Aesthetics & Engineering ~ 美學與工程學

先了解其物，才知其可愛或可恨。
~ 達芬奇

Nothing can be loved or hated, unless it is first understood.
~ Leonardo da Vinci

If we try swimming the breast stroke underwater as leveled as possible nearer the surface of the water and then in the deeper parts of the water, we will feel much more resistance in the deeper water compared to nearer the water surface.

Reducing our aerodynamic profile by pointing our hands straight or keeping them very close to the body reduces these resistances and we glide forward easily. Now imagine that we are Ranchus trying to swim with our hands wide open to simulate the open tail fins. The stress and strained will be felt mostly on our shoulders and joints as we pushed forward (assuming if we managed to swim this way underwater).

The tail bones of the BBRs are very soft and delicate and prone to damage. We can reduce the resistance and strain on the tail fins by lowering the water level (10cm to 14cm). However, do take extra precaution on the water quality and provide good aeration because the water volume is decreased and the rate of oxygen exchange from the air stones is also reduced due to the lower water level.

Spawn A:
spawn date: 11 Jan 2014
video date: 24 Feb 2014

Next, imagine swimming with hands wide open and some weights tied to our abdomen to simulate a Ranchu with a full "stomach" and then, if we can, wag our hips like the peduncle of the Ranchu (just kidding). It is just common sense that we will struggle to keep our heads up against gravity and our hips may be injured due to the strains. For a Ranchu swimming with a heavy and full "stomach" and wide open tails, the strain on the back and tail core from the weight may alter their backbones, ruin their tail bones and tilt their tail dish (ozara).

A seed ranchu having damaged tail shoulder

BBRs, like human babies need more feedings to grow and path the foundation for a healthy adult. However, overfeeding them may do them more harm than good as exemplified by the above analogy. So spread out the feedings to more moderate feeds vs a few heavy feeds to reduce the weight of the BBR and encourage them to look for more food and exercise, which in turn aids digestion and growth. 

BBR with flip up tail tip on the right side
and a folded tail tip on the left

On the flip side (pun unintended), underfeeding the BBR will make its tail closer as it naturally evolved less widely-spread tail to swim faster and compete for food with its peers. In essence, the Ranchu keeper should exercise their own feel and judgment to groom their Ranchus. As each Ranchu is unique, some will turn out better than the others with specific grooming techniques. 

Even with these measures in place, we can only minimise but not eradicate the possibility of tail or structural damages in a BBR simply because Ranchu aesthetics defies nature: In the first place, why are we asking for a fish with beautifully spread out tail to swim and glide at ease and with good balance? Isn't the Ranchu art an amazing engineering feat? Which is precisely why the Japanese always refer to "making a Ranchu" literally. There is no perfect Ranchu and as we appreciate that it is not easy to be a Ranchu, we should try to see more of the beautiful aspect of every Ranchu and not only on its flaws :))

As I am now selling some excess BBRs in my Goldfish sales blog to most people who may be keeping the BBR for the first time, I reckoned that this blog post should come in handy in saving much repetition and making the concepts clearer ;-) 

Necessity Spurs for Change ~ 窮則思變

BBS production line

I'm a greater believer in luck, and I find the harder I work the more I have of it.
~ Thomas Jefferson

Yes! the Ranchu fries survived the Lunar New Year long weekend without any daphnia. Though I had started using Baby Brine Shrimp (BBS) last year, this is the first year that I attempted feeding BBS exclusively to my Ranchu fries. The truth is, I had no choice as there was no daphnia supply for a few days.  

The fries fed exclusively with BBS had grown significantly enough to complete their first few major cullings since the Lunar New Year. At this juncture, I am happy to have allayed the long term worry about not getting anymore supply of daphnia in future when farmlands in Malaysia give way to urbanization.

Spawn A
Spawn date: 11 Jan 2014
Video date: 13 Feb 2014

From now, I will continue to use the BBS to supplement the erratic supply of daphnia and fine tune on the BBS hatchery. Hopefully one day, I do not have to depend on the daphnia to feed goldfish fries anymore. 

BBS feasting for Spawn E

This is the first year that I managed to spawn all the female Ranchus that I planned to breed, which means that it will be a litmus test on my Ranchu bloodline that I have maintained for a decade. I am really excited to see the potential of the bloodline this year :))

Paradoxically, as I become more relaxed and least worried of whether my Ranchus will have a good spawn, I got these big healthy spawns that I never had before. Maybe it is the weather or maybe I am just lucky to have done something correctly that I did not even realised - and this is a cause for concern because if I do not know why I failed or succeed, I would never be able to deliver consistent results.