Group Learning ~ 三人行，必有我师焉。

我未曾從與我完全認同的人身上學到任何的東西。

I Have Never in My Life Learned Anything from
Any Man Who Agreed with Me.  

~Dudley Field Malone

Spawn A - photo taken this morning

My wish for this year's TVR breeding to achieve bigger spawn sizes came true.  The challenge now is about grooming so many TVR fries, which are much more time and space consuming to raise than Pearlscales.

Spawn D hatched today!

Like the previous years, I will be passing some newly hatched fries to my fellow club members to groom. Healthy group learning like this speeds up the pace of progress because no one could possibly experiment everything and make all the mistakes. Moreover, variations in techniques provide a wider perspective when comparing notes.

Today, I took a day's leave from work just to do the culling for 2 batches of TVR spawns. After the second culling for spawn A and the first culling for spawn B, there are more than 900 fries altogether. Spawn C is too small to cull now while spawn D, the biggest so far, hatched today...

For quick updating of the growth of my BBRs, I have created a spawn log link on the top right hand corner of this blog. I will try to update this link as frequent as possible...

Same But Different ~ 相同即不相似

我們人類最大的優勢是能夠包容彼此之間的分歧﹐

而最大的弱點是不能容忍彼此之間的分歧。

Our Greatest Strength As a Human Race is
Our Ability to Acknowledge Our Differences,
Our Greatest Weakness is
Our Failure to Embrace them.

~ Judith Henderson

Differences are part and parcel of life. In fact, looking at it in a positive light, differences create diversities and add colours to this world. Immoderate approaches to ironing out differences usually backfire as Mr Mikhail Gorbachev quipped: "Peace is not unity in similarity but unity in diversity, in the comparison and conciliation of differences".

Candid shot of programme screening photographed by Alvin Lim

The calico varieties offer the most diverse
colour combination one can ever imagine
- very high grade Calico Bubble Eyes
collection of the Nanjing
Goldfish Club (China)

Lest this post became off-topic, it is inspired by a small announcement that I wish to make - the Vermillion Goldfish Club will be appearing in our local TV programme : "Same but Different" on next Wednesday (February 23rd). There is a change in the timing from to 9.00PM local time (GMT + 8). I will also be checking if there will be podcast or uploads to the YouTube for our  International Goldfish friends. If any, I will let known in my blog.

Come to think about it - the diversity of Goldfish varieties has enchanted mankind for centuries. There are diversities in conformation even within the same varieties and those groomed in different geographical regions; aren't they all marvelously same but yet different? :)

Batch 1 spawned 6 February
- photo taken on 15 February

Thanks for the many emails inquiring about my TVR fries. As usual, I will be looking at the outcome of the fries from different parent pairings and decide on how many more spawns to collect. The peak of the TVR season means lesser time to write. Nevertheless, a picture is worth a thousand words - I will try to post videos or picture updates as and when time permits.

Paradigm Shift ~ 範式轉移

If You Think You Can, You Can.
If You Think You Can't, You're Right.

~ Mary Kay Ash

New breed developed in Singapore
~ Top View Short Tail Dragon Eyes Pearlscale

Day-old fries hatched today

Embarking on the serious game of ornamental fish breeding is no child's play no matter if we are breeding Guppies, Bettas, Discus or Goldfish. As such, to breed quality ornamental fishes earnestly would require both very strong passion and focused goal.

Being cold water fishes, inevitably, it is much more difficult to condition and time the spawning of Goldfish in our warm waters; it is also an all-new paradigm shift for the breeder -  because the natural spawning behaviours are altered and traditional spawning methods used in the four-seasonal countries have little or no relevance in our tropical context. The local breeders here have to adapt and develop techniques to spawn and groom their fishes, think out-of-the-box and possess the courage to try out new things. 

If Guppies are bred so successfully by hobbyists in the US, Taiwan, Germany and Japan, why can't we do likewise for the TVR? IMHO it is just the question of our determination to make it happen. I hope the day would come that our local breeders could produce the TVR comparable to the quality of the best specimens from Japan.

When I became very devoted to breeding Goldfish nearly 10 years ago, everybody doubted that my fantasy will last long and thought I was mad. Today, most people have no doubt that I am serious about breeding the Goldfish and they still think I am mad... all fanatics need the madness to drive us to the limits don't we? ;)

BTW, my TVR breeding season for 2011 has begun today with the healthy hatching of the first spawn of about 3000 fries. Its time to get busy and my hands dirty again...