Aquarama 2015

快樂是： 想的、説的、做的形成一致。~ 甘地
Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.

~ Mahatma Gandhi

Herewith in this blog post are videos of some goldfish in the Aquarama 2015 goldfish competition. To view the pictures of all winning goldfish entries, please check out the Vermillion Goldfish Website featured article on Aquarama 2015.

Bountiful Harvest ~ 豐收年

A beautiful Lunar New Year
red packet with auspicious goldfish

給我6小時砍倒一棵樹，我將會花前四個小時磨斧頭。
~林肯

Give me 6 hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.
~ Abraham Lincoln

Star stud 2015

The first quarter of the year is usually my busiest due to the Ranchu breeding season. This year, the first Ranchu spawn happened on 10th of January. On one hand, I am happy that the spawn sizes are bigger than previous years, but on the other hand, I am worried about the time and effort required to raise these unprecedented size of Ranchu spawns. 



Though I had managed much larger spawn sizes with my Pearlscales, raising the Japanese Ranchu requires far more time and effort. So I stopped after collecting 8 spawns as I do not want to bite more than I can chew. The lack of space and food can easily stunt very young fries, rendering irreversible effects on their future development and all efforts will go down the drain. 

Another seed pair of my bloodline
red -male, red-white - female

Quick snap of a spawn A this morning

This is a very exciting Ranchu year for me not only for having the spawn sizes that I have always craved for, but also my most important seed male that sired a few spawns is one with big and strong frame, a feature not so common for male fishes (at least for my Ranchu bloodline). I had always thought that it was a female when it was younger due to its size and broader features. This fish had also done me proud by winning the East Torishimari (4th position) in the OARS Tosai class. With better seed parent fishes and more spawns, I hope to do better than last year.

Spawned: 24th Jan 2015
Video: 17 Feb 2015

Tomorrow (19th February) marks the beginning of the Lunar New Year of the Goat and an extra long weekend to enjoy the festive holidays. This also means that the daphnia supplier will be on holiday too. This is one of the most challenging and busy period for me to ensure that the fries have alternative food sources and continue to grow at a steady momentum. It is a strange dilemma every Lunar New Year that I always look forward to the family reunion and festive mood, and yet also hope that the holidays will be over soon so that my precious BBRs can once again feast on their favourite daphnia. 

I would like to wish all a very happy, healthy and prosperous Lunar New Year!

Tora Oranda (Tiger Oranda) ~ 虎紋獅

朋友影射自己。

Your friends are a reflection of yourself.
~ Elizabeth George


3.5 months old Tora Oranda

The calico goldfish (五花) was created by crossing a transparent scale (透明鱗) goldfish with a metallic scale (正常鱗) goldfish. As such, the calico goldfish spots some hard metallic scales over matte-transparent scales. In some cases, metallic scales congregated in clusters and create interesting reflective effects. Hence, the term reflective scales (反光鱗) are also used broadly nowadays. 

A pair from the same spawn having sky-blue patches and red head wen

Calico goldfish has very random and varied combinations of black, orange, yellow, brown, red, white and even sky-blue coloration, likened to a painting canvas decorated with impressionistic hues of intermingling colours. It is no doubt, my favorite colour pattern!

Another of same spawn with lesser black markings

My recent outcross of the Chinese calico oranda with the Thai black (nacreous scale) oranda yields various different and interesting colour patterns within the same spawn. Many of which spotted the tiger-liked decorations with orange base and black markings. I hope some can grow real big and majestic like a tiger ;-)

I am also selling some excess fishes in my sales blog.