Okayestaquarist

My ranchu love it. I have used a tiny bit of unmixed powder as a fry food successfully.

My ranchu has a handlebar mustache!

I think you will be fine too. If they are young when you buy them, the whole tank's bacteria surface will grow with them, including the sponge filters. Also, whether or not you are power feeding for size, you can use test strips to make sure the cycle is okay and watch how nitrates build up.

Thanks that helps! There are so many things that could cause balance problems. I think I will at least acclimate them to depth slowly as they grow and not be afraid of putting them in a 75 when they are bit bigger. There are two older slower mellow fancies in it already. There is a big mix of internet hearsay, traditions that work for the most expensive show fish, and other factors to juggle for fancies in general. I do find it hard to believe that the depth of a 75 would be too terrible considering how many people have successfully raised nice ranchus in them.

Has anyone moved ranchu babies into a 75 gallon as small as 2.5 or 3 inches long? Any experience you can share? I am mostly worried about preventing balance issues and not so much about tail angle or less than square wens. @Cory Did the depth of the 800 effect the development of your goldfish? I always like an extreme comparison. I have some East Coast Ranchu. I am mostly following her great instructions. But they will outgrow the tub they are quarantined in soon. I test the water frequently and do a 75% change twice a week, in case the growth hormone stuff is true. I can maintain water quality more easily in the 75 gallon that will be their home but I am worried about whether the extra depth will cause balance issues. I am slowly raising the depth about 2 inches or so per week up to a foot and monitoring them. In the tub they will get up to 12 inches in depth in about a month and a half so. They are at eight inches now, only about 10-12 gallons of water. They are growing quickly and seem quite happy. The cycle in the grow out tub is good and they are eating well. They are now conditioned to expect food when they hear someone coming or see the shadow of someone walking by.

Thanks, washing them off in my baby brine net would be super easy. I bet I would also smell if there was something wrong before I put it in the tank if I did that.

I fed some cubes of frozen brine shrimp from a frozen freshwater multipack to my baby ranchus yesterday. They ate it all up pretty quickly like usual, but the water smelled off. I tested it and it had what looked like barely .5 ppm ammonia using a Coop test strip. Has anyone else had this happen before? I guess I am just going to avoid that brand from now on. I have a good sense of smell and it was like the smell of rotten food, nit sharp but like a compost with the balance off a bit. I did a big water change with Fritx Complete and threw in some more duckweed. All the fish are fine and behaving normally. I have not had this happen with any other food this week. After the water change I added some live brine shrimp from my outside tub and they had an enthusiastic hunt. The tub has 10 baby ranchus growing out in about six inches of water. I test and change it pretty frequently to encourage growth. I am growing them out and then acclimating them to deeper water to go in a 75. I will have to share a few of them when they are bigger. So far they are eating well, not showing balance issues, and their color is spectacular. They came in great condition from East Coast Ranchu. I am also following all of her directions for growing them out except for 100% daily water changes with aged water. I used a cycled sponge filter to start the tank, added some stability in with the first water changes, and also have cuttings of hygrophila and duckweed for them to munch on.

I keep duckweed in a livebearer tank. Once or twice a week I feed it to my goldfish. I give them an amount that covers about half of the surface of a 40 breeder and it is gone in a few days. A feeding ring like that would be good if you regularly looked at your tanks top down. If you get dumbo eared guppies it would almost be like top view fancy goldfish.

I have used it for live food projects too. I have been keeping a good tub of brine shrimp going with it. I just feed some crushed up flakes once a week. I have used powered spirulina from my grocery store too. But, it was too easy to foul the water with the straight powder.

I had some Anubias with lots of algae that went away when I moved it to the substrate rather than close to the light. It is tall tank.

I would also not be worried about this happening again. I had a similar thing happen with goldfish trying to eat a big snail. It never happened again.

@lefty o I agree, it's getting old. We might get water restrictions if it does not rain.

My outside brine shrimp is actually working. I am using a twenty gallon barely structurally sound tote with no air. I mixed salt water using the instructions for an aquarium on a box of marine salt. I threw some spirulina flakes in and waited a bit for green water. It got super nasty smelling but I started putting eggs on top like you see in the photo anyway. I did this during a heat wave. The super nasty water took about a week and half to turn into green water. I am topping it off with rain water but am running out because we are in a bit of a drought. I harvest just enough for snacks everyday and because I want the shrimp to grow and maybe start live bearing. Our heat wave may abate soon, it will be interesting to see if hatching and growth slow down. It gets direct sun and is out of the wind. I can now see when the shrimp start to consume the algae and will have to balance fouling the water and feeding the colony. So far it is a super cheap low maintenance way to get some live food. I am even using eggs that might be two years old. Thanks @Cory for the inspiration on this project.

Based on my own recent experiences, I would say that you test your water and check for changes, vacuum out mulm, ensure good water flow, and then do a bog water change. if you need to address any livebearer water issues such as low gh, kh, or ph do that and watch to see if anything changes with all your fish. All this can be done with no meds or knowledge of what it is. It may not go away magically but it will make treatment more effective.

I think you can actually buy eggs on Aquabid sometimes. They are listed by species under Killifish Eggs. I have always wanted to try that. I have Daisy's Rice Fish but would love some of the bright orange Medaka.