Tropical Fish Forums

[sirreal63]

Interesting topic...the price of fish has some relation to who buys them. I'll go from the saltwater side of the discussion.

Consider this fish... http://www.liveaquaria.com/diversden/ItemDisplay.cfm?ddid=16641&siteid=20

A mere 1300 bucks and he can be yours. If you paid 1300 for a fish would you be more concerned about it's life and your investment than if it were a 2.99 fish? I would say so. If this hobby were more expensive people might care about the fish more. If you don't have money to waste you might be more inclined to make better choices. Of course there will always be exceptions but in general the more of an investment you have in something the better you will care for that investment. Those 150.00 Hollister jeans will be better taken care of than the 20.00 walmart ones...yes?

I cringe every time I go coral shopping, the prices are very high and I research what I want and look for it when shopping. You don't typically impulse buy a 100.00 coral. If I bought an LPS coral that had very long sweeper tentacles it could kill some very expensive and hard to replace corals. The trend now is coral fads, where something that isn't widely available will garnish outlandish prices. Montipora Danae (aka Superman)comes to mind. One of my friends bought a 1" piece of this coral for 100.00 and paid for overnight shipping. This little tiny pc cost him 150.00 and that is ridiculous, but he was very sucessful with the Superman frag and now sells pcs of it himself. Mine is doing very nicely.

I do feel bad for people getting into this hobby on a limited budget. They would be the ones who would be forced to make better choices on fish selection. That is where places like come in handy, and local fish clubs as well. We rely on each other for advice and in our local saltwater club we usually help newbies out with very cheap coral frags and most of the time they are free. We all have learned the expense in this hobby isn't the livestock but the equipment, if the livestock were higher priced it would weed out those who weren't serious about the hobby.

In short, higher prices do have the potential to create better fishkeepers of the masses. It is easier to blow off taking care of a 2.99 fish, but if that fish cost 10.00 you would be less likely to ignore it's needs.
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Out on the road today...I saw a DeadHead sticker on a Cadillac...
Jack
110 Gallon DSA Pentagon

[arachnar]

I'm also only 15 and don't yet have a job because most people look for people above 16 (there are laws and employee welfare things,this usely applies to the fact that many employers would be sued for negligence if they let younger people work high risk materials or machines)
also I hope lfs are simply more caring like mine and inqire were you;ll be keeping the fish
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[Serkan]

On a trip to a nice little LFS I found a few weeks ago I have found out that:

Zebro Plecos L333 are $300 AUD ($225 US) for 8cm size.

Royal Plecos are almost twice this.

10cm Asian Green Arowana is $1300 AUD ($1000 US)

10cm Red Belly Pacu are $225 each ( $155 US)

Those are all pretty cheap prices too.

SO yea. Not buying any of those.
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Free is Good.

[Tienie]

If pet shops where forced to give accurate advice about fish, rather than try to sell you as much stuff as possible - it would have a better effect than raising prices.

The holding tanks need to have basic info on such as:

Adult size
Water requirements (hard / soft / pH)
Food requirements

This could be on a laminated card, with the details filled in in permanent marker so that it can be reused.
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Life is a journey, where are you going?

[number6]

Utopias will never last though... how would super high prices last?

e.g. this happens already in feshwater... it's probably not far off for salt water fish...

If fish X takes 6 months to grow, and uses up resources Y to grow it... then it is a crop that can be farmed... if it has a price tag of $1300 per fish and the cost in resources is a mere $300 per fish to grow to market size, then we would begin farming this fish...
now to compete... do I really have to make $300 profit on the fish? assuming I sell for $600 to the LFS and LFS marks it up to $1300...
or... if can my business operate if I drop the price... or what if buyers learn that I will sell direct?

Simple... demand goes up as more people can afford super expensive fish X that they've drooled over for a year...

so... if the price is inflated... the extra money goes where? into whose pocket? because if it's anyone of the individuals in the trade, they will g for the profit for themselves...

now if you want to get really creative... you can slap a resource tax at the consumer level and funnel that money back into resource management...

but hey... next thing you guys cry about is high taxes... LOL

sorry... but I don't see how turning fish into a product like Gasoline is going to help anyone out... least of all the fish
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"Just don't look in my fish room honey... it's just better for all of us. "

[fiffy]

[McP]

[Pete Harcoff]

[Marcos Avila]

[celticwraith]

I have to say after reading all the different opinions on this topic, I have changed my view. Raising prices alone won't help solve the problem of people buying fish, that have no clue how to care for them, or sellers who are willing to sell to them. It will just puts more money in the sellers pocket. I still would pay a slightly higher price, do to regulations and education being put in place. Prices would have made me think twice in the beginning, but as someone already pointed out, some people have money and don't care how they send it. Regulation,education along with some higher prices as some have pointed out, would most likely change how and when fish are sold.