Nisai, Oya and Retired Breeders

Its the end of the summer and with the sun lower in the sky I find the angle of the light seems to just make the ranchu glow.  This is one of my 6x6 foot ponds .  If you want to keep Japanese ranchu please understand the best path to success is with the traditional method of 100% water changes.

Spawn 4 of 2013. Photos from October 2014

These ranchu represent the entire group I kept from Spawn #4 of 2013.  I'm documenting the whole group as a way to see how ranchu that are selected as "most perfect in the group" at a young age can evolve over the course of growing into adults.  As these ranchu have now become oya age many faults have become apparent.  Herein lies the challenge with ranchu: fish that exhibit exceptional qualities may still develop structural issues as time passes.  Although there are some high quality ranchu in this batch I also see many defects in others.  Some of the worst problems are twisted backbones near the tail region.  Sadly the fish with the worst twists also have the best headgrowth, or wen.  There are videos on my Youtube channel of each of these ranchu, designated with the number shown on these photos:http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL7ZyYavO96AUYCwwuCCjZvPLqtqu6hMxb

Best Oya Male