Hidden Dragon Crouching Tiger ~ 藏龍伏虎

Challenge is a dragon with a gift in its mouth... Tame the dragon and the gift is yours.
~ Noela Evans

Some of the BBRs have started to change colour (虎剥げ disrobing the tiger). The foundation of the dragon head funtan (龍吻) is emerging, hopefully the head wen of this year's BBR will be better than those of last year's. I am quite happy to succeed in pushing most of the BBRs at least to 5cm before their colour started to change.

Colour changing - "tora hage" & dragon head funtan developing

39 days after hatching

Knowing One's Limits ~ 自知之明

貪多嚼不爛

Never Bite Off More Than You Can Chew.

~ An English Idiom

4 healthy batches of BBRs are probably what I can cope for now. The small spawns allows me to focus on fine tuning techniques and to study the mistakes I made over the previous years. Time and space permitted, I may spawn one or two more batches in March/April with the seed fishes given by my Hong Kong friend.

36 days after hatching

The weather is showing signs of cooling down with occasional showers. More rain is expected to kick-start the spawning season in the next few weeks and it should be about time to be a bit more aggressive in feeding the seed females. I would likely be focusing on stabilising  and enhancing the traits of my new creation - The Short Tail Dragon Eye Pompom Pearlscale ~ 短尾龍睛珍珠球!.

Short Tail Dragon Eyes Pompom Pearlscales

Five Fortunes at Your Door ~ 五福臨門

Prosperity Makes Friends; Adversity Tries Them.

~Publilius Syrus

The Chinese Lunar New Year coincides with Valentine's Day this year. Most Chinese all over the world will be celebrating the reunion dinner tonight. I had  mine too and my guests were awed with 5 big georgous Side View Ranchus that I imported recently.

Competition grade Side View Ranchus

"五福臨門" (5 Fortunes at your door steps) is one of the popular Chinese auspicious wishes for the Chinese Lunar New Year. These premier Ranchus are bred in the Chinese province of Fuzhou (福州), world famous for the Chinese Side View Ranchus. The Ranchus from Fuzhou are commonly referred as 福壽 (Fushou) which means Prosperity and Longevity.

Batch A at 31 days old after hatching

There wouldn't be any fresh supply of daphnia until the 4th day of the Chinese New Year. This allows me to taking a breather from my early morning chore of buying daphnia for the next few days. Though this year, I  am experimenting with controlled feeding and had fed relatively lesser than previous years, strangely the BBR seems to grow as fast. Maybe the Wolffia is doing wonders.

I would like to wish all my Chinese readers a very Happy and Prosperous Lunar New Year and everyone Happy Valentine's Day!