I thought I’d write this up for those of you who have never attended a fish club auction. Maybe you’ll try to find the club nearest to you, or even start a club yourself!
GAAS is the Greater Akron Aquarium Society, one of several general fish clubs in the Akron/Cleveland area. I ended up joining this club just for the newsletter because the were selling a 2 year membership for $7.50!
http://www.gaas-fish.net/
There are always differences between clubs, so it’s interesting to see what shows up at an auction. I took more of my swordtails and blue/orange platys. Three trios of each, plus some fruitfly cultures. I’ve still got way too many of both- I still can’t count the fish in either tank. A friend of mine couldn’t attend the auction, so he have me a list of what he was looking for, along with some cash.
My wife and I arrived at about 11:30, and I checked my stuff in. It didn’t look like there was very much stuff, so I told her that it would probably be done by 3:00. She took off to visit her dad, and immediately afterward heaps of stuff arrived until the tables were overflowing. I called her to tell her it would be after 5:00 probably. The auction started at 12:00 as scheduled.
This time the first bag of my platies went for $12! The auctioneer commented on the color and said that they would be great for the spring show. The third trio of them only went for $1, so you can see the difference from being at the beginning or end of the auction!
Tanks, tanks, tanks! There were a lot of tanks at this auction. A new-ish 20 gallon with pine stand, glass top, and strip light sold for $3! A 55 went for $20. Why in the world did I pass on these deals? There were eight 40-gallon breeder tanks ( 42” long, 24” wide, 12” deep ) and I had my eye on them. I was able to get one of the 40’s for $12, but by the end I had three of them for a total of $50. I should be able to make a rack to keep all three in a stack. They just barely fit in the car. These should be great tanks for corydoras, dwarf cichlids, gouramis, or just growing out fry. You just don’t see this style of tank that often, so I consider it a major buy! Lots of other equipment including air blowers ( if you’ve got a large fishroom and are powering lots of airstones or sponge filters this is how you run them ) and hob and canister filters. I snagged a cool Eheim aquaplus 2448 internal filter that works- I thought $3 was a really good price for that, too!
Of course, there were TONS of fish. Unlike the Detroit auction I attended a couple weeks ago, this one had lots of rift lake cichlids. Most of them go way too cheap. If I wasn’t worried about getting stuck with them I’d buy a bunch of buck bags and trade them to the LFS’s in my area. One big mated pair of rift lakers went for $70, but I missed the species. There were also a good selection of SA cichlids. There was a bag of beautiful nicaraguense that they had difficulty getting $1 for- I was sorely tempted because they were such nice fish, and about 2-1/2” long already. They’re plant eaters, though, and the only plantless tank I could have put them right now is a 10 gallon! Only one bag of kribs, and one pair of convicts. Sadly, they didn’t fetch much either.
Not too many oddball livebearers, but a selection of swordtails and platys. Some A. splendens and other big mean-looking livebearers too, but not many. Several strains of guppies including swordtail and lyretail varieties, and plumetail and pintail platys. There were also three species of Limia- I seem to be on a roll for doing $1 “pity bids” for Limia these days! I got some L. vittata to go with my other ones, and some L. perugiae The auctioneer called the Limia “small, plain, silver little ditch fish”- what a sales job! The perugiae looked like boring colorless stretched-out female guppies at the auction, but when I put them in my tank they started turning dark with blue spangles. Pretty! I’m glad I got them. I probably should have gotten the L. tridens, but keeping them all in different tanks takes some planning. I also got a bag of montezume swordtails. If I do manage to get a club started out here I will have some different fish to get BAP points from.
Nobody I know has microworms right now, so they were high on the list. This time I managed to snag a culture of them for $6. Rather expensive, but they’d cost more if I had to mail order them. I will share them out with friends so if I lose mine I can get some back. I also got a bottle of vinegar eels. Good emergency fry food!
Lots of other unusual stuff. There were two buckets with absolutely huge small-mouth leaf fish. If you have too many guppies or other small fish, these guys will solve that problem very quickly. I spotted a bag of six 2-1/2” pearl gouramis, and I’ve been wanting to try them, so I didn’t bid very much of the other tempting fish. There were several bags of Aphyosemion ogoense- very beautiful killies. Several varieties of bristlenose ancistrus, brown whiptail cats, and some Synodontis petracola in the catfish department. My wife really wanted to bid on the petracola, but I’m not sure where I would have put them. She didn’t know that you can motion the runner over if you want to see the fish up close. They will wait to take a final bid until you’ve taken a look. I think the Synodontis went for $5 for 2 of them.
To relieve the tedium and make things a bit more fun the auctioneers do joke around a bit. And if they think a bag is going way too cheap they will spend a lot of time trying to pump up a bid. When it’s 5 o’clock and there are still heaps of fish bags on the table they should probably get moving faster! I think it was about 7:30 when things finally came to an end. Overall a fun auction, but grueling if you stayed to the bitter end. Lots of bargains. I did manage to get the pearl gouramis- paying $21 for the bag of 6. They may all be females, but I’ll wait and see. I put them in a tank with some Corydoras and the corys have perked up with some other fish in the tank. The gouramis will go to the surface for a bubble of air, then the corys will do the same.
GAAS is the Greater Akron Aquarium Society, one of several general fish clubs in the Akron/Cleveland area. I ended up joining this club just for the newsletter because the were selling a 2 year membership for $7.50!
http://www.gaas-fish.net/
There are always differences between clubs, so it’s interesting to see what shows up at an auction. I took more of my swordtails and blue/orange platys. Three trios of each, plus some fruitfly cultures. I’ve still got way too many of both- I still can’t count the fish in either tank. A friend of mine couldn’t attend the auction, so he have me a list of what he was looking for, along with some cash.
My wife and I arrived at about 11:30, and I checked my stuff in. It didn’t look like there was very much stuff, so I told her that it would probably be done by 3:00. She took off to visit her dad, and immediately afterward heaps of stuff arrived until the tables were overflowing. I called her to tell her it would be after 5:00 probably. The auction started at 12:00 as scheduled.
This time the first bag of my platies went for $12! The auctioneer commented on the color and said that they would be great for the spring show. The third trio of them only went for $1, so you can see the difference from being at the beginning or end of the auction!
Tanks, tanks, tanks! There were a lot of tanks at this auction. A new-ish 20 gallon with pine stand, glass top, and strip light sold for $3! A 55 went for $20. Why in the world did I pass on these deals? There were eight 40-gallon breeder tanks ( 42” long, 24” wide, 12” deep ) and I had my eye on them. I was able to get one of the 40’s for $12, but by the end I had three of them for a total of $50. I should be able to make a rack to keep all three in a stack. They just barely fit in the car. These should be great tanks for corydoras, dwarf cichlids, gouramis, or just growing out fry. You just don’t see this style of tank that often, so I consider it a major buy! Lots of other equipment including air blowers ( if you’ve got a large fishroom and are powering lots of airstones or sponge filters this is how you run them ) and hob and canister filters. I snagged a cool Eheim aquaplus 2448 internal filter that works- I thought $3 was a really good price for that, too!
Of course, there were TONS of fish. Unlike the Detroit auction I attended a couple weeks ago, this one had lots of rift lake cichlids. Most of them go way too cheap. If I wasn’t worried about getting stuck with them I’d buy a bunch of buck bags and trade them to the LFS’s in my area. One big mated pair of rift lakers went for $70, but I missed the species. There were also a good selection of SA cichlids. There was a bag of beautiful nicaraguense that they had difficulty getting $1 for- I was sorely tempted because they were such nice fish, and about 2-1/2” long already. They’re plant eaters, though, and the only plantless tank I could have put them right now is a 10 gallon! Only one bag of kribs, and one pair of convicts. Sadly, they didn’t fetch much either.
Not too many oddball livebearers, but a selection of swordtails and platys. Some A. splendens and other big mean-looking livebearers too, but not many. Several strains of guppies including swordtail and lyretail varieties, and plumetail and pintail platys. There were also three species of Limia- I seem to be on a roll for doing $1 “pity bids” for Limia these days! I got some L. vittata to go with my other ones, and some L. perugiae The auctioneer called the Limia “small, plain, silver little ditch fish”- what a sales job! The perugiae looked like boring colorless stretched-out female guppies at the auction, but when I put them in my tank they started turning dark with blue spangles. Pretty! I’m glad I got them. I probably should have gotten the L. tridens, but keeping them all in different tanks takes some planning. I also got a bag of montezume swordtails. If I do manage to get a club started out here I will have some different fish to get BAP points from.
Nobody I know has microworms right now, so they were high on the list. This time I managed to snag a culture of them for $6. Rather expensive, but they’d cost more if I had to mail order them. I will share them out with friends so if I lose mine I can get some back. I also got a bottle of vinegar eels. Good emergency fry food!
Lots of other unusual stuff. There were two buckets with absolutely huge small-mouth leaf fish. If you have too many guppies or other small fish, these guys will solve that problem very quickly. I spotted a bag of six 2-1/2” pearl gouramis, and I’ve been wanting to try them, so I didn’t bid very much of the other tempting fish. There were several bags of Aphyosemion ogoense- very beautiful killies. Several varieties of bristlenose ancistrus, brown whiptail cats, and some Synodontis petracola in the catfish department. My wife really wanted to bid on the petracola, but I’m not sure where I would have put them. She didn’t know that you can motion the runner over if you want to see the fish up close. They will wait to take a final bid until you’ve taken a look. I think the Synodontis went for $5 for 2 of them.
To relieve the tedium and make things a bit more fun the auctioneers do joke around a bit. And if they think a bag is going way too cheap they will spend a lot of time trying to pump up a bid. When it’s 5 o’clock and there are still heaps of fish bags on the table they should probably get moving faster! I think it was about 7:30 when things finally came to an end. Overall a fun auction, but grueling if you stayed to the bitter end. Lots of bargains. I did manage to get the pearl gouramis- paying $21 for the bag of 6. They may all be females, but I’ll wait and see. I put them in a tank with some Corydoras and the corys have perked up with some other fish in the tank. The gouramis will go to the surface for a bubble of air, then the corys will do the same.
