Medaka Talk

[Ty Crosby]

Hello Everyone! 

I wanted to start a conversation about ricefish so we could learn a bit more about them. If you keep ricefish maybe share a few details you find interesting about the experience. What variations do you like or really want to find for your own collection?    

[Patrick_G]

Good topic, I haven’t keep them but all the buzz makes me intrigued.  

[Tedrock]

Well there is a lot of buzz all of a sudden about them.  I like them because they are a cool water fish and I can breed them in my fishroom without heaters.  Currently I have

Orange

 Platinum 

and a new line of Koi rice fish.  
 

We will see if they really are Koi or Aqua huna will be getting a strongly worded email.

I really do hope they become more popular.

[Patrick_G]

Do the Orange var and the koi var have noticeably different looks? 

[Tedrock]

 

On 9/11/2021 at 9:06 PM, Patrick_G said:

Do the Orange var and the koi var have noticeably different looks? 

The Orange medaka are light orange solid translucent throughout the body.  The Koi currently have milky white core with orange blending into their spine and into the head. I have attached Aqua huna’s pic mine aren’t that orange yet so I hope the color returns.

[Hobbit]

I have some white medaka with blue eyes that I got from a lab who was trying to order zebra fish and was shipped medaka by mistake. According to my google image searches the color is called “pearl galaxy” but I would love a more knowledgeable person to weigh in on what they actually are! Their fins get slightly orange, I assume when they’re breeding.

I would also love to know more about what body shape is considered ideal. I have some with sort of a lump on their head, and in most pictures I see online, their heads are very flat on top.

At the moment, I’m trying to select for blue eyes and very white bodies with no dark spots.

My experience so far:

They’re doing great in an unheated planted tank. I see females carrying eggs all the time. No fry have survived with adults in the tank, unsurprisingly. I have caught some fish with an egg stuck to their nose—I assume they were trying to eat the egg and missed!

They don’t seem to be picky eaters and they always look hungry. They are also very forgiving (or desperate)—seconds after running from me and my fish net in terror, they’ll come to the glass to beg for food.

I also wonder if they’re colorblind. I feed them extreme krill flakes, and while they’ll gobble them from the top of the water, as soon as one sinks onto a plant or the bottom of the tank, they won’t touch it. I assume they find it later once all the surface food is gone because they’re always picking at everything, but it’s interesting to me that they’ll swim right by a huge flake just an inch from the surface of the water if it’s attached to a plant. Krill flakes are bright pink so the contrast against the plant is immense to my eye. It seems they find their food mostly by location—and by tasting everything constantly. 😄 

[CalmedByFish]

@Hobbit Google "Daisy's blue rice fish," just to see if that's what you've got.

[Hobbit]

Actually, because I got them from a lab I know their species: Oryzias latipes.

I believe Daisy’s ricefish are a different species.

[Tedrock]

On 9/11/2021 at 10:41 PM, Hobbit said:

I have some white medaka with blue eyes that I got from a lab who was trying to order zebra fish and was shipped medaka by mistake. According to my google image searches the color is called “pearl galaxy” but I would love a more knowledgeable person to weigh in on what they actually are! Their fins get slightly orange, I assume when they’re breeding.

I would also love to know more about what body shape is considered ideal. I have some with sort of a lump on their head, and in most pictures I see online, their heads are very flat on top.

At the moment, I’m trying to select for blue eyes and very white bodies with no dark spots.

My experience so far:

They’re doing great in an unheated planted tank. I see females carrying eggs all the time. No fry have survived with adults in the tank, unsurprisingly. I have caught some fish with an egg stuck to their nose—I assume they were trying to eat the egg and missed!

They don’t seem to be picky eaters and they always look hungry. They are also very forgiving (or desperate)—seconds after running from me and my fish net in terror, they’ll come to the glass to beg for food.

I also wonder if they’re colorblind. I feed them extreme krill flakes, and while they’ll gobble them from the top of the water, as soon as one sinks onto a plant or the bottom of the tank, they won’t touch it. I assume they find it later once all the surface food is gone because they’re always picking at everything, but it’s interesting to me that they’ll swim right by a huge flake just an inch from the surface of the water if it’s attached to a plant. Krill flakes are bright pink so the contrast against the plant is immense to my eye. It seems they find their food mostly by location—and by tasting everything constantly. 😄 

I find the smaller the food the better.  I used extreme krill too and they would struggle with even crushed sizes. I found coop fry food the go to food.

As for eggs I would pull the moss I kept in their tank and place it in a ziss breeder box.      Fry would soon be born.

[Okesa]

Japanese elementary school kids raise medaka in around 5th grade for science class. They seem to do well in what are essentially buckets with some gravel and waterweed. The kids usually pull the eggs out of the buckets in order to ensure they survive and to be able to watch their development. 

Edited September 12, 2021 by Okesa

[Okesa]

Just got to work and took a picture of one of the medaka buckets. Everyone was enjoying their breakfast. 

 

 

[Ty Crosby]

Today I found an interesting blue medaka juvenile in my 250gal indoor pond build. I tried to find a scientific term that describes this fish but the best I could come up with was Chimera. The coloration on this fish is split right down the middle. I think this fish has both gene sequences of the darker and lighter blue medaka I keep in this tank. You can see one of the darker blue juveniles in the second picture to show the differences. If anyone knows anything about this mutation I'd love to learn a bit more. I'll add more picture of this fish in the future when it grows up a bit. 

[Okesa]

Your medaka are much more colorful than ours! We do have this guy, who got pulled out of a pond along with the medaka the 5th graders used in science class. The teacher saw his interesting coloring and pulled him out of the science class fish in order to keep him in one of the school tanks.

[Jimmy]

I saw some daisy blue rice fish leftover in a local LFS. They didn’t look that great but I’m interested in seeing some good stock or developed adults

[Tedrock]

On 9/12/2021 at 9:28 PM, Ty Crosby said:

Today I found an interesting blue medaka juvenile in my 250gal indoor pond build. I tried to find a scientific term that describes this fish but the best I could come up with was Chimera. The coloration on this fish is split right down the middle. I think this fish has both gene sequences of the darker and lighter blue medaka I keep in this tank. You can see one of the darker blue juveniles in the second picture to show the differences. If anyone knows anything about this mutation I'd love to learn a bit more. I'll add more picture of this fish in the future when it grows up a bit. 

I would love to find those in the U.S.  I have never heard of them.

[Mr10]

Hi, I just got into Medaka about 1.5 years ago and I have fallen in love with these fishes.

I have Platinums, Red Caps, Orange, and Tri colors.

It has been very fun collecting these different strains.

 

[Tedrock]

I currently have a thing for rice fish.  Some people like Discus, others Plecos, with me currently it is Rice fish.  I have a problem, access to different strains.  Here in the US i have searched the internet - Aquabid, Ebay, and a few major commercial websites.  I have found the basics like Daisy, Platinum, Red Cap, Orange.  Now on the thread I see there are others like Blue.  Does anyone know where more unique ones can be found?  I understand that in Japan and parts of Asia this is common place but here it is super niche area in the hobby.  Can you point me in a direction.  Is there a facebook group or club?  Can you message me a vendor's name?  Your help would be appreciated.

Tedrock