is this crazy money

[mickey]

My friend john has just splashed out £60 about $90 on a pair of 2 yr old red tiger oscars, said to be a proven breeding pair.
I think that this is crazy money for a pair of fish,but he says he loves them and cant wait for them to start breeding,
any body else pay crazy money for fish, or maybe consider doing so if a special or unusual fish came along.
if an

[Tetratastic]

One of my LFS's is selling a particular type of seahorse for $50 each, if I had all the money in the world I'd buy a couple, but since I'm poor they'll have to stay in the shop.

[ChilDawg]

That's probably a decent price for a proven breeding pair, but he should probably think about a return policy.

[Hebdizzle]

This is exactly the opposite...

A "lower class" LFS store by my house has a 8" arowana for sale for $9.99 and what they have it labeled under is "big fish" ha. That thing is a monster and they have it in a tank with a ton of guppies... once that thing grows their pocketbook is gonna be empty.

aaron

[mickey]

is there any guarantee that they will breed in his tank though.

[cubano]

Originally posted by mickey
is there any guarantee that they will breed in his tank though.

no

[ChilDawg]

I concur. There is no guarantee of a proven breeding pair breeding in a new tank.

[Cearbhaill]

"Breeding pair" just means that the fish are sexed properly and relatively mature enough to breed. Depending on the vendor it may also mean that a successful breeding has taken place at some point in the past.
"Proven breeding pair" indicates that there has been successful breeding with each other, but I would still want clarification of when, under what conditions, and with what percentage viable fry. Some fish are better parents than other fish :D

The new owner still has the job of providing a proper environment for the pair, as well as conditioning them for breeding, and managing/feeding the resulting family.
There are no guarantees that actual baby Oscars will be the result.

I have no problem dropping $$ on a fish (or palm, or orchid)- if I have investigated the vendor thoroughly and am secure in my ability to properly continue care of the purchase.
As your level of experience increases, so does your willingness to spend $$ on increasingly rare/ difficult/specialty fish.

[isaac newton]

Hmmm have oscars ever been breeded in captivity???? A friend of mine has a 75 gal tank and that fish is huge! It hardly has any space to swim around.. To breed these fish wouldn't you need a sizeable tank to house these fish and let alone breed them?

[wayne]

You've got to spend your money on something..... and some fish cost that much.

[Faramir]

Originally posted by isaac newton
Hmmm have oscars ever been breeded in captivity???? A friend of mine has a 75 gal tank and that fish is huge! It hardly has any space to swim around.. To breed these fish wouldn't you need a sizeable tank to house these fish and let alone breed them?

Yes, you do need a big tank, but given that Oscars are not hard to breed, and virtually all the ones you see are captive bred.

Baensch says that Oscars are sexually mature at 4.5", which must help.

[somefinnfishy]

Originally posted by Faramir


Yes, you do need a big tank, but given that Oscars are not hard to breed, and virtually all the ones you see are captive bred.

Baensch says that Oscars are sexually mature at 4.5", which must help.
Maybe they should wild catch a few the inbreeding on them has gotten out of control we have more deformed oscars come in as babys and with hole in head as adults. I havent seen 1 perfect oscar in a the thousand we import every year:(.

[cdawson]

Originally posted by ChilDawg
I concur. There is no guarantee of a proven breeding pair breeding in a new tank.

I also agree, when we moved our pair of 6 inch convicts to a larger tank the male beat the female to death.

[ChilDawg]

Originally posted by Cearbhaill

"Proven breeding pair" indicates that there has been successful breeding with each other, but I would still want clarification of when, under what conditions, and with what percentage viable fry. Some fish are better parents than other fish :D


I am under the impression that some vendors sell cichlids as proven breeding pairs if they have done so little as laid eggs together. Of course, female-female "pairs" could lay eggs together, and this would lead aquarists to buy such pairs. Moral of the story: get a clear definition of what the seller means by "proven breeding pair".

[OrionGirl]

Ehhhh. There are many fish that sell for much, much more. Rays, koi, discus, many saltwater fish, many rare plecos, cichlids, etc.

[ChilDawg]

There was a very juvenile Motoro Stingray in a tank (with Elephant Noses, too, grrr...) at A World of Fish in Richfield, MN, which was selling for $199.99, and that was only one of many at a steep price.

[valerie]

The LFs by my house has rays for 800$can

[ChilDawg]

Even with the rising exchange rate (no flames, please) that is really, really expensive!!!

[SBee]

Jinks and I were at Big Al's a couple weeks ago......and a guy there was picking up his arrowana.....he had it there for some reason........anyways......he nonchalantly told us that it cost him $5,000 (or 3,000 maybe? one or the other) and that he had a collection at home.
This was just a young guy too.....and I couldn't get over how UN-EXCITED he was.....he just seemed like "ya, whatever, thousands of dollars for a fish, ah well"
craaaaazy!

[valerie]

yeah arrowna are VERY VERY expensive(except those silver ones i think whish still go for about 150-300$around here). A LFS by my house has a 8000$, a 15000$ and a 20 000$can arrowna.

They are beautiful but i could never justify getting a fish that costed that much. I would rather have a car:D

[Allison Reed]

Wow! Expensive arrowanas. They are like 45-90 dollars over here. Our Black Arrowana cost us 75....jeeeez.

[mickey]

You could buy my LFS entire stock for $20000 never mind 1 fish.

[skeletalmachine]

Allison, the expensive arrowana's are probably asian arrowana, which are endangered. Silver arrowana don't cost nearly as much.

[Hebdizzle]

where are Big Als non-online branches located?

[Firsttanks]

Ya, Riverfront Aquariums here in Calgary just sold one for $20,000.00, it was bought as a showpiece for an Oil company's building lobby. Poor thing was 2 or 3 feet long and living in a 6ft tank...hope they gave it better accomodations in the lobby.

[Matak]

From somefinnfishy:

Maybe they should wild catch a few the inbreeding on them has gotten out of control we have more deformed oscars come in as babys and with hole in head as adults. I havent seen 1 perfect oscar in a the thousand we import every year.
Crossbreeding and hybridizing weaken the species, proven by the above statement. There may be a problem with hybrids muddying the species lines in captivity, but it couldn't happen in the wild. Similarily, if all domesticated dogs were let loose to breed in the wild, after a number of generations you would begin to see the few wild dog species that naturally occur in the world. All the Poodle, Boxer, Shepperd etc. would be bred out of the dogs and you would start to see dogs resembling Wolves, Dingoes, Foxes etc. The same would occur with the Ciclids.

[MonoSebaelover]

I agree with Orion, 90 bucks ain't that much for two fish. I have several fish in my 209G saltwater tank that cost well over 100 each (Queen Trigger-3 inches- 99-140, Clown Trigger-3 inches- 100-140, Zebra Moray Eel- from Hawaii 3ft- 140, Blue Line Trigger 150-all US dollars). Luckily I got them all at discounted prices due to working at my lfs. Employee benefits are great in the fish hobby especially saltwater. BTW, about the price of the Seahorses that is pretty cheap especially since now stores can only sell Tank Raised ones, they can easily fetch an 80 dollar price tag while the wilds generally catch a 20 dollar price. Generally I would rather raise two babies into a pair rather than buying a pair. Of course most of the fish I specialize in can't be paired but if they could that is the way I would do it (my Niger Triggers are a pair though-for any of you who don't know saltwater triggers they are extremely nasty to one another and are considered very lucky-or stupid!- if you can get two from the same species to coexist). Sorry, don't have much freshie info. I started in the hobby 5 years ago and had 5 fw tanks, now my specialty is marine and have 4 saltwater tanks and only 1 29 gallon freshwater tank). Tell your friend good luck withe the Oscars!

[mickey]

Are swf generally more expensive than fwf, none of my lfs stock swf.
A pity, i have seen some beautiful pics of swf tanks,
i wouldn,t mind giving it a go.

[OrionGirl]

It depends on what you want to buy. For example, damsels are usually cheap--under $10 a peice. There are some that are well above the average price of FW fish--for example, the beauties Mono has are not average fish. I would say that we have about $200 worth of fish in our SW setup--and that's 10 or 11 fish. A lot of the pricing depends on the species, and the distributor/collector. Considering we have over $500 of rock, and well over $1000 in corals, the fish are pretty cheap!

If you want the rare or newly discovered FW fish, they will cost about the same as most SW fish. Consider royal tiger plecos--anywhere from $20-$70, depending on the size of the fish in question. There are not any SW priced like neons, where you get a better price for buying more of them, but then, there are not many SW fish you keep in schools.

[mickey]

DO SWF ship well i have no local access.
BTW Thanks for the info

[MonoSebaelover]

I do agree with Orion (again!) but would say in general yes salt costs more than freshwater. Like Orion said I specialize in the rare and beautiful fish. The cheapest fish you can get sw are Damsels, Gobies, Blennies, and Clowns. Most of the rest average 25 and up. There are a lot of sw species that school in the wild but when placed in the confines of an aquarium they don't school and are extremely territorial to other fish. Some prime examples are Tangs, Butterflies, Wrasses (esp Thalassoma), Triggers, among others. I more specifically specialize in the Triggers and have the 3 Amigos in my 209 which are the Queen, Clown and one of the Nigers. They are best buds and hang out together all the time. Someday when I get a house of my own, I want my smallest tank to be a 200g and have approximatly 12 tanks all full of different species of Triggers. That will be someday after I win Powerball or the Lotto or something. My more immediate dream though is importing Shires and Gypsy Vanner horses from England! Now that I have completly hijacked the thread (VERY SORRY!!!!) I will stop the fingers and go away!

[mickey]

everybody has a dream.