The craze about Japanese Rice Fish (Oryzias Latipes) is ongoing in Japan. The craze for these exotic fishes has since spread across the globe and eventually Singapore. So, what is this craze about and why these fishes can range from $1SGD up to the recent highest auctioned pair at $12,000SGD.

Oryzias Latipes is one of the recognized species from the Genus of Oryzias. They are found commonly in paddy fields, marshes and slow-moving streams. The Oryzias Genus are extremely hardy fishes. They are native to southeast Asia with Oryzias Latipes mainly found in certain parts of Japan.

You can find the list of Oryzias here.

This fish, in the wild exhibit minimal colors and have a transparent body with greyish tint. The Japanese breeders have since selectively bred these fishes to have a slight hue of orange. They call it Yohiki or 杨贵妃. Through more intense selective breeding, they eventually evolved to the Red emperor or 红帝. The Japanese Medaka Ricefish have now more than 456 known variants available in the market, and even until now, new variants are still constantly appearing.

The history of Medaka and Crystal Red Shrimp is very similar. They are both evolution of wild live stocks that have been selectively bred to be extremely colorful. The genetics of these fishes works exactly the same as Caridina Cantonesis A.K.A Crystal Shrimps.

The simple Yohiki used to cost a bomb and now have been gradually reduced to about $4SGD average in Singapore. What’s more insane is that the recent highest auctioned price for a pair of Medaka (Picture below) goes up to 12million Japanese Yen! The pair was auctioned off by MEDAKA SAVANNA from Japan. They even have a Youtube channel which you can find here.

With such high prices, it’s no wonder many shrimp hobbyist from all over the world are shifting towards Medaka fishes. Several renowned shrimp breeders have converted their shrimp farms to cater to breeding Medaka fishes.

Unlike shrimps, Medaka fishes are extremely hardy, and they reproduce almost every day even in a laboratory environment. They are also the first vertebrate to mate successfully in space! The female fish will hold the fertilized eggs near the anal fin for about 2-3 days and would deposit the eggs near floating plants or rocks to let it hatch.

The fry when hatched can survive about 4-5 days without food. It would be best to feed them after 4 days with food like baby brine shrimp, or very fine powdered food catered for fish fry.

Medaka Ricefish can be kept in very simple setup. They can be kept in a huge bowl with no aeration and some floating plants. Try not to keep the population too dense as the fishes bioload tend to be quite high. A good number would be one male and two female for roughly fifteen litres of water. The fishes once stable, will spawn almost every day, and its best to provide a spawning mop for them to deposit their eggs.

If you haven’t started your Medaka journey and want to hop on the craze, now is time! We will be bringining in different strains each month from Japan and will have something that you like. If you like to know more about these fishes, drop us a DM on our website or send me an email at demin@madshrimp.com.

We also export these fishes wholesale to various countries.