Glory ~ 榮耀

真正的榮耀將根深蒂固的散播，

虛假的幌子有如落花不會長久。

True glory takes root, and even spreads; all false pretences, like flowers, fall to the ground; nor can any counterfeit last long.
~ Marcus Tullius Cicero

Ready to charge... 

With the festive mood in the air this time of the year, travelling on most roads is a bliss with much fewer cars. Presumingly many Singaporeans are having holidays overseas or just staying at home recuperating their energies for the new year ahead. I had my holidays too - just back from the cold winter in Korea for my family vacation. It was cold, indeed very cold in Korea and how I had wished that my Ranchus are hibernating in that weather!

Some of my local bred that would be
competing in the Nisai class

This is also the time of the year I got very excited to experiment on new techniques to condition my breeder Ranchus to spawn. Once again, it's the déjà vu of grappling with producing good quality and sizeable spawns. Alternatively, I could have taken the easier route to import Ranchus that are ready to spawn, but this is a last resort as I may have problem in maintaining my very own Ranchu bloodline in the long run.

The weather in Singapore is now optimal for spawning with huge temperature swings and very heavy rains, bringing about cooler days than most time of the year. I hope this would be the prelude to cultivating good quality eggs for the female Ranchus.  

Do look out for the Oozeki Annual Ranchu Show (OARS) on 1st January 2013. Now in our 12th year, this show will again be depleted of Oya entries due to a crisis two years ago. However, we have learned much and made good progress with quite some decent Nisai fishes to showcase. Hopefully these Nisais will close the gap for the Oya class in the following year.

It is a tough path to adhere to the traditional Japanese's show standard of categorizing our fishes by age rather than by their sizes, but we have learned to enjoy this challenge. The Ranchu art lies not only in keeping nice Tosai fishes but also in maintaining matured fishes beautifully year on year. All the Ranchus in the OARS are groomed from young imported BBR/CBR or locally bred in Singapore by our members. 

The OARS is a truthful and honest showcase of the Oozeki Club members' successes and failures in the Ranchu art for the year. To me, all the fishes that made it to the OARS are winners and a true pride and glory for their rightful owners.

Though competition entries are only restricted to club members, the public are most welcome to view and share their Ranchu journey with us in the OARS.

The time and venue of the show are:

1st January
12:00pm ~ 3:00pm
Telok Ayer Hong Lim Green CC
Upper Pickering Street


May I wish my readers a Merry Christmas and a very Happy New Year! 

Preparation

Just Remember... if the world didn't suck, we'd all fall off.
~ Trevor Myers

Photo at 7 days old - the single tails
grew the fastest compared to the fancy tails

What's wrong with the world today? Everything from the economy to morale values sucks! The weather sucks too - wackier than ever before, switching between extreme warm and humid to torrential rain. Such drastic weather posed a great challenge for outdoor fish keeping - within moments, I can be as charred as a camp fire log and then became as wet as a fish. Nevertheless, there was some window of opportunity in between cooler days to spawn my Pearlscales just before the weather becomes too warm and humid again.

The main reason to breed my Pearlscales at least twice a year is to ensure that I have fishes from different parent combinations and maturing at different periods to backup the breeding plan. The other reason is to get done with Pearlscale breeding so that I can wholly focus on the TVR breeding in the beginning of the new year.

9 days old

I had collected about 15,000 Pearlscale fries from 2 spawns. There is an urgency to push them very aggressively to grow so that I can cull them fast. However, due to the sheer number of fries, their growth rate becomes uneven as the supply of daphnia is erratic due to the drastic weather conditions. The fries which are the fastest to grab the food are the bigger ones and they are usually the single tails. These are also the runts and bullies that would nib the tails or even devour their smaller, albeit more regal siblings if they are not culled away as soon as possible.

Now that they are 1 month old and their numbers reduced to about 300 odd, I can take a slight breather since they are big enough to eat small pellets and tubiflex worms. Nonetheless, I still need to cull them fast as the Pearlscale is one of the most greedy varieties that can literally eat till you broke.

Month-old blue-brown
Dragon Eyes Pearlscales
approx. 4 cm

Next year in May would be the much anticipated biennial Aquarama International Ornamental Fish Show. I would be even busier in the Aquarama year as besides grooming the BBRs, I would be preparing my other fishes for show too. Goldfish, Betta or Guppy, 6 months is a good time to start breeding them or sourcing for some young potential fishes to groom for competition. 

International Goldfish ~ 國際金魚

We all do better when we work together. Our differences do matter, but our common humanities matters more.
~ Bill Clinton

International Judges brainstorming
- note the number of white bowls with Goldfish
for the first round of judging

Ranchu Champion

I was back not too long ago from the Inaugural World Goldfish Show in China-Fuzhou (15th ~ 17th September). With Alvin honoured as one of the 12 International judges of the Goldfish Competition, I was looking forward as a member of the Vermillion Goldfish Club entourage to support the show with our club's exhibits, but instead, found myself fully engaged as a translator for some of the International judges during the 2 days of intensive judging.

It was a great honour working with various Goldfish dignitaries, but a task that I was not mentally prepared as I am not a professional translator. Fortunately, the International judges were very accommodating of my translation. It was a great experience to witness the judges persevere to complete the judging of more than 2000 fishes under fatigue and time pressure - Everyone put their heads together and work relentlessly to solve various unforeseen problems arising from the complexities and logistics of running such a big show. It was also heartening to see the sincere mutual respect amongst the International judges in understanding and accommodating each others' aesthetic standards and judging criteria in this International congregation. Isn't this emblematic of the spirit of friendship and harmony of the Goldfish hobby?

Grand Champion Ryukin

Though there were various "hiccups" as expected of a relatively inexperience organising committee running their first International Goldfish Show, the grandeur and scale with which the motherland of the Goldfish showcase their proud Goldfish heritage is awe inspiring - many rare and beautiful varieties of Goldfish from different provinces of China graced the show and we were also very fortunate to meet up with some very famous Chinese breeders, who shared in-depth knowledges about Goldfish grooming and breeding. 

Rare blue brown fantail Pompom

It was a fruitful trip meeting old friends and making new friends. Till now I am still picking up the aftermath of the show - catching up on the backlog of tasks while I was away :P

I have also updated the Vermillion Goldfish Club website with more photos of our trip. Enjoy :)) !!!