The price of eggs

[TyroneGenade]

Hello all

I would like to know what you (the buyer or seller) have to think about the current pricing of killifish eggs. If we have a look at Aquabid, parcels of 30 eggs seem to the norm. For many the starting price is $10 or $15 (US). These auctions can often spiral out of reality and packets of eggs reaching $50 is not that uncommon. I have no trouble with this. Supply and demand, if there is a supply and people are willing to pay then super. Onward capitalists...

My issue is this: how many of you think you can establish a fish in your fishroom from just 30 eggs sent. How many of you have tried and did you succeed?

I may be skewing my data by launching this thread in a SEA forum since the high temps make egg incubation already erratic.... but lets see where this goes.

tt4n

[timebomb]

My issue is this: how many of you think you can establish a fish in your fishroom from just 30 eggs sent. How many of you have tried and did you succeed?

Tyrone,

It's not the number of eggs that counts; the hatch rate is what's important. When I was looking for the Aphyosemion australes, I got several bags of eggs from different breeders. The first 3 batches fail to produce a single fry. A batch from Kean Huat produced 3 fry, all of which turned out to be females. I finally got a good number of fry from eggs bought from Karl Walters of Canada. He sent 3 bags of eggs and all 3 colour strains of the australes hatched in good numbers. I got about 25 fry from each bag.

I managed to breed them and got a good population going. I believe quite a number of the australes circulating around the hobbyists here came from me. I still have a tank of Orange australes and they are still so beautiful.

Loh K L

[Svein]

In fact I'm agree with both of you, I have imported eggs from nearly the whole world this summer, and for me it looks like it's the quality not the quantity which count.
So it's important to find the serious sellers, specially at Aquabid.

What I don't like however, is the comercial direction the Killi hobby develop.
I see at aquabid that a lot of Nothos starting from 15-20 dollar for 20 eggs
I have always learnt (and like) the theKilli hobby shall not be a comercial hobby, but a serious hobby which in thios case mean; to spread the fish.
But we probably have to seperate Aquabid against normally selling/trading, because when I contact breeders directly, the price is not so high that we find in Aquabid.
Regards
Svein

[bobalston]

I agree with the last post. I believe that eBay and Aquabid have higher prices than say killietrader or the AKA listing.

Bob

[Slaigar]

I have not bought much from Aquabid but I did use it(along with the search feature on 'net) to find a lot of a breeders who sell their eggs for a lot less than what you see on regular auctions. I believe the amount of cash to trade for eggs should be equivalent to the difficulty of fish. A price on eggs should be carefully set. A price too low attracts many people, including those who will not value the fish. Too high says you are in for the money, not the hobby. Of course, you cannot control how much people bid for items (except if you place "RARE*RARE*ONLY ONE!*" on it ).

Personally, I do not like to pay for eggs. I feel much more comfortable trading for them. Currently, I am trading my excess Java fern "Philippine" because my only killies are still eggs .

As Svein has already said, if you want a rare fish but do not want to pay $70 plus on Aquabid, search the internet and there should be a person who has had great success and is more than willing to share/trade. It can be difficult though. I know that several of the species on my "wanted list" are not easily available. I am still waiting for N. virgatus to be released publicly...