Early culling for calico fry

[Virginia ranchu]

Hello All,

One of the things I like about breeding ranchu is that it is relatively easy to cull the fry based on the tail shape or whether the have a smooth back, etc.

I now have a lot of calico oranda fry, and the only thing I can cull for at this stage is calico (or pinks) vs. metallic. However, I am not sure whether I can rely on my strategy. I am looking for metallic irises or shiny swim bladders as an indication of metallic fish (culls). My only concern is that I might be eliminating some calicos and selecting more pink mattes. I have some pictures of the fry. If you have raised calico fry before, please comment on how to distinguish between the types.

Thanks,
Rob

[ATTACH]101

[Sabine]

At the age of 3 to 4 weeks you can see the scales of the metallic fry clearly.

[Virginia ranchu]

These guys are probably only two weeks old. I guess I'll have to split the brood for safety's sake and wait a week or so before I make any final cuts.

thanks,

Rob

[Virginia ranchu]

Sabine,

Your calico ranchu fry pics are helpful. I notice that some of the calico fry have a thin silver rim around the iris, while the silver around the iris of the metallic fry is much wider.

thanks,

Rob

[mikroll]

hi V R , sabine is right you got to wait. they will fool you surely.
you can only get rid of the defectives soon, tails, back, mouth.
color can bea big suprise package I think. what color are you after?
I am trying to get the white/blue bodys and it is a pain too.

[Virginia ranchu]

Hi Michael,

Thanks for your reply. I prefer a light blue background with a red spot or two, and black/dark blue speckling over the body and through the fins.

I try to avoid a mostly red calico with black spots, or a white fish with black spots.

There is always a trade off between keeping enough fry to ensure a decent selection, and not overcrowding them early on and risk stunting the group. I think I will pick a dozen that look the most promising and give them their own tank. As the others develop, I can switch out fish to ensure the best get plenty of space.

cheers,

Rob

[Fishdork]

When I have way too many fry, I cull out metallics at 2 weeks based on their irises and metallic abdominal wall. At that age I do an 'English cull' and feed them to adults, so I don't know if I'm culling calicoes with metallic eyes (but don't really care). Culling based on developmental stage is always complicated when fry aren't growing at the same rate (again, free flukes for anyone upon request). An article by Takao Kajishima indicates matts start out gray like all the others and start losing pigment and guanine at 10 days, but may take 20 more days to lose it all. People feel strongly about every combination, but I'm currently leaning towards breeding pinky matts to nacreous again to see if the color is better, so save a few matts. Green water and sunshine make a huge difference in how fast (and obvious) they color up, but I'm fresh out of both. Blue is about the last to show. Strong light in a white container can show the ones that are too orange pretty early, but that's still a few weeks away.
Did you end up using a male ryukin? The oranda I bought in October seems to be another female. I bought another little one a few days ago with too much orange, but we'll see if it's a male.

Norm

[Cincy Ranchu]

These fish are too early for my eyes, Streamson sometimes culls under a disecting scope. I don't like culling the normal eyed fish this early, you could be destroying the best of the best and potentailly throwing away the blue metallics. I would wait another 2 weeks, but my eyes are old! Regardless I always keep a few metallics.

Can't wait to see them in September!

Yeah:exact::exact::exact:

[Virginia ranchu]

Norm and Gary,

Thanks for your input. Norm, yes I did end up using a Ryukin male. This male has a fairly smooth dorsal contour, instead of the Ryukin hump. I have some month old fry (only six) from the same pair, and some of the fry are short bodied and do have a hump, so I think I will select for the veil or oranda body type. I think orandas need a broader head and longer back to support decent head growth. I'll be sure to keep a few of each color type.

Cheers,

Rob

[bekko]

Gary, I use a jeweler's loupe and, for some varieties, start culling at two weeks. Optivisor is a pretty good value...
http://www.nationaljewelerssupplies.com/p/LS402.html

But, my dentist says that this type creates less eye strain and is more comfortable...
http://optivisionindustries.com

You can get magnifications from 1.5X to about 3.5X. But, the higher the magnification, the shorter the focal lenght.

-steve

[sc569]

Gary, I have never used a scope for culling. Just to look at egg development.

As for culling, I am really very lazy and wait for the fish to grow out. I don't cull anything until at least 4 weeks. And every fish gets a good look. By 4 weeks or later, if you have been staring at them for hours each day, you know which are the top 10 or top 50 already. You could save yourself a lot of time by just keeping those. Of course, this implies that you know what those selected fish will look like in two years. Experience really helps in culling. Inexperience should mean extreme caution and stepwise culling.

Really, you can keep thousands of fry in a 20 or 30 gallon tank for the first two weeks or so.

It is a trade off between the energy to raise all the brine shrimp vs energy to clean the tank/change the water. Since fewer fish means less food and less waste, you decide when you don't want to do a 75% water change every day anymore.

In one letter, Janet Purdum stated that she changes about 50% of the water in every tank every day!! Her fish grow really fast. Fish I sent her were double the size of the fish from the same spawn as the ones I kept.

[bigbettadan]

The only thing I cull for at that age is single tails and spines/defects. Don't you want to keep some blue metallics, like Gary said?

Dan

[sc569]

Well, I am breeding calico veiltails. So, most of the defects are spine and tail related. Anything else that passes the test could be kept but there is only so much energy that I can expend.

I have decided that i can only keep about a dozen by the end of the season. Everything else is culled.

[bekko]

It is difficult to be ruthless, but it really pays off in the end. It is very rare that a potentially great fish is culled by mistake. But, it is common (really the norm) for less-than-desirable fish to be kept due to paranoia. Later, the less-than-desirable fish will be stealing resources (food, water, space) from the good fish.

-steve