A great bit of reference material here!
The Standard of Perfection of the Ranchu
~ Article originally written by Geert Coppens, Belgium ~
INTRODUCTION : Ranchu was developed and perfected in Japan. Ranchu
came into being at the beginning of the Meiji Period (1870-1885).
Even though there is no official Japanese Standard of Perfection for
Goldfish, this Standard of Perfection is made according to the
established Japanese norms. This Standard of Perfection is constantly
liable to adaptions if the norms change or evolve in the land of origin.
It will never be the aim to handle norms which are contradictory with
the norms in Japan. The Ranchu is a Japanese Goldfish and this has to
remain this way.
As the Ranchu is a pondfish and is most often seen from above, the appreciation and judgement happens from above.
On Japanese shows, the Ranchu is exhibited in white Enamel Basins.
APPEARANCE : The general appearance of the Ranchu is very important.
It is necessary that there is a good balance between the head, the
body and the tail. The Ranchu should be able to swim in a powerful and
elegant manner ; the movements should look easy and should be beautiful.
HEAD : The head should be long, broad and rectangular. The skull should be deep.
The distance between the eyes or mehaba should be as broad as
possible. The distance between the eyes and the mouth or mesaki should
be as long as possible. The eyes should be small and set in the right
position ; neither too high nor too much forward. The hood or wen is a
thickening of the skin on the head. Thanks to the hood the head gets a
nice rectangular shape. A good Ranchu has a hood that develops on the
entire head, on the gills and around the eyes.
BODY : Back
The back should be wide. The Ranchu has no dorsal fin. The scales on the back are small and well arranged.
When seen from the side, the line of the back should be perfectly
curved from the end of the hood or wen until the beginning of the tail.
The last part of the back that is strongly curved is called sesagali.
The sesagali is very important with Ranchu. Ranchu with a long back
have a slowly curved sesagali ; and Ranchu with a short back have a
sharply curved sesagali. The joint of the tail with the caudal peduncle
should have an angle of 45°.
Abdomen
The abdomen should be symmetrical at both sides.
Caudal Peduncle
The caudal peduncle joins the body with the tail. The caudal
peduncle should be as wide and as robust as possible. The caudal
peduncle must not be too long nor too short.
The caudal peduncle is very important when judging the Ranchu.
SCALES : The scales should be small and well arranged.
TAIL : The tail should be symmetrical and attached to the body in an
elegant manner. The tail should not be too wide. The tail should be
soft and elastic, not stiff. When the Ranchu moves, the tail should be
slightly shut inside ; when the fish stops, the tail should be open as
if a flower opened. This shut-in-and-open movement is one of the most
important points to evaluate the beauty of a Ranchu. The tail should be
small in size, but look big.
There are three types of tail with the Ranchu : four-tail, three-tail and cherry blossom-tail (see drawing).
The perfect tail is a four-tail. The slit in the centre of the tail
should be as narrow as possible so that the four-tail looks like a
three-tail. Thanks to this, the four-tail receives less pressure when
the fish swims.
The bracelet or oza are the small scales around the caudal peduncle
at the tail. When seen from above, these scales are set like the pearls
in a jewel necklace or bracelet. The larger the bracelet, the stronger
and the thicker the caudal peduncle. The small scales of the oza
should be well set like a bracelet or jewel.
The end of the caudal peduncle, where the tail is joined to the body
is called, ozuke or tail joint. The ozuke should be symmetrical and
should not slope down when seen from the side.
The tail has the tail-shoulders or oshia left and right ; this is
where the tail folds when the Ranchu swims. The tail-shoulders should
be symmetrical and should be straight until the end.
The tail-core or oshin is the line that divides the tail in two even
parts. The tail-core should run through the centre and should not come
in the bracelet or oza. When seen from the side, the tail-core should
not be too high nor too much down.
The tail-tips or osaki should be round and bisymmetrical. They should not be overlapping, curling or twisting.
The tail-dish or ozara is the underside of the tail with the small
scales. The scales are small and well-ordered. The wider and the
stronger the tail-dish, the more beautiful and the more powerful the
tail
FINS : The pectoral fins, the ventral fins and the anal fins are small.
The Ranchu can have one or two anal fins. The ideal is a Ranchu
with two anal fins, but a Ranchu with one anal fin is not a fault. The
anal fins should not be visible when seen from above.
COLOURS : The Ranchu can have the following colours :
- The whole body and tail is deep red.
- The whole body and tail is reddish yellow-orange.
- A combination of red and white.
- A combination of reddish yellow-orange and white.
- Red scales with a white edge.
- White.
SIZE : When judging a Ranchu, the size should never be taken into consideration.
CONCLUSION : The Ranchu should be a beautiful, well balanced fish
that can swim well. A deformed Ranchu will never be beautiful and will
swim fatiguing.
One will see immediately, if a Ranchu is a good Ranchu.
Geert Coppens own fish:
"I keep my best Nisai and Oya in ponds of 300 cm x 160 cm x 25 cm.
A tub of 100 cm x 100 cm is OK to keep a few Tosai Ranchu, but Nisai
and Oya should be kept in bigger ponds. Nisai and Oya should be able to
swim a lot to develop muscles and stronger but flexible tail bones.
Nisai and Oya become bigger when they are kept in large ponds.
Mr. Tashiro who has very big Ranchu (cfr. East Ozeki Oya 2003 AJRS)
also keeps his Oya in 3 m ponds. For Ranchu, the larger the pond the
better. A Ranchu needs space to develop muscles and strong tail bones."
