Back in the day I used to get a lot of my stuff from a guy called Peyote Pete.
oops, sorry wrong topic ….
oops, sorry wrong topic ….
Where can I find "rare cichlids"
- Thread starter florencejr11
- Start date
I remember those days.
Just remembered, Peter Durkin
with the exception of nanolutea, NONE of these mentioned species sell. Dan will tell you the same. That is the reason why they are not made available.
Dan and his wife, like myself and my wife, are involved in other business ventures outside of the fish businesses. Unfortunately, even with offering incredibly rare species that people have asked for repeatedly for years didn’t equal the sales that went with the ‘requests’. So he opted to forego the incredible daily workload of this business and continue with his others. Much like Jeff Rapps had done several years ago before I took over. If you don't buy it we wont sell it. It really is that simple.
Unfortunately, what the hobbyist say they want vs what they buy are not on the same page. So it makes stocking and maintaining a list at a level like his(or even mine) not worth the workload. When you have 200 species but only the same 5 are selling than why even bother with the others. I can totally understand his reasoning. Today for example, I shipped out more captive bred common African cichlids than I did of any of the wild, rarer American cichlid species. It is why I do not offer many species or, have only offered once. T. asfraci is a great example. That species was absent in the US for over a decade. For both Dan and I it was the most requested species to get. I got them for what by the time the landed in the US was about the cost of a small economy car. I received and offered the largest size ever made available. No one bought them. Less than a dozen customers jumped on them. Dan had a similar issue with the same species nearly 3 years after I offered them. He has recently offered them smaller and much cheaper(due to size) and only a small handful of customers bought those. Now neither of us will offer that species again. Umbie are next on the chopping block. I have continually offered wild umbie as well as real F1 stock from my own wild collected breeders of different umbie populations and sales are WAY low. Low enough to no longer warrant the next import of them for the foreseeable future.
Beani is a species I carried many, many times and the last time I did was in 2022 were it had nearly no sales. I ultimately wholesaled them to Asia and never offered them again. It’s a species I personally like but, it doesn’t sell. Several wild Caquatia species (specs, mysersi, krausi), I have offered all 3 in wild form in both late 2022 and early 2023 with myersi hanging around from January 2023 to July where I took them to the ACA convention in WI and gave them away for auction. Krausi and myersi I have no intentions on collecting or importing again. Specs I may try again eventually. I currently have nearly 100 species listed and available, Today I shipped out 8 boxes of 6-10 each African yellow labs. 1 box of 8 Mason reef Metriaclima, and only 2 boxes of 5 ea wild biotodoma cupido and small box of 6 cb firemouths. Of all the species I have available, many not available anywhere else in the world and 9 boxes of common African cichlids is what Im packing..
That is why everyones lfs sells the same thing over and over. because that is what sells and keeps the business operating. A tank full of rare fish that will either outgrow or kill each other before you can sell them all is not a good business practice. That tank space should and will be used for what will sell and pay for that tanks floorplan and operating costs. If we are just feeding them to kill themselves off, what good is that.
The central American species that sell well I carry, those that dont for me and didn’t for Dan I don’t. Keeping in mind that Dan and I are/were the only two in the country that were shipping out of the US and the market on a global scale still didnt warrant keeping or offering so many cool species. Unfortunately, that is how the current state of the hobby is these days. Many ‘wants’ but not enough ‘buys’ to warrant so many species being made available. Dan will be touching on this himself when he is live with Chris Biggs on Wednesday. I definitely recommend watching it.
Kevin
www.tangledupincichlids.com
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Hi, don’t mean to hijack the thread but since you’re here I’ll ask, do you have or get Callochromis melanostigma large enough to sex? A couple months ago I bought 11 from Imperial hoping to get a breeding group and it looks like all 11 are going to be male lol
My experience is similar to Kevin's.....but luckily I wasn't trying to do it as a business
When I had spawns from N haitiensus, P motaguense, and M beanii, I found it difficult to just give them away.
When I had lots of beanii juvies about 10 years ago, I put them on the classifieds here, and got 1 response.
For getting the species I wanted, I found I had to take a vacation to whatever country they came from, and try to collect them myself. Cost ......$ thousands
One of the reasons I moved to Panama, where a 4 hour collecting trip now, is only a little over $100, whether I catch anything or not.
And just because I have gone somewhere to collect, didn't mean I found, and/ or got that species I was after, so you can imagine the cost outlay for a cichlid collector trying to run a business.
When I had spawns from N haitiensus, P motaguense, and M beanii, I found it difficult to just give them away.
When I had lots of beanii juvies about 10 years ago, I put them on the classifieds here, and got 1 response.
For getting the species I wanted, I found I had to take a vacation to whatever country they came from, and try to collect them myself. Cost ......$ thousands
One of the reasons I moved to Panama, where a 4 hour collecting trip now, is only a little over $100, whether I catch anything or not.
And just because I have gone somewhere to collect, didn't mean I found, and/ or got that species I was after, so you can imagine the cost outlay for a cichlid collector trying to run a business.
Did you try Daves Rare Fish? www.Davesfish.com many of the African cichlids people are buying from other African cichld vendors are from stock he has imported and sold to them.
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Which varient? TUIC has offered wild and f1 rio mags continually for the last 10 years including up until this week a larger sexed male and a larger sexed m/f pair. Currently have f1 Rio Guatape 'black umbie' available which is a population that has not been collected or exported since 2019. Several occasions in 2023 I have also offered wild umbie from Rio Atrato, and from Rio Guale which was collected by us on a 2021 collecting trip.
We don't have to like it, but it is understandable. 90 percent of hobbyists consider a 75 gallon a large tank. Most of the mentioned species get to a size that a 55 will not house them. Not to mention they can be aggressive. Even the one's most here would consider mild will destroy other fish when spawning in a 220. I like the parachromis and amphilophus species and breed them. Unfortunately these fish don't sell. I took cubans and F1 creamcicle midas to an auction a week or so ago and they sold for 5 dollars a bag of 6 at 1.5 inches. My guppies and peacocks sold very well.
I am sorry to see another great source of the fish I love disappear, but It is very hard to sell 300 fish that will require a 125 for a breeding pair 3 to 4 times a year. As a hobbyists who tries to breed to off set costs I can't imagine making a business of selling large American cichlids.
I am sorry to see another great source of the fish I love disappear, but It is very hard to sell 300 fish that will require a 125 for a breeding pair 3 to 4 times a year. As a hobbyists who tries to breed to off set costs I can't imagine making a business of selling large American cichlids.
thank you for replying Kevin. You are always a wealth of knowledge.
I think we as fish keepers think that this hobby is much larger and much more prominent than it is. Well it may be true that a good majority of people keep fish at one point. It usually is a betta or goldfish.
the amount of people who have successfully kept fish for a long time is a really small percentage.
even smaller the amount of people who are willing to pay 20+ dollars for a single fish (sounds cheap to us, but a lot of people who own fish, but aren’t serious about the hobby scoff at the idea that any fish is over 10 bucks)
Now you break it down the the probably under 1000 people in America who not only know about extremely rare fish, but have the knowledge to keep them, and appreciate the fish enough to keep it. Your market pool is extremely small. And out of that market pool you can only capture two types of people
1: someone who love a fish you are carrying enough to set up a tank to house it after it hits your stock list
2: an extreme hobbiest with an empty tank or a community tank that can house said species of fish.
And most of these large, rare, cichlids live 15-20 years meaning your capture rate is even smaller on a very very small market share.
it’s sad to see these businesses fail or even struggle to hold on. But when you break it down in a business sense there’s no reason they should be making money. That is unless you pull gimmicks like predatory fins or are able to have enough space to offer common and rare fish.
I wish the best for you, and appreciate the insight. Always love hearing the business side of things from well respected companies like TUIC.
