19 replies to this topic

[BengaBoy]

Duboisi 4.5cm $25ea.
Ikola 3.5cm sold
Chimba 5cm, 11 at $50ea.
Kasanga Red Rainbow 4cm, 13, (also some smaller) poa
Ilangi 14, currently 2-2.5cm. Available at 3.5cm poa

photos at:
Steves Tropheus

Would like to thin out my numbers before moving house late February.

Steve: 0409 783 832
jiver@bigpond.net.au

Steve


Visit my site: Steves Tropheus

Edited by: BengaBoy at: 1/24/04 5:48 pm

[Mazimbwe]

Bump

[geemaril]

hey steve,
i was just wondering how the tropheus trade is doing at the moment. there seems to be more and more people breeding these fish. do you still manage to sell quite a few fry on a regular basis?

oh and nice fish
Elliot

[BengaBoy]

hi Elliot

there has been a rash, or is that a herd, of colonies come up for sale recently. A great way to put together some young adult colonies imho. Wish they were around like that when I was trying to find some!
I have limited tank space so cant hang on to my unwanted fry for too long. So far i have had no trouble shifting them. Bear in mind young females might only have 3 or 4 fry so it does take a while to be able to offer a decent number for sale. ime they dont really hit their breeding straps until about 3 years.

Like a lot of fish, some fishkeepers tire of them after a few months or a year or so and want something different, so getting a few young adult colonies off a couple of these sellers and putting them together would then give you a great colony to go on with. If my memory serves me right you could have put together a colony of Ikola or a colony of Bemba from different sources with the recent posts.
A lot of Tropheus keepers keep them for years - I have heard of one Perth colony going for 15 years.

Some fish come in and out of fashion, and maybe Tropheus might be like that, but I havent seen evidence of that yet. I think there is a lot more information around on them now so peope are not killing them off as much as they once did.

Another thing about Tropheus is that people usually plan ahead for them. You dont get dudes going into an lfs and buying 15 Tropheus on impulse. Most keep them in a species only tank so they need a dedicated tank available. I had a guy come and buy some Ikola yesterday, but he first contacted me about 3 months ago. To be honest I dont really expect instant sales from classifieds like the one above - it just to let people know what is about and coming up. Oh, and I am moving house so a few less fish to move would help a lot lol.

I know one lfs worker who has kept the wholesale price list of Tropheus going back years and years and he says the price has never come down. But I guess that means in real terms they are cheaper cause a $100 was worth more 10 years ago than now.

I also think the quality coming into Australia has improved a lot in the last year or two thanks to guys like Nigel/Airfish bringing in wildcaughts - something not for the fainthearted. And a few of those colonies are starting to breed now thru people like Jim in Sydney.

At the end of the day you keep Tropheus because you enjoy them. If you can sell a few fry and recoup some costs - all the better.

Steve


Visit my site: Steves Tropheus

[Croona]

I think the price of tropheus is going down, especially around perth, more and more colonys are being started and they are becoming quite common, if it continues like this, which i'm sure it will because they are awesome, then soon they will be just your regular fish, and more people will buy them on impulse because they wont cost $500-$1500 to get a decent group

[electric]

Not going to happen Croona

They arent a pseudotropheus

[Croona]

yeah they wont get to pseudo prices but they will get to around $15 for 3-4cm duboisi i'm sure....

[geemaril]

i understand what your saying croona usually after a fish has been in the hobby a while the price drops. however tropheus have a few plusses (or some see them as minuses ) to make sure this doesnt happen in a hurry.

1. the females take a while to get to breeding size
Quote:ime they dont really hit their breeding straps until about 3 years.

2. start out producing low fry numbers.
Quote: Bear in mind young females might only have 3 or 4 fry so it does take a while to be able to offer a decent number for sale.

3. their large price tag limits the amount of people buying a large number of fish. which means less colonys around than say electric yellows, which i might add have remained stable in the pricing area for a very long time considering the huge number of electric yellow colonys around.

4. abonormal feeding schedule and diet. the tropheus also has a considerably different feeding schedule compared to most of the fish we keep. and the annoying thing is the number of people that keep fish for any amount of time without knowing or researching anything about them. therefore theres unfortunately going to be more and more cases of tropeus bloat goin caused by unaware and uneducated fish keepers feeding their tropeus soley on bloodworms and brineshrimp. its sad but it does happen.

its hard to say exactly what will happen but when u look at the fish that have hit rock bottom in the price range they all have rather large spawns and are complete and compact waste disposal units( dont u just love convicts ).

i just hope that as the number of tropeus on the market rises the number of people well equiped to take care of these fish rises with it.

cheers for the reply Steve
Elliot

[Melleah]

*yoink*

[Danny]

Whats Poa mean? Sorry probably a stupid comment but nun the less i have no idea what it is.

Cheers Dan.

[anchar]

Price On Application

merjo

[BengaBoy]

also can mean if you have to ask you cant afford them

Steve


Visit my site: Steves Tropheus

[Danny]

thats pretty funny steve

Edited by: Danny at: 1/30/04 7:51 am

[EvilPasta]

I thought so...

Tim

[geemaril]

how much would ya be lookin at for the red rainbows? about 100-200 bux each.i have no idea but i spose this is close.???

Elliot

[BengaBoy]

didnt mean to be rude with poa, but I try to base my prices on Eastern States and/or wholesale prices for the variants that are not available in Perth.

the full story is, last time I asked wholesale on Kasanga Red Rainbows was $104 + gst + delivery and I sold my last batch for $75ea.
Ilangis are even more expensive, and my last lot went for $85 ea.

I dont believe anyone else is breeding these variants in Perth.

[geemaril]

thanx, awesome fish,
also, i was just wondering how you sex tropheus. there doesnt seem to be any difference.

cheers
Elliot

[Mazimbwe]

Elliot, you do not "sex" tropheus, IMO, you just make sure that you have enough numbers that their Gender is irrelevant.

[BengaBoy]

chill danny
Maz is quite right and I'll explain why...
some females are obvious when you vent them and others are not. I have had some venting exercises at times on some of my colonies and so called experts are often very wrong - I know because I knew some of their identified 'males' to be certain females. If the female hasnt spawned then it is very difficult imho.
contrary to popular misconception having the mbuna style sex ratio isnt really necessary with Tropheus. as long as it isnt any worse than 1 to 1. High Numbers is the main criteria for successful breeding colonies ime. My Duboisi colony is 42. I dont know for sure what the m/f ratio is and I dont really care. It really comes down to personality ratio. i find having a few spare boys floating around the tank gives the alpha males something to do besides harass females. females get very aggro too, and can dominant the males, tho ime they back off from this behaviour once they have held full term. I find the colony does ok with the extra males. I have only ever pulled males, and alphas at that, when I wanted other males to become dominant for breeding when I was merging colonies.

Steve


Visit my site: Steves Tropheus

[BengaBoy]

Quote:

---

What happens when your selling parts of your existing colony to somone else who only wants a certain number of males and females?

---

So far I have only sold fry/juveniles (as said before they are too young to be sexed). I dont sell "parts" of adult colonies.

Quote:

---

If you cant tell male and female then you cant have the perfect colony either

---

as said "perfect" Tropheus colonies have little to do with m/f ratio