panjang.

Singkat cerita, setelah aku lulus kuliah, aku tinggal di surabaya. Orang tuaku membelikanku sebuah rumah. Aku beruntung memiliki seorang ayah yang merasa kewajibannya baru selesai jika sudah menyediakan sebuah usaha lengkap dengan modalnya dan sebuah rumah bagi anak2nya. Aku bersyukur mendapatkan rumah itu, tapi aku tetap mengajukan syarat. Aku minta ada kolam di rumah itu. Ayahku mengerti. Dari kecil aku selalu minta seperti itu. Dahulu sepulang dari rumah pamanku pada pengalaman pertama jatuh cinta pada dunia dalam air, aku minta dibelikan ikan. Akhirnya, ketika penjual ikan pikulan lewat, aku dibelikan. Piara di mana? Di ember seadanya. Tak berapa lama ikan tersebut mati. Lalu suatu kali aku pulang dari gereja melewati pasar Splendid di Malang di mana orang menjual ikan berjajar-jajar. Di sana aku melihat ikan-ikan yang lucu dengan warna dan sirip yang menarik! Aku bertanya, ikan apa itu? Oh, itu ikan mas koki, kata penjualnya. Lucu sekali! Aku pulang dengan tidak bisa tidur nyenyak karena memikirkan ikan-ikan tersebut. Maka dimulailah perjalanan cintaku dengan ikan mas koki. Lambat laun, melihat aku suka memelihara ikan, papaku membelikanku sebuah aquarium kecil, yang karena tidak ada raknya, ditaruh di lantai. Aku suka tidur di lantai di depan aquarium itu sambil memandangi ikan-ikan mas kokiku. Aku rajin mengurasnya, bahkan pernah membuat ayahku marah karena aku memilih malam-malam menguras aquarium ketimbang belajar untuk ulangan sekolah besok.

kenangan ikan mas koki mutiara masa kecilku

Aquarium kecil, berubah menjadi aquarium besar. Semua pekerjaan menguras aku kerjakan sendiri. Aku ingat ikan favoritku adalah mutiara ekor panjang yang pernah kulukis. Sampai sekarang kental sekali ingatanku akan ikan itu. Aku juga pernah punya oranda yang warna merah dan putihnya cemerlang sekali! Entah pikiranku yang membesar-besarkan keindahannya atau memang ikan seperti itu pernah ada, sampai sekarang aku jarang melihat warna seindah itu. Padahal belinya di pasar ikan murah-murah. Ketika ayahku mendapat rejeki dalam bisnisnya dan bisa membangun rumah baru, ia membuatkan sebuah kolam untukku. Itulah pertama kalinya aku punya kolam sendiri. Waktu itu aku belum mengerti tentang filter, jadi kolam itu tidak memiliki filter sama sekali. Dan setelah aku lulus kuliah, bekerja di Surabaya, diberi hadiah sebuah rumah, aku pun membuat sebuah kolam juga di rumah baruku. Agaknya aku tidak bisa hidup tanpa kehadiran sebuah kolam.

Namun aku mengalami masalah.

Kolamku keruh. Sekeruh pikiranku pada saat itu.

Sudah kuupayakan segala cara yang aku bisa, tetap saja demikian. Aku sampai merasa putus asa. Setelah aku kuras, beberapa hari kemudian keruh lagi. Apakah ikan koki tidak boleh dicampur dengan ikan manfish? Rasanya bukan karena itu. Tiap hari aku lihat, apakah debu-debunya sudah mengendap dan kolamku sudah menjadi bening, tapi tak kunjung bening juga.

Kebetulan pada saat itu aku baru lulus kuliah. Ketika aku melihat masa depanku, aku tidak bisa melihat apa-apa. Keruh. Aku tidak tahu apa yang harus kulakukan dalam hidup ini. Aku tidak tahu bisnis yang diwariskan oleh ayahku ini apakah bisnis yang tepat untukku. Aku tidak tahu apakah pacarku ini calon istri yang tepat untukku. Aku tidak tahu! Aku tidak tahu! Semua terasa begitu keruh! Aku berusaha menenangkan diriku. Aku mencoba mengendapkan semua debu pemikiran itu dalam batinku. Tapi dalam ziarah ke dalam itu, aku hanya menemukan sebuah kolam butek. Bertahun-tahun aku dalam kondisi seperti itu. Oh, betapa inginnya aku lari mencari kolam jedingan yang kulihat di masa kecilku itu dan duduk menikmati kebeningannya lagi! Mungkin dengan begitu semua kekeruhan dalam batinku akan berangsur-angsur menjadi jernih. Mungkinkah kekeruhan hatiku membuat kolamku tidak bisa bening?

Aku terus berdoa. Aku terus memohon. Aku meminta batin yang bening dan pikiran yang jernih. Aku ingin dibebaskan dari rasa keruh hati ini. Aku pegang ayat yang mengatakan bahwa kebenaran akan membebaskan. Maka aku membaca banyak buku, mengikuti banyak seminar, dengan harapan bahwa aku akan menemukan kebenaran itu. Capek sekali hidup dalam kondisi keruh batin!

Suatu saat aku browse internet, yang mana itu masih sebuah luxury di jaman itu. Aku menemukan artikel tentang sistem filter yang menirukan filtrasi di alam. Aku sangat tertarik. Dan aku mulai menerapkannya. Alhasil, kolamku pun menjadi bening! Aku harap ada suatu sistem atau cara seperti itu yang bisa kulakukan dan membuat batinku pun menjadi bening.

Dalam kehidupan pribadiku, aku belajar untuk jujur pada diri sendiri. Aku menuliskan pikiran-pikiranku, perasaanku, dan apa saja yang ada dalam diriku dalam berlembar-lembar kertas dan berhalaman-halaman microsoft word. Aku harap ini membantuku menjernihkan pikiranku. Setiap akhir tahun aku melakukan tulisan refleksi atas diriku sendiri, dan membuat rencana-rencana pribadi. Dan seiring dengan perjalanan waktu, banyak hal menjadi jelas bagiku. Sekarang, meski pikiran dan batinku belum sejernih dan sebening kristal, namun sudah banyak bagiannya yang menjadi terang. Dan aku bersyukur untuk itu. Sampai tahap tertentu, aku telah menemukan kebebasan jiwa.

Batin yang bening. Ada yang peduli?

Hermanto 22 Mei 2018

Uncategorized

How to Induce Spawning

First, it is useful to categorize female fishes into four categories: very productive, normal productive, and less productive, and infertile. In the case of a very productive fish, we do not need to do anything and the fish will lay eggs by its own everywhere and anywhere. Even when there is no male partner, it will lay its eggs. But most fishes fall under the category of normal productive, which will usually lay eggs in a comfortable environment with the presence of male partner. The problem arises when we have the less productive fishes. We need tricks to induce the spawning. In the case of the infertile fishes, nothing can be done. The infertility can be of two kinds: the fish cannot lay eggs, or the fish can lay eggs but the eggs cannot hatch. So, our focus is how to induce spawning in the less productive fishes, which of course the tricks will also applicable to the normal productive fishes.

Basically, I use two ways to induce spawning: to make the fish comfortable or to make the fish uncomfortable (or introduce changes). I will try the first method before considering the second one.

I live in the tropical area, so my methods might not work for other areas. Each breeder need to find his / her own ways in the two frameworks.

If we use biological filtration pond or tank, then the fish will be comfortable in a mature filtration. If we use water change method, then it is better to have a routine schedule. Male partners should be present. Outdoor or semi outdoor environment will be good since it is in accordance with the fishes’ internal clock. Enough sunlight. Introduce plants. Do not feed with growth pellets or tubifex worms. Feed with wheatgerm-based meal. Use live food such as frozen bloodworm and daphnia. Mosquito larvae is a superb food for this purpose. Normally, these actions will suffice to induce breeding. The fishes will mate at around 5 am. It is an advantage to be in the tropical area that I do not need to take into account the winter season or the water temperature.

For the less productive fishes, to make it comfortable, we can introduce a productive female one in the tank. After the productive one lay eggs, we can remove her. We can hope that the less productive one will follow to lay eggs.

Another way to make her comfortable to spawn is to put bricks or clay pots in the pond. Somehow it is believed that the smell of the soil can induce the fish to breed. I do not know how true it is, but I sometimes use this method combined with other ways.

If the comforting methods do not work, we might consider to make the fish uncomfortable by introducing change / surprise. Why uncomfortable methods might induce breeding? I read it somewhere that in the presence of death the fish might naturally think she need to lay eggs to preserve her descendants. So, the change might make the fish think she is going to die (smile). The mild measure in introducing change includes moving the fish from indoor to outdoor. Or if the fish is kept in outdoor, put her for several weeks indoor before moving her to outdoor again. We can also play with the water temperature. Try to keep the fish in a colder temperature for several weeks, then move to a warmer environment. Total water change can also be a surprise to the fish. Drastic water parameter change might be introduced also, mimicking the rain fall. Fasting (deprived of food) and then pumping the fish with good food can also be tried.

A more risky way that I sometimes use it to lay the fish in insufficient water level. This is the way I do it. As I make a total water change, when I fill the tub again, I put the fish in when the water level is still insufficient to submerse her. So the fish will be a bit stressful for a minute or two for lacking water, but will not be hurt / damaged. It is enough to make her think she is going to die for a while. This is the most extreme measure I take. But I seldom use it and I only use it for a hard case.

The breeding can also be induced by injecting substances such as Ovaprim to the fish. But I do not use this method.

These are the methods I use to induce spawning. My methods are simple. I am sure there are many more advanced and creative ways. I will encourage the readers to explore and to share their ways.

Uncategorized

On Feeding Goldfish

Basically, how we feed our goldfish is determined by our purpose of keeping. Some people might just want to keep goldfish for relaxation. What they want is their fishes to enjoy a healthy and long life. They do not bother much about pumping up the size of their fishes. For such people, feeding the fishes with staple /maintenance pellets once or twice a day will be sufficient. The fishes might not grow or might grow slowly, but the fishes will enjoy many years of happy life.

Some want to be the best groomer of their fishes. They wanted their fishes to grow in size (and shape) in no time. For these people, their purpose might be achieved by a heavy feeding such as six times a day, or even ten times a day, with growth pellets which contain high fat and high protein contents. Live foods such as tubifex worms, silk worms, might sometimes be used also.

Fish pellets can usually be categorized into three types: maintenance pellets, growth pellets and color enhancer pellets. The maintenance type is used as daily food with sufficient nutrients for the fishes. The growth type is used to foster the fast growth of the fishes. The color enhancer one is used to improve the red color and the shiny scale of the fishes.

As for me, since I am an experimenting with breeding, so my main purpose is to feed the fishes with foods that will induce them to breed. My feeding consists of pellets and live food. I use the wheatgerm-based pellets to induce spawning. The wheatgerm-based pellets can be categorized as maintenance diet type since they do not contain high fat and high protein, but sometimes can be categorized also as growth pellets since they help the fish to grow by optimizing the digestive systems. This quality of improving the digestive systems will improve the productivity of the female fishes. I also use live foods such as frozen bloodworm and live / frozen daphnia since they will induce breeding. Another excellent live food that can induce breeding is the mosquito larvae, but I do not usually use them. Tubifex worm and growth pellets are absolute no for the female parents.

My breeding activity dictates that I must grow the fries also. All good quality goldfish should grow thick backbone early as a foundation for life. Without it, they will have trouble swimming as their age matures. So, when they are young, I give them live daphnia and growth pellets grinded as fine as flour. As they are growing, I introduce frozen bloodworm and growth pellets. I used to use tubifex worms, but for the sake of convenient, I do not use it at present. I continue to give this diet to fishes that need to grow headgrowths such as oranda and ranchu. I employed heavy feeding for them. But for fishes that does not need to grow headgrowth like tosakin or butterfly, I switch to wheatgerm-based pellets only and do not employ heavy feeding to induce the growth of their tail with less feeding. My young fishes eat this diets until the age of roughly four months, where they started to breed. It is too early to breed them at that age, but I do not want to damage their productivity, so I mixed their diets with mainly wheat-germ based pellets. When they are ready to breed, at the age of six months and above, their diets consist of wheatgerm-based pellets and frozen bloodworms. The growth pellets and daphnia are provided once in a while. Only for fishes that I want to grow into big sizes I pump them up with growth pellets and frozen bloodworm.

This is how I feed my foldfishes.

tricolor ranchu

Towards Tricolor Ranchu

After marveling and experimenting with the tricolor oranda for some times, I began to think about creating ranchu with such coloration. This specimen I am thinking of has been seen in Thailand, so it will not be a surprise that it will become available in the market in the next one or two years. It is still rare today, though. Instead of waiting them to be available in the market, I think it will be more satisfying for me to create one of my own. When I succeed, perhaps it will not be rare anymore. But it will still be a pride for me.

The first thing I did was to cross my tricolor Oranda with a ranchu. I did not think carefully about what ranchu would be best to use at that time. This might be my mistake. I did not remember it well, perhaps I used blue ranchu since they were abundant in my pond or grey ranchu which carries the recessive blue ranchu gene since I made many crossing using blue ranchu. The results were all grey fish (wild color) with predictable defects on the dorsal.

My plan was to do the F1 x F1. I was certain that I would get several tricolor fish with defect dorsal. I did not expect to get a smooth ranchu back curve at that stage, which was reasonable. What surprised me was that I got some blue offspring. It made the project complicated. I should use pure red or red-white color, instead. But it had happened. I sorted out all the blue. I kept only the grey color, in the hope that some of them will turn into tricolor. I purposely rejected the fish with full dorsal and kept only the ones with defected dorsal. Yet, I must admit, those fishes with perfect dorsal were cute. Some of them resemble Yuan Bao. I could not help to keep one of them alive. Here is the lucky guy:

The second surprise I got was that the expected tricolor never appeared. I waited for four or five months, and these F2 were still grey. I lost hope in them turning into tricolor or any other color. I realized that this was a failure.

But I did not give up. I started the project still using the same F1. But this time I did not do F1 x F1. I crossed the F1 back to the tricolor Oranda! I expected this move to produce a better chance of having tricolor fish. Yet, I worried about the shape turning back into fishes with full dorsal. So, I tried to keep all the offspring alive as many as possible till I could see the dorsal clearly. Thank God, I ended up with enough defect dorsal fishes. They look like this:

And yes, I faced the same problem again. I have kept them close to four months right now and the majority are still grey! I could not explain this. Yet, this time I am lucky to have two fishes mutated into tricolor! Some more mutated into red-white fish with no trace of melanin – I will wait for a little while for them since sometimes the melanin can appear again.

From the two tricolor I get, one has minimal black pigmen. She will be used as my plan B. She looks like this:

But the other one has a lot of black pigment and the color looks strong! I don’t mind about the lack of red color. Tricolor usually comes in either tricolor or panda color. No problem for me. This fish will be my main parent fish. This is the beauty:

My plan is to mate her with ranchu again. And the new F1 will be crossed back to its mother. The new F2 will be a tricolor fish that looks closer to ranchu, yet with imperfect back curve. I will need to repeat the whole two step process again to create a better quality of tricolor ranchu. So, the total time I need from now will be four generation, or approximately two years. Well, I think I will just enjoy the process.

Wish me the best 😊

hermantogoldfish

My projects on Goldfish

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