Where can I find "rare cichlids"
- Thread starter florencejr11
- Start date
Just a little tale of what sometimes happens when trying to collect.
I set out this morning about 8 AM for the ferry dock to catch a boat to the mainland, to collect in the Mamoni river.
The river is about 1 .5 hours from where I get off the ferry, in Panama City, to the edge of the Darien.
My guide/driver/and pro net man, was waiting, and we quickly headed out.
My average collecting trips have a time window from about 9:30 AM until about 2 PM when I must stop netting, to get back to to the dock in time to catch he last return ferry at 3PM, otherwise its a hotel stay, so tack on another $100, and add a couple meals in a restaurant..
Just as we hit the outskirts of Panama City, traffic slowed to an intermittent crawl stop scenario, and finally stopped completely, we sat for at least 2 hours.
Turns out a school had not been getting potable water for a rather extended amount of time, and nothing was being done by the powers that be, to rectify the situation, so the parents, teachers, and others frustration caused them enough angst to set up a demonstration, blocking the only highway out of town to and from, to get to the Mamoni river.
After sitting in traffic until noon, (a time I consider a point of not enough time to begin collecting), we turned around and aborted the trip .
For me a lost day, but because I live in Panama, only a cost loss of about $100.
I will try again next week.
This same thing happed about 8 months ago when another demonstration blocked my return collecting trip, making me late for the last ferry, and jeopardizing a bucket of fish.
You can imagine if you had set up a limited time collecting trip from abroad, booked flights, and hotels, and what a snafu similar to this might cost, a collector.
I set out this morning about 8 AM for the ferry dock to catch a boat to the mainland, to collect in the Mamoni river.
The river is about 1 .5 hours from where I get off the ferry, in Panama City, to the edge of the Darien.
My guide/driver/and pro net man, was waiting, and we quickly headed out.
My average collecting trips have a time window from about 9:30 AM until about 2 PM when I must stop netting, to get back to to the dock in time to catch he last return ferry at 3PM, otherwise its a hotel stay, so tack on another $100, and add a couple meals in a restaurant..
Just as we hit the outskirts of Panama City, traffic slowed to an intermittent crawl stop scenario, and finally stopped completely, we sat for at least 2 hours.
Turns out a school had not been getting potable water for a rather extended amount of time, and nothing was being done by the powers that be, to rectify the situation, so the parents, teachers, and others frustration caused them enough angst to set up a demonstration, blocking the only highway out of town to and from, to get to the Mamoni river.
After sitting in traffic until noon, (a time I consider a point of not enough time to begin collecting), we turned around and aborted the trip .
For me a lost day, but because I live in Panama, only a cost loss of about $100.
I will try again next week.
This same thing happed about 8 months ago when another demonstration blocked my return collecting trip, making me late for the last ferry, and jeopardizing a bucket of fish.
You can imagine if you had set up a limited time collecting trip from abroad, booked flights, and hotels, and what a snafu similar to this might cost, a collector.
Sad, but true. Serious aquarists have been on the decline in the U.S. for decades as evidenced by the disappearance of the local "fish store" over the last 40 years or so.
I subscribe to several publications out of Europe and, although they are also lamenting the state of the hobby, it is evident that it is still much stronger than on this side of the pond. I can't find any Asian magazines available in English, but when you look at where the rarest and most desirable fish go--Japan, Thailand, the Asian-Pacific countries, it looks like the Asian countries are where the hobby is flourishing and growing these days.
Just saw a statistic recently, the global aquarium market is valued at $13.17 billion, of which the U.S. market is $2.59 billion with 14.7 million (less than 5%) American households owning a pet fish, which includes everything from a single betta to a 17k gallon reef tank. Aquarium Industry Stats
Even the fishkeeping hobby in some East Asian countries is slowly dying out, or at least it seems to me... Large, centralised stores either grow somewhat or are created anew, but are few and far in between; a significant amount of smaller stores are shutting down each year, and oftentimes one has to travel a fair ways to get to a large store or purchase online a rarer fish that isn't a conventional tetra, poecilid, cichlid, etc.
In South Korea, at least, I watched six stores within ten miles of each other close down in the span of a single year; a bit out of the way in Seoul, there was a guy breeding (?) and selling large Asian arowanas in 2018; when I was in the area in 2020, it appeared as though he was forced to close down or relocate. Near Cheonggyecheon Stream in Seoul, there used to be ~20 small fish and pet stores on a street just about six or seven years ago; many of them are now gone. Animal welfare was practically nonexistent, though, and at the very least there aren't as many animals kept in poor condition there anymore, but it's still a bit disheartening to see some fairly decent fish stores that carried rarer fish shut down.
I've heard of similar situations in parts of Japan; some fish stores that shut down in the last eight years there had apparently been standing for decades before closing.
Having read some East Asian fishkeeping magazines (primarily Aqua Life), there's certainly a decent market for rarer fish, but what appears to be in greater demand are high-quality fishes that appeal more due to aesthetics more than anything else; there seems to be more of a focus on rare guppy and medaka strains, along with rare SA tetras, apistos, cories, some plecos, and to a lesser extent, fish such as bichirs and perhaps rays and unusual large catfishes.
As a long time cichlid keeper, it was a sad week seeing COTA stop offering his services. For as long as I can remember COTA and TUIC have been most frequently visited sites.
As I’ve gotten older it has become clearer how small the community really is, even on this site you usually see a lot of familiar names.
I would love to see the hobby grow in the future but in the mean time I just wanted to say I appreciate COTA, TUIC for all of their hard work
Seth
As I’ve gotten older it has become clearer how small the community really is, even on this site you usually see a lot of familiar names.
I would love to see the hobby grow in the future but in the mean time I just wanted to say I appreciate COTA, TUIC for all of their hard work
Seth
Only African Cichlids, Rare south and central Americans seem to be the topic of this post.
