MIFY Demystified

In this article, we introduce the MIFY competition. This event, unique to the Ozeki Ranchu Club is meant to foster club cohesiveness and facilitate the improvement and sharing of grooming skills, through the joy and advantage of group learning.

"How come my ranchu stops growing and the colour fades? The wen shrinks and the fish gets sick".

These are the questions that most people asked and got frustrated with keeping the Japanese top view ranchus. However, the members of Ozeki Ranchu club have a different set of concerns: How fast can my ranchu grow? How intense can the colour and the head growth develop?

Unique to the Ozeki Ranchu Club, MIFY stands for Most Improved Fish of the Year Competition. It is an on-going competition held for the Ozeki members to pit their skills in grooming their fishes. Each member submits one of his fish every year in the MIFY competition which he wishes to improve on. Every 2 months, the MIFY competitors meet, bringing along their MIFY fish to record their relative improvement. If the MIFY fish were to die within the competition period, the member will be disqualified from the competition for the year.

Judges checking improvement against
the colour chart

Some of the MIFY 2004

Prepartion

Measurement

As the emphasis is on grooming skills to improve a fish, a fish submitted for MIFY may not be a show fish. The MIFY fish may even have permanent flaws like bent finnage and other obvious defects. Nevertheless, the MIFY judges only award points based on improvement in colour intensity, head development and growth of the MIFY fish relative to the previous meet. Photographic images are recorded for each fish for members to reference the development of the fish. The MIFY competition is also a great opportunity for the more experience members to share with junior members on their grooming techniques.

Every year around July to August, the club imports the black baby ranchus from the Japanese club breeders. The Junior MIFY competition, meant for these black baby tosai kicks off in its first meet in September.

Points awarded in every meet are accumulated until the last meet in November, where the ranchu topped the scores is the winner. The winning fish will be proudly showcased in the annual Ozeki Ranchu Club Competition in Tanglin Mall Shopping Centre.

July 2002

Dec 2002

Aug 2003

So don’t be surprised if you see a fish with permanent and obvious defects winning the prestige MIFY Champion in the Ozeki Ranchu Club Competition - there is only one winner for each MIFY category and winning in the MIFY is a prestige bestowed on the level of skill and constant passion expected of the Ozeki member.

Ever seen the nostalgic heydays of Tiong Bahru Markets where bird hobbyists gathered to pit their songbirds? The members of the Ozeki Ranchu Club had it with their top view Ranchus!


The fun of group activity	An interesting MIFY tosai 2003

We welcome any queries on anything related to the keeping and appreciation of top view Japanese Ranchu. Interested public may email their queries to OzekiRanchuClubSG@yahoo.com

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Tosai (August 03)

Same fish nisai MIFY (March 04)