I have a particularly busy day scheduled... and this morning 5 (yup you read that correctly - FIVE!) tanks full of fish decided to drop eggs.

ACK.

What a mess to clean up.

I have all my boys and girls (mostly) segregated. I am not yet ready for fry. I do not want to miss the window of opportunity, though, so I am contemplating moving a few select fish and seeing what I can get fertilized tommorrow morning. Hmmmmmmmmm......

Always happens when you dont want it to. Mine bred like crazy last spring/summer, I bet when the time comes to me being able to raise fry they wont bother!! If you want them to do something, they just wont!
Thats a lot of tanks to clean up, your boys have been busy. Hope you can get things sorted.

Actually, it is the GIRLS who have been busy.....

The boys are swimming, ignorant of the action, in their own tanks.....

I have decided to dump everything - BUT.... my little blue Ryukin has spawned her first time and I am loathe to let it go. Her mama did not make it last year - and she is the last really nice blue Ryukin I have. So I am going to cross her out to her brother and see if I can pull some more blues. I dropped in the spawning mats and moved her to a spawning tank with the prettiest male from her spawning......... I hope I do not regret that..... I need more work like I need an extra hole in my head! Come- onnnnn BLUES!

(and I need more fish like............... )

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Lol thats men for you! (No offence to the guys on here!)
I love blues as well. Hopefully you will get some, and it doesnt get too crazy around there with all the little babies! I havent seen a Blue Ryukin around here, we got sorta blue orandas, like mine, but even they arent true ones.
If you get blues out of it, then all the hard work will have paid off.

Congratulations?

Well, since this is the SECOND time my "lsat year's fry" spawned, and the one doing the majority of the "egg dropping" is a very nice blue ryukin, I decided to keep the eggs - at least a few hundred of them or so.

Today, they have started hatching......

WHOOOPPPPP!!!

Now I gotta find a place for my brine shrimp hatcheries.......



I think I have to be totally CRAZY to do this in JANUARY. It will be -10F this Saturday...... I guess I will need to fire up the tank heaters, huh?

:rolleyes

For a couple of 100s of very nice blue ryukin, yes, Ma'am, you better fire up that heater. Is there even space left in your spare bedroom for yet another tank (or two)? So, it seems -10 degrees seems the perfect temperature for spawning, yes?

Well, I have been sitting and watching (it is cool to watch) - and it appears that I, once again, have FAR more eggs than I thought. I only pulled 3 mats of eggs out of that tank, but the sides of the hatching tank are now coated with tiny fry all hanging..... and the mats themselves are alive with little bodies.

I am going to need more than just the 2 twenty gallon tanks I have set up. Ugh. That means I am back to tanks on the floor and tanks in the bathroom and tanks.... EVERYWHERE.

yup..... -10F is, indeed, a PERFECT temp for spawning/hatching.

hooray! Klingons!! lots and lots of them!!!

You can always send eggs this way! LOL :-D I'll raise them!

Most should have hatched out last night - and the rest should hatch this morning. Since I have about 4 that are up and swimming already I will start the first 2 hatcheries of shrimp going today - a 1pm start will give me fresh shrimp for 7am feeding tomorrow.

I think I caught some eggs from the first release - which was a good 24-30 hours earlier than the last - so I have a great variation in hatching. That is too bad - now I will have an even wider spread on "hogs".

All I can do is feed.

Gotta love my little Klingon warrior empire. Guess I just have to cry havoc and let slip..... the baby brine shrimp???

daryl,

what are you going to do with those fries?


are you going to sale them?

Again, congrats on all the new babies. You have GOT to have your hands full now.

Don't you just love it though?

I will wait and see what I have. There are not that many - only about 100 or so I would guess. I do not know if that is because I did not decide to keep them soon enough - and they were "chilled" for 24+ hours, whether the 0.3% salt that was in the water (I had just finished a PRazi/salt round for flukes) or because the parents are VERY young and were not specifically prepped for breeding. I am hoping there are some nice ones in there. BUt there is no way of knowing for some time.



They ate their first brine shrimp meal today.

 If you get any nice ones, send them to me

*ahem*

I'm all for spawning. But nobody's dropping eggs.

Haha! Sorry - couldn't resist.

Daniel in action!! Somehow I knew you would get a kick out of that one.

Daryl, how are the little ones? Count and named them yet?

You have GOT to be kidding!!!!

Fish do not generally "earn" their names until they get bigger and/or do something that "makes themselves known".

It was a "small" spawning, but there are still over 100 in there. They are growing sooooo fast. They double in size every few days! I love the way that their tummies fill up all flourecent pink/orange with the baby brine shrimp they eat. Then, when only the line of pink/orange poop is visible - and the tummy is empty,I get to feed them again. They run around gulping shimp like there is no tommorrow! The tummies swell up and they are good to go for another 3-4 hours.

I hatch out two rounds of brine shrimp a day - 1 tsp full of eggs each hatching. They eat them ALL.

I can already see their double tails and their nice backs. There was only one with a bad back - and it did not make it past the first 2 days.....



They are CUTE.

Broadtail (I hope) Ryukin hatched on January 16th.

Just too funny!

Daryl, how many of the fry do you expect will survive? I don't know that much about fry, but have learned a lot about them on here.

Once again I want to tell you that you are a very accomplished breeder. Please accept this accolade Let us know when you have finished culling and want to part with some of them. Are these blues from dandy oranda stock. If so, then you have outstanding bloodlines going there. Great job

Yup - these are second generation from Dandy's..... the "grandparents" are "Sterling" - a large calico broadtail (Goldfish Connection - Tung Hoi)and "Clementine" - a red/white broadtail and "BlueMoon" - a blue standard tail. The parents are my "fry" from this breeding from last winter.

The parents are red/white broadtail crossed with blue broadtail.

It was not particularly a productive spawning - I had only about 100-125 when hatched. I expect that is because the parents are sooooo young - not quite a year old yet.

Yesterday I cleared out numerous belly-sliders. There have been a few deaths. There was one bent back. I would guess that there are about 90ish left. In the past, I did not get a great percentage of good fish. I hatched over 4000 fry last year - and only kept 4. I sold a hundred or so - but, other than great finage and some pretty colors, they were not show fish. The four I kept ARE. They still are not quite up to the standards of the imported fish - but I am getting closer.

I am hoping that, since all four are fairly good examples of Ryukin, and are closely related that I will get a greater percentage of good quality offspring. When I get to the point that I am ready to unload any I do not wish to keep for continuing the line, I will post up here - and we can perhaps distribute some.

That is a number of months yet. I learned not to send them off too soon - many did not survive last year - and some people were diappointed that the fry did not pan out to be the fish that they had hoped. I will hang on to them until I am more comfortable in being able to say that what I am giving is a "Ryukin" - not just a pretty, young goldfish.

:}

I am not on the right computer to get pictures, but here is a quickie shot of Sterling - the Greandfather - that I took a couple of days ago. He is a BIG boy.

Post #20

http://www.kokosgoldfish.invisionzone.com/...showtopic=66253

He IS a big boy, lol!
Keep us posted on the fry Daryl, and congrats on your "surprises", even though they were unplanned.

If and when you ever decide to unload any of them, I really wouldn't be concerned for myself if its a "show" quality fish or not since I am just an amateur. A pretty young goldfish would be fine for me. I'd really be interested when the time comes. I'm just not comfortable buying from the lfs anymore unless I have to.

These are the "Grandmas".... Blue Moon and Clementine.....

This is the breeding I am looking towards this spring (I hope).... Dominick and Vincent and Clementine and the newer red and red/black broadtail youngsters from DO.

They are shorttails - or longer shorttails. Both male. I love the finnage and the color - but the body type and hump is really what I am looking to get. If I could get Sterling's and Clementine's size and finnage on the body of Vincent or Dominick, I would be AMAZED and thrilled!!!!

Two weeks old. 3/8 to 1/2 inch long. There are a lot of what look to be broadtail Ryukins in there. A few standard tails, I think. And one single tail that I have not been able to round up - it moves too fast!

They are getting deep bellies and nice dorsals coming up.

I am pleased.

Perhaps you should keep the single tail, for the sake of curiosity

Well, actually, I have a fairly well known breeder who is interested in putting a broadtail on a single tailed fish - like a single lobe of a broadtailed fish on a Shubie. So, any single tails I get with good "broadtail" looks are going to him.

Keep any "sports" from the batch, daryl, e.g. telescope-eyed, dorsal-less, single-tailed, etc etc.

Why - are you interested in them?

I seriously doubt that I will see any telescope eyes or dorsalless fish - for those require some duplicate genetics that should not be in this line. This is the second generation of my broadtails, crossed back to themselves, so it should tighten the line...... I hope.

I am seeing the one single tail, though. I went and looked again - and it does seem to be one that may be a broadtail - just with a single wide flat-edged tail piece. I hope there is more than one - so my breeder friend can have a pair to build from...... They are showing the deep bodies of the Ryukin - so that may be a problem for crossing into a Shubie line, but that is his problem.

There even appears to be one that may not have a tail. Or maybe it will be an extremely shorttailed version. The tails do grow - so maybe it will be a "shorttail" and I just have never seen one at this age before......

Any "weird" ones u can raise & show it in the Open category of a show

That could be fun - except that I usually pretty much "pin" the "other" category at shows with the Phoenix. They do not fit into any other category. I really hate competing against myself. It is no fun.

Judges usually look at fish "mixes" and then walk right by.

So sad.

Oh I just drool anytime I look at Sterling. He's just so gorgeous.

Although I got to see a few more of your fish that I haven't seen before and they are great too!!

How many "batches" of fry do you have now?

Hey Daryl, like Vickie, I would be interested in a pretty gf, too! I am going to get one of Liv's babes from K&K and would love one of your culls!!!

Because I am extraordinarily busy with family this spring (my daughter's husband may end up overseas just as the baby is born - so I would need to go to Louisiana for a number of weeks), I decided I was not going to get into a great number of fry.

I could not pass up the second generation of Ryukin broadtails - so I have them. There are about 120 of them - not a huge number. I am seeing a fair number of single tailed fish - with the broadtail configuration. So there may not be too many that are true Ryukin representatives. We will see. They are only 2 weeks old. What is double tailed appears to have a large percentage that are broadtails. We will see how they progress.

I also have 4 crystal Ranchu - the Japanese body configuration - the two moms are red and red/black, the dad appears to be blue. The red/black male did not seem to participate - but I know from experience that that does not always mean much. Since each female spawned overlapping each other by one day, I have 3 days worth of eggs. The first day's are hatching today - it looks like at least 100 or so from today.

I do not plan on saving any other fry this year - unless the blue Phoenix go. I am pretty much obligated to take what I can from them. Last year's fry from them are still too small to cross back into the line - so anything I do this year will be a simple repeat of last year. I do not know how valuable that would be.

Those are the only tiny fry. I still have 2 nice standard Ranchu fry from last fall - a red and a white. (about 1.5 inches total length), I have 2 Lionhead fry from last fall - a blue and a blue/white (About 2 inches total length), and 3 Blue Phoenix fry from last year (A little over 2 inches total length). Those, as well as 4 Bristol Shubunkin fry I got from a different breeder are the only fry I have in the house.

Can I get a cull too? Youre fish are really pretty.

Here is an updated photo of my Ryukin fry..... today they had fresh Daphnia in addition to their usual baby brine shrimp meals. They eat a LOT!

I wanted to post this picture because it shows fairly clearly the type of fish I am refering to as a "Pinkie" - a matt fish with black button eyes. There are multiple ones in the photo. These fish will be white - or VERY little color and have black button eyes. They are typically rejected by most breeders. I have found that one store I frequent seems to have a lot of this type of fish in other breeds - so I will ask them if they wish them. If they do, I will raise them to size and sell them.

Compare them to the "standard" green color with "standard" eyes.

Why are they rejected? Theyre cute!

They do not generally have any color - they are not white - just kind of transparent whitish pink. They are not considered very pretty. People want color on their fish.

Really? I never knew that! I saw a fairly young Ryukin a few weeks ago with that coloration, and I thought it was quite beautiful, like a goldie ghost. I knew I should have scooped him up when I had the chance!

Add me to the list of people interested in your fry.

Well, the Ryukin fry are starting to develop dropped big bellies just like I want!!!!

yay... congratulations..