How to choose a Terengganu var baby fish.

These are my Terengganus update they are about 5 inches now. The flower formation is still strong and some flowers has started growing pass the gold line. There are a lot of terengganus out there and to choose a Terengganu it is most important that you take note of the entire batch of fish. If they are above 4" and you do not notice any flowers developing then they are probably open water fish.

Swamp Terengganus starts flowers formation at very young age, they begin as early as 3". Never fall into the band trap. Band does not dictate flowers, the connecting flowers or snakeskin form at the top part of the fish and not on the band below it.

This is a 5 band Terengganu, notice how the snakeskin is form, its on the top part!

Choose a fish that you can already spot flowers. Never choose a fish that has 9 or 10 bands but does not show any flowers. You will be disappointed in the future. Terengganus are famous for its excessive flowers, so choose flowers instead of bands.

This is a so called 9/10 band graded as Grade AAA which ended up most disappointing

Another Grade AAA 9 band that ended tragically

Flowers begins growing above the gold line at 4"

To choose a strong flower fish, the flowers should form to the last band counting from the tail up. And flowers should form as high as possible vertically and flowers should form on both sides of the band.

The last band counting from tail up should show some flowers

Take note of the flower formation at both sides of the band, if this can go till the last band counting from the tail up then this is a very strong flower fish

Now on the vertical side choose the highest possible formation, ideally should passed the lateral line and should cover the full band.

These are all fishes around 4.5" - 5" in sizes and they are already showing strong flower gene, never allow a seller to fool you into thinking flowers will come when they are adult. From my passed experienced a marulioides that passed 14" will hardly form anymore flowers.

Good luck in finding your perfect Terengganus and I hope to document a snakeskin Terengganu formation.

This pc is the so called snakeskin that I'm only guessing

could this be the early formation of the plum flower?

This pc is the 2nd batch that I tanned with actinic light

This pc is showing white flowers right up to the gill and I'm not sure if this flowers can hold as I've no experience with swamp fish.

Comments

The science behind Channa Marulioides colors and pattern

Channa Marulioides is the chameleon of the fish, they are the champion when comes to color changing abilities. In a split second they can change from greenish brown to yellow and to orange. They can change their eye color from black to bright red. Observe your Channa Marulioides and you can see they greet you with bright yellow colors doing the maru dance, they flashes their bands to the highest contrast. The body colors are intense and their eyes bright vampire red in colors. When they are tone down and just swim about their business you notice the color is dull when they are in mid water, and suddenly sinking to the bottom with bright orange (depending on the var and PH) they keep changing and flashing their bands and patterns. But the black and white flowers will remain so in whichever mood they display. Also take note that maru shows their best colors mostly at midnight. Each Channa Marulioides comes in its own unique pattern of bands and flowers, like a fingerprint, I beli

Tanning Marulioides

Another way you can bloom the flower of your marulioides is with the tanning technique. First lets understand a little bit about the flower. The flower is actually a dead pixel, marulioides are very unique fish, they possessed the ability to change color at will like a chameleon. But when the flower is formed that scale is spoiled and no longer changes color, it cannot get darker or lighter. As mentioned many times marulioides caught in river or big water always shows minimal flower, maru caught in dead water like peat swamp shows maximum flowers. Maru would need the color changing ability to survive, they can change color to hunt and to escape from predators. Meanwhile maru living in black dead water swamp do not need the color changing ability as much or maybe the low PH somehow destroy the color changing ability and the result will be plentiful of flowers or plenty of spoiled scale. I've done experiment on maru living in fast cycled tank and they lose the flowers or in ano

Marulioides Care Part 1 (Bunga)

I've been reluctant to write this but many had asked me to post how to take care of marulioides for maximum performance. The truth is you need to abused it, hence Marulioides care isn't exactly the correct terms to use. Channa Marulioides is found in most part of malaysia, lakes, pond, streams, rivers, but one thing most fisherman realized are those caught in swamp, I mean really dead stagnant peat swamp. Waters that are near black in color most time the fish had tremendous performance, beautiful colors and a lot of flowers. From this theory many tried replicating the conditions with low ph and so on. I've experiment many ways of keeping marulioides and I can concur to this, Low PH meaning Ph5 and below, I usually keeps mine ard PH4 or maybe lower, because my test kit can only measure till 4 and cant read anything lower. Low PH produce beautiful coloration. As for the bunga, yes everybody wants to know this, there is no tricks, just lots and lots of experiment. It i

FISHIOLOGY

Search This Blog