zebra plecos for the masses

[somefinfishy]

Not everyone will belive me but cant help but posting the gossip.
A large old school wholesaler I know was told by a one of the biggest supplyers in america.
That a firm he buys from in asia has started breeding zebra plecos in mass quanitys and have been only releaseing them 100-200 at a time.
They are sitting on 10,000 of them and will flood the market sometime in the next year.

Bad news for zebra owners and breeders great news for the rest of us.

Anyone else in the know here this also ?

[pleco_breeder]

Rumors like this have been floating around since the ban began. I'm not going to say it's not possible, but anyone who has the space to sit on 10,000 zebras has the contacts to spread them around the globe and maintain at least a portion of the "hay-day" pricing they currently get. I know of a couple large-scale breeders here in the states that started with 100+ colonies when the ban became a reality. None of them has 10,000 fish just sitting around and all are still getting at least an arm for wholesale fish when they're available. The only Florida operation to raise zebras that I know of gave up on them years ago because they don't produce fast enough and grow even slower. For anyone who doesn't know, Hypancistrus are not the perfect pleco breeding project for selling to shops. They just grow too slow and require too much space for grow-out.

Larry

[MatsP]

Bad news for zebra owners and breeders great news for the rest of us.

Why would it be bad news for the breeders? 10000 fish over the world isn't going to make much more of a dent in the market than 100 breeders that produce 100 fry each year do today - and I think there are actually more than 100 breeders in the world today. And unless you already are rich, breeding zebra plecos is hard enough and slow enough to not work as a "get rich quick" scheme.

And as long as the breeding in Asia is managed correctly (that is, they aren't too badly inbred by the time they reach us), it would be a good thing anyways.

[I'm also not quite sure there is any truth in the matter, as I seem to remember someone saying something similar recently, and it turned out to be "unlikely to be true"].

Larry's post just came in as I wrote this, and I agree with all the points in it. Particularly the point on "space" and "slow growing". We have had the discussion on "How do I make a small fortune breeding fish" many times, and the answer always turns out as "Best option is to start with a big fortune, but if you haven't got that, easy to breed fish that grow quickly (such as common Ancistrus) will be the best choice".

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Mats

[somefinfishy]

I understand the doubt here
maybe I can get my hands on some one of these years.
I local retail/wholesale direct importer here has ordered zebras in from SA 3 times they allways get stolen.
The airline pays for the loss but OUCH 300 zebra plecos even at wholesale prices $60-100 each.
They allways get into the country and pass customs then turn up missing.
I think a customs guy is tipping someone off.
how else would you find those and only those out of the mountains of live stuff that must come through miami.

BTW I made my small foutune selling my ABN plecos at the MN fish show. sold 60 @$4 each.

[MatsP]

I'm not strictly saying I don't believe you - I'd be very happy if it was true. But it's been said several times before, and not turned out to be anything other than a big rumour.

Sure, zebra plecos are in demand and valuable - that I do not doubt. Nor do I doubt that there are/will be someone trying to breed them on large scale - SE Asia would be a good place for it, since it's suitable climate at the very least so no big bills for keeping hundreds of tanks at the right temperature.

But with a brood size of about 15-20, a year to (small) salable size (not the size where they would fetch $60-100 at wholesale level - that takes at least two years). And what's the point of stock-piling the fish to amount 10000 fish - it's just a great risk, nothing to be gained by it. Just sell them as soon as they are big enough to tolerate long-distance shipping (1"+). And like I tried to say earlier, 10000 fish isn't that a huge number in the world of aquatics. Amongst the keepers who have registered their fish in the "My Cats" section, I found 124 keepers, and I picked some likely candidates and found roughly 100 fish between those few - I didn't count up all the keepers numbers, but my guess is that there are 300 fish among the 124 keepers here.

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Mats

[Haavard Stoere]

I heard the same rumor in 2004. 10.000 may sound a lot, but they will get soaked up into the market in no time.

[MatsP]

I heard the same rumor in 2004. 10.000 may sound a lot, but they will get soaked up into the market in no time.

Exactly.

Just Maidenhead Aquatics stores in the UK are some 80 or so locations. They could easily buy [I don't necessarily think they WILL] all of the 10000 in one go, and you'd still only have one or two tanks worth in each shop. That is JUST in the UK. If PetsMart or such in the US were to buy all the stock, you probably only get a few dozee per shop. Again, I don't think that would happen. But you certainly see tanks with a few dozen Gold Nuggets or a couple of tank-fulls of a single species in some cases.

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Mats

[Mike_Noren]

NThat a firm he buys from in asia has started breeding zebra plecos in mass quanitys and have been only releaseing them 100-200 at a time.
They are sitting on 10,000 of them and will flood the market sometime in the next year.

I've heard rumors about this, but frankly I'm mostly surprised it hasn't happened sooner - these fish aren't harder to come by or breed than any of a number of other fish the SEA and czech breeders are churning out by the millions.

So... Brace for painted albino veilfin balloon zebras.