Backup Plan - 未雨稠缪 [wei yu chou mou]

It seems to me that everything that happens to us is a disconcerting mix of choice and contingency.
~Penelope Lively

As I relish the joy of creating my own bloodline of TVR and the new variety Pearlscale, I was soon living in constant fear that something untoward may happen to my seed fishes. A bad epidemic breakout or catastrophe could wipe out all the years of hard work. Soon, I was brainstorming about all wild ideas of incorporating contingency into my breeding plan.

In the game of serious livestock breeding, it is very important to have backups of the pure lineage every time we move on to the next iteration. A wrong track can be abandoned and a new track restarted only if the original bloodline is kept pure. Moreover, not all the fishes will spawn successfully. To make things more complicated, luck is a crucial element where different breeding pairs may result in very different results. As such, it is essential to keep many seed fishes to increase the odds of good breeding matches. All these just mean more time and space needed to prepare for contingency.

The best way to avoid the single point of failure is to spread them out into multiple locations. It would even be better if someone can help to breed them. In this way, the bloodline can be recalled if my own collections are wiped out without having to restart from square one again. I documented the bloodline of important spawns and distributed some fishes locally and abroad to my avid goldfish hobbyist friends for keeping.

Besides exchanging TVR seed fishes with my Hong Kong friend every year, I also help to backup and breed his Calico TVR while he backed me up on my new variety of Pearlscale. Though I have been prepared for the tedious journey of goldfish breeding, I had under-estimated the scale of the backup plans. It is very difficult to believe the extent with which we went through just to provide contingency plans. Even both of us agreed that we have gone bonkers.

Pictures:
1) New Pearlscale variety project: pure bloodline of the Calico Short Tail Dragon Eyes to backup the original line.

2) Breeding my Hong Kong friend's Calico TVR bloodline: 25 day-old F7 Calico TVR bred this year.

Disrobing the Tiger - 虎剥げ [tora hage]

Colour is my day-long obsession, my joy and my torment.
~ Claude Monet

In the tropical weather, most of the BBR (Black Baby Ranchu) starts to change colour from 45 days old onwards. One by one, the BBR changes from dark green to dark stripes and pumpkin colour like the patterns of a tiger's stripes and finally to their adult color of red, white or red white. At this stage, the fries are known as 虎禿 or 虎剥げ [tora hage] - "disrobing of the tiger'" was coined to describe this transitional stage.

The Japanese masters believe that colour change is a very important milestone and vulnerable stage of a baby ranchu's life. Very much like the metamorphosis of a caterpiller, it takes a lot of its energy to tranverse this stage as many BBR will see stagnant growth, prone to constipation and gill diseases. Besides extra care on managing water quality, feeding should go slower as fishes generally do not have very good appetite. The black baby stage is also very important to build the foundation of future head growth. It is desirable that the 目先 [me saki] or front cheeks be developed before they change to adult colour.

Picture:
1) 48 day old 虎禿, some already almost orange in colour. This is still not the stable adult colour.

2) BBR showing development of the front cheek.

The Drizzle of Qing Ming? 清明時節雨紛紛?

Thatch your roof before rainy weather;

dig your well before you become parched with thirst.
~Chinese proverb

The Qing Ming Festival or "Tomb Sweeping Day" falls on the 4th of April this year. It is a traditional festival observed by the Chinese race in many parts of the world to honour their ancestors at grave sites. In Singapore, where Qing Ming is not a national holiday, most Chinese would visit their ancestor's grave sites within a period of about 2 weeks before and after Qing Ming.

Miraculously, the solemn mood of Qing Ming is also marked by a period of intermittent rain and groomy weather. This phenonmenon has persisted for centuries as depicted in the ancient poem by the poet Du Mu (803 ~ 852)

The erratic weather means that the Qing Ming period is also the goldfish breeding season. However, the intermittent humid weather and rain also pose a huge challenge to outdoor goldfish keeping with common outbreaks of diseases. The biggest batch of fries are now more than 40 days old. Though they are bigger and much more resilent to diseases, the technique of using shallower water to groom these fishes makes it even more challenging to keep them outdoors in this haywire weather.

The torrential rain yesterday had disrupted the Malaysian Grand Prix and caused many floods in Singapore. I recorded more than 6 cm of rain in less than 2 hours.

Videos:
1) The rain of yesterday that causes many fresh floods in Singapore.

2) 41 day old BBR hunting for daphnia.

Pictures:
fries at 41 days old