Pike seasonality?

[BigPic]

Each country has a different set of rules for export along with the fact that different pikes ship better at different sizes. A dwarf is better when grown, so, you need to get them as sub-adult (for the most part) fish, only found later in the season. In the case of most of the larger (lugubris types) you want juvies to ship (2"-4") they would need to be collected earlier in the season. My $0.02, still learning the ins and outs of the import biz on cichlids

 

[Conner]

Are any of the pikes being captive bred on any commercial scale yet?

 

[BigPic]

Not that I have heard of, but, we put Scotti and "Saxatillis" from Uruguay in a couple ponds in March, we will see what happens when we go back to the farm in April.

 

[ibz_rg]

I pretty much have only seen "belly crawlers" and Svenis around here. Not that I would buy an expensive pike from an LFS anyways.

 

[Conner]

I pretty much have only seen "belly crawlers" and Svenis around here. Not that I would buy an expensive pike from an LFS anyways.

It depends on if the lfs even knows what they have. None of the ones around me know anything other than "its a pike". I bought a 6-7" venezuelan for the same price ($10) as they had 4" belly crawlers for sale. I got several lepidota and alta pikes, both at the lfs, for the same price as belly crawlers because they don't notice a difference.

If I saw a nice pike at the lfs, and they didn't know what it was, I'd buy it unless it was horribly overpriced. Its better than paying for shipping cross-country most of the time.

 

[its_an_obsession]

i think seeing them in a LFS is more about demand than seasonality. pikes are terribly quick sellers especially for the mom and pop store that only has so many tanks. its much more profitable to bring in the small tetras and mollies and that stuff.

best bet is to ask the owner if his importer has any in stock. i used to see the list of available fish from my LFS when i was in upstate NY to try to get some of the harder to find fish.