Thanks for the feedback about medaka surviving in a goldfish pond. It's good to get confirmation that it works OK. As for food, I know people who travel to Japan and they've brought back supposedly special food for medaka ..... personally I doubt it's very much different from most tropical fish food you can get worldwide. Also medaka outdoors get a varied diet with various insects etc falling in outdoor tubs. So I just feed my medaka with any reasonable quality tropical fish flake food that I can find that has a protein content over 40%. I think medaka are mainly carnivores and need high protein food when they are active and in breeding condition. Medaka are surface feeders and flake food floats better than granules. For fry I use any reasonable quality powdered fry food I can find. If I can find it, It seems that Hikari First Bites is popular with medaka enthusiasts. I don't have the patience to mess about with live food such as brine shrimp etc etc.

@km-qh3rs thank you very much for your kind response and advice. Good to know that tropical fish flakes will be sufficient.

Maybe cools down more slowly but also heats up more slowly.

Thanks

From what I've heard it appears that, for many of the newer, very fancy strains to thrive, they need to be provided with water quality and temperature conditions similar to tropical fish. Presumably one factor is that these strains have become less robust because they have been intensively, selectively bred to produce the mutations resulting in the pretty sparkles, lame, long fins etc. Also, to produce a new strain, the selective breeding process may need to go through many generations of medaka. To speed up this process, commercial breeders probably raise and grow the medaka in water temperatures of 26 to 28 degrees celcius so that they can get maybe 6 generations a year. Probably this results in the resultant new strains losing some of their ability to survive OK in the low temperatures of a UK winter.

hi, but at least you don't have any problems with cold weather.

Thanks. I think I've now managed to improve the video and audio quality ..... but still long-winded, though.

@ it’s OK. I care about the fish lol you have good information in your videos.

Thanks. Keeps me out of trouble.

Thanks for the compliment. Usually i just sit down and talk for 10 to 20 minutes and upload the video "as is" with minimal editing. So, even though some viewers say some videos are too long and boring, it's not much work. However this time I had to do a bit of video editing which I'm not very good at.

Hi, adult medaka are enthusiastic predators of mosquito larvae . The damselfly larvae were of similar size as a mosquito larva which is why I thought the medaka would eat them very quickly ...... so I doubt it's a question of mouth size.

Thanks for watching them. I record these videos primarily as my own video diary and youtube is a great place to store them. However it's always nice to know that people might find them useful.

I usually buy stuff like the pump from one of the Chinese online stores e.g. AilExpress ...... search for "12 volt submersible pump" and you should be able to order one for less than £10 including shipping but you'd need a 12V adapter and to DIY wiring, pipework etc..

Thanks.

The fruit from my tree are quite sour and very few people like to eat them ..... so usually dumped on the compost heap ..... but sometimes OK as a garnish when pickled.

Only about 30% of the Shine strain breed true so it's unlikely it would suceed as a commercial strain.

@@km-qh3rs Shame, but we’re not in it for the money anyway are we ✌️

I think it's only a problem if eggs are touching eah other or maybe very close together ..... if eggs are at least 10mm or 1/2" apart then I think it's OK

Thanks. The planes only come close 1 or 2 days a week. Unfortunately it seems I often choose one of those days to make a video.

More than 30 years since I last saw snow ..... except on Christmas cards.

Wow! You retired early then, good for you! ✌️

Thanks. I think it's possible to get day neutral varieties that can be grown in temperate climates.

Yes, now you mention it I have tried something like that in the past but they were pretty small, about an inch l seem to remember, I wasn’t impressed ! ✌️

Yeah, I think in Singapore you could probably get 5 generations of medaka in a year.

Hi. Occasionally over the years I've kept a tank of tropical fish ... but soon got bored and gave them away. However I've found medaka are addictive.

@@km-qh3rs that is a great part of the hobby , there can always be something new

Personally I would never deliberately use green water for fry. I know this is probably a controversial opinion but my own personal view is that clean water is best for fry. Green water consists of phytoplankrton and only ocurs when there are excess nutrients in the water such as nitrates and phosphates for the phytoplankton to feed on ..... and therefore green water is not "clean". It's well known that, for example, excess nitrates can adversely affect even adult fish ..... pale green water may have relatively lower excess nitrates but then young fry are still likely to be adversely affected even by low excess nitrate levels. The other point I usually make is that medaka are not omnivores such as goldfish ..... medaka are carnivores and not omnivores (i.e. not carnivores/herbivores). Green water consists of phytoplankton which are similar to plants therefore of little food value to medaka fry ..... but zooplankton feed on phytoplankton so if you have zooplankton in your green water then medaka fry may benefit. However you really have no idea whether or not you actually have zooplankton in the green water. So, again my own personal view, green water may look nutritious etc etc for medaka fry but it's a waste of time and has the potential to adversely affect the health/growth of the fry.

Thanks.

I've heard that it can be relatively common for koi to die due to pH crashes in ponds but it seems to me that medaka generally survive. My point is that, although medaka survive, it appears they may be weakened and it may take a month or so for them to fully regain good health. However it depends on total alkalinity of the water, acidity of rainwater and how sheltered tubs might be from the full effects of very heavy, intense rainfall.

Nice to know that some people are still viewing my old videos.

Thanks for the comment. From what I've read, on a volume basis these pot scrubbers provide substantially more surface area for beneficial bactaria to grow than, for example, ceramic rings etc.

Thanks for the compliments. One issue is that I assume in first world countries it's probably relatively easy to obtain food grade plastic tubs even if they have to be ordered online. In my case all I could get were clear plastic or cheap black plastic ..... however I've found Ikea Trofast storage boxes for children's toys are now available in lighter colors. Interesting that it seems all other Ikea large plastic storage boxes are advised to be not suitable for close contact with food.

That's only half of the stagshorn ..... the original was growing on a frame on a slender metal pole that was bending under the weight ..... it was too heavy to move so I cut it in half and put each half in two different trees ..... still surviing but I need to remember to water them nearly every day throughout the coming dry, cool, low humidity winter. Not likely I'll make a garden tour ..... it's now just rough grass and a bit of paving so at my age it's easy for me to look after.

@@km-qh3rs Thank you for getting back, although I’m doubly jealous now!! I totally approve of making life as easy as possible as we mature, but as a retired horticulturist I wouldn’t mind betting you have a lot of interesting plants around you! ✌️

Thanks for the information. I think if brandname tubs are used, such as Ikea, then there's a reasonable probability that the plastic will not be toxic ..... my mistake was that I used very cheap non-brandname tubs ... not necessarily because they were the cheapest but because the size was what I wanted. Now I've settled for Ikea trofast tubs which I can reasonably assume are non-toxic but it means using a smaller size than I would prefer.

Hi, I'm happy if someone finds bits of my ramblings useful.

Thanks. Thinking about what I'm going to say on a video helps get my thoughts in order so that, hopefully, I avoid similar errors in future.

...... and less than the equivalent of US$1. Fish food in Japan seems to be much cheaper than other places in the world.

Hi, those are lengths of small diameter pvc pipe I use as floating barriers to keep the floating plants in check. I stuff closed cell foam into the pvc pipes so that they float.

hi Berenice, interesting that people in a tropial climate are keeping medaka.

Hi, sorry for the late reply ..... keeping medaka on a balcony would probably be better for me ..... I have enough space for 50 tubs and it's difficult to resist the temptation to add 2 or 3 more ..... and hen another 2 or 3 etc etc

Thanks. A civil engineer ..... always long-winded but usually not known for eloquence. The video was getting longer and longer ..... so I didn't include the bit where I was going to say that previously my medaka project was on a smaller scale. As such, at the start of summer last year, 2023, I think I had no more than 8 to10 elderly adults and maybe 70 young adults that had hatched in early spring 2023. I can't really remember but if, similar to this year, all the elderly adults had died and most of the strong young adults survived during the summer ..... then the impact of % total loss would not have been noticeable. But this year, starting the summer with maybe 40 elderly adults, 80 strong young adults hatched in early spring and 80 weaker juveniles hatched in late spring ..... then, in addition to the dragonfly losses, with all the elderly adults and a high proportion of the weaker juveniles dying it greatly increased the % total loss and the impact of that really made me think very hard.

@@km-qh3rs Thank you, n so glad you’re keeping on and improving your setup. It’s very interesting to us, given the lack of Medaka info around and you put it over in a lovely relaxed , informal way 🤝

@@gayefanner731 Thanks, I'm surprised that after 36 videos I'm still finding things to talk about.