Just Bought A Ranchu, what u guys think? Options

[d_golem]

Firstly sorry about my lousy photo skills.

A grade Thai ranchu (according to the tank label).

I think this is also a TVR reject based on the wen shape.

3 inches (8 cm) long from nose to tip of tail.

First non-local (non Australian-bred) ranchu I bought. Price AU$30 (of course quite expensive but what can you do if u live in OZ).

What do you guys think? And what can I do to improve this ranchu to become a good mature SVR? (apart from fattening it up of course)

[bekko]

I'm not advocating anything - just making conversation. Mostly, I use live bloodworms because they are free, but keep some frozen on hand too. I give them to oya and the most promising tategoi.

To tell the truth, I feed bloodworms only because you guys tell me to and have never noticed that anything bad happens if I don't use bloodworms for a few weeks.

I was really pumping some juveniles about 2 cm one time and was giving them bloodworms exclusively about 5 times a day. After a week or so of this, some of the juveniles flipped over with SBD and died almost immediately. I opened up one of the juveniles just as it was dying and the body cavity was full of fat globules. I do not understand why/if the juveniles would develop so much fat on a bloodworm diet. Maybe the fat deposits developed prior to putting them on the bloodworm diet and something else killed them. I have never tried to repeat it so will have to consider it a coincidence for now.

However, I saw something similar happening after a few weeks of feeding juveniles nothing but 54% protein, 17% fat salmon starter feed. A few started dying, I could not find any parasites, and their body cavity was full of fat. When the diet was changed to flakes and rabbit food the fat disappeared and no more died. Again, it could have been a coincidence. A controlled experiment would be needed to confirm it.

-steve