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Channa Marulioides Var Terengganu revisit

Most time when a hobbyist hears the name Terengganu toman bunga they glow with expectations, cant blame them seeing so many snakeskin and Sticking flower specimen posted online and fishing magazines. But will buying a baby Terengganu and raising them from young gives you the snakeskin dream fish? The answer usually is an unfortunate NO. So far I've yet to see a baby  Terengganu growing to a full snakeskin. I've only seen sub adult wild caught peat swap fish that grew to a snakeskin. For the true sticking flowers variant, I've yet seen one grew from tank.

Sub adult fish had a good start in the peat swamp that already open up most of its flowers and just waiting to blossom. Terengganu var caught in peat swamp usually has more flowers where else those caught in rivers and big lakes will be a disappointment in the flower department.

Do not put on high hopes that your baby Terengganu will grow up to be a champion. 99% of the time they grow up just the same as those RM10 commercial breed Toman Bunga bought from the lfs. Choosing a baby Terengganu is the same as choosing a cb Maru. Choose the piece that already shows hint of flowers. Do not be fooled into thinking that 10 bands Terengganu will give you higher chances of getting a snakeskin. You will be most disappointed if you think this is the case. Snakeskin fish has nothing to do with bands.

Terengganu maru comes from 2 sides (both look identical) 1 lives in open waters has less flowers and those from peat swamp is your treasure. Can you grow a top flower specimen from a big open water baby? I can't answer you this as I've yet tried one. But I've seen countless pictures of adult Terengganu Marulioides caught in open water that shows very little flowers and I think this is good enough to answer your curiosity.

How can you tell if my baby ganu maru is from peat swamp or open water? Unfortunately you cant.

Why is baby ganu so expensive? If they are from the swamp, then it is very difficult to access, takes almost half a day to reach them, you will need a 4x4, you will need a boat, and you will need some local aboriginal people to catch them at night. And yes you will need to be in the middle of the jungle. And then you must have the skill to transfer and convert the low PH fish back to tap water. They will most time incurred losses and add that into the cost of your fish.

Is buying AAA fish at 50 - 100x the cb maru price justifiable? Depends on by what means the seller grade his fish. If blindly grade by band then absolutely NO. If grade on flowers then you must at least see a straight row of flowers already started forming.

What is the standard of grading Terengganu Maru? Unfortunately there are no standard procedures to grade a Terengganu maru or any maru. You will need to pass this question to your seller and ask him to explained in details. IMHO it is impossible to grade a marulioides.

What is the hype about Terengannu var Marulioides? The Terengganu var if properly groom shows beautiful batik patterns on the last 3 finnage, the color of the ganu maru is yellow to orange and if you're damn lucky you may get a snakeskin or a real sticking flower maru.

Why are they so many discrepancies and arguments whenever it comes to baby ganu maru?
Because the seller over promised the buyer, maybe to justify the high price. As a buyer you are also responsible to understand what you're buying. Do some research and not just listening blindly to what the seller tells you.

99.9% of arguments is why my prized grown up ganu no flower? This is where the seller is caught red handed for over promising. Remember even if the parent fish shows full snakeskin but this doesnt mean the babies all will grow up to be snakeskin or plenty of flowers.

Channa Marulioides be it from Terengannu, Kahang, kalimantan or anywhere for that matter, is a fish that takes skill and luck to groom. Do it wrongly and you'll spoil the fish. Keeping them alive and keeping them to be a champ is a world apart.

Comments

  1. do you think digging a pond and creating a blackwater habitat would achieve the same picture perfect ganu maru?

    ReplyDelete

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