would you buy these?

[fishnut]

It's a matter of personal choice, but I would not buy the fry for the following reason:

If the fry turn out to be better then the parents, the most charactistic that the fry will show is a big hump with nice pearls and flowerline and not much color. I also like some color. But since flowerhorns are hybrid w/combinations of a lot of mixed genes, there will be a few that will show characteristics not of the parents but the ancestor.

 

[oHsNaP1337]

depends on price. If it's someone in it to make a lot of money and selling fry for more than $10 then no. I got some fry from Julie for $5 each and they are turning out pretty good. Some people try and hype the fry because dad has monster kok and sell them for $15-$20 and thats a ripoff IMO. So, if fry are priced decent, I would buy some.

+1.....


They are a nice pair and if priced right you should be able to sell them off pretty fast. From personal experience I would never pay over 10 bucks for a fry and 20 bucks is a bit ridiculous no matter how big a KOK or a MP the seller makes out the father and mother to be......My reasoning is this, when people buy frys, they will tend to buy 5-10 fry's at one time, usually no one will buy just one, and at 20 dollars a piece plus shipping, depending on the amount you buy, you're looking at 150-250 dollars. It's better to take that money and buy a 3-5 incher that already has potential and you would probably save money on top of that......

 

[cichlaguapote]

Let me ask you a question.......if I breed a red dragon with a JK, am I going for a fish with a nice flowerline or a fader with a big head?

I had one discussion on here, that was later edited, it really left me speechless.

It was in buy/sell. Buy/Sell = buy or sell, not discuss what you see in your crystal ball especially when the ball is apparently foggy.

As far as breeding and selling for X price. There are just too numerous expenses/issues that even if you're selling for $20.00 each with a multiples discount(everyone I know who sells fry gives discount on multiples, it's almost standard) you're not really going to be rolling in the dough. Everyone see's someone's selling price but doesn't consider all the other costs associated with breeding/rearing/selling/feeding/shipping fry. Not to mention time. That was the biggest thing for me. Or how many fry actually will have buyers because of economy, and just the sheer number of FH on the market and limited amount of FH hobbiest's. LFS' usually buy fry of course so there's an option but one I haven't used.

As far as breeding those two. If you have the room/time go ahead. It's alot of work but it's an "experiance" I guess. lol And there's plenty of people to help if you have questions.

 

[beantickler]

Nice lookin parents bro... GL with the project.

 

[VittleKing]

I realize the costs bro, and when I sell my fry, I try to keep them priced very fair. It's fun raising fry and sure you can squeeze every penny out of the buyers, thats ones right, but it's also nice to sell them for a fair price, make some loot to offset your costs and get more people involved in the FH/Hybrid hobby. I for one prefer to hook people up than to squeeze every penny possable out of each batch. I don't buy into alot of what you said either. FH grow soooo fast, it doesn't cost thousands of dollars to raise them for a month or two. If you have 200 fry, which is a normal batch and sell them for average $10 each, thats $2000. Thats a lot of profit right there, when you sell them $20+ each even 10 for $150 the profit margin is even greater. It's simple math. Some people are in this to make money, some are in it for the love of the fish, and to meet fellow hobbyists and try to be fair to everyone. The thing I don't like is when people will post pictures of the parents and try to get people to believe all the fry will be amazing and fetch a price of $20+ each. The top 10% may fetch that price, but not the whole batch. Some of the prices you see people selling these "random scoop" fry for are just ridiculous. If they want to charge that high price, they should grow them out untill they show potential, sell the good ones for an even higher price, and cull the crappy ones.

 

[armac]

I also like the "I will only sell the top quality ones" but you see they continue to run the ad with things like "only 75 left" then "only 50 left" then "only 25 left"

What happened to selling only the top quality ones?

Many new people in the hobby get down when you buy a supposed "hand picked fry" and you get nothing.

I bought a kamfa from a guy supposedly hand picked, this was about 4 years back, kept him for 2 1/2 years he was ugly from day one until I gave him away to a guy with a pond. He is till ugly today............

I have had some nice fish since then, but that incident soured me, and then when you try to point that out, you are silenced. No matter what forum you see something, if it is not right, you should be able to voice your opinion.

BTW if the OP likes the original fish he posted buy them, they are quality fish. I lke the female far more than the male.

 

[terminalMTS]

i like the kamfa. the male has a nice head and fins but, he does lack color. the fry that get the best traits from both parents will be great, but there will be fry that get the crap traits from both parents. i am getting rid of my fugly fry as feeders. there are culls in every batch. even pure bred fish have some that need to be culled. none of this means that you shouldn't breed your fish. i think that you will get 5 to 10% very high quality fry, 60% decent to high quality, and the rest will be culls. IMO. that is about 25% culls.

 

[cichlaguapote]

I also like the "I will only sell the top quality ones" but you see they continue to run the ad with things like "only 75 left" then "only 50 left" then "only 25 left"

What happened to selling only the top quality ones?

Many new people in the hobby get down when you buy a supposed "hand picked fry" and you get nothing.

I bought a kamfa from a guy supposedly hand picked, this was about 4 years back, kept him for 2 1/2 years he was ugly from day one until I gave him away to a guy with a pond. He is till ugly today............

I have had some nice fish since then, but that incident soured me, and then when you try to point that out, you are silenced. No matter what forum you see something, if it is not right, you should be able to voice your opinion.

While I may have worded it different and not on purpose my plan was to sell as many that would sell fast, trying to pick out the better ones(which is hard in a batch where all are good quality), then cull what was left over. And I did. I ended up culling at least 100 or so. Most I sold in multiples coming out to about $5.00 a peice. Some I sold for even less than that down to close to $2.00 a peice in high quanity. I didn't pick any for myself out first, I didn't even keep any myself. And friends didn't get theirs til the end of the batch.

I never said all will have big heads. I only said the traits the fish had at the time. And showed the parents. And honestly unless the fish is 3-4" that's about all you can do from fry size in a tank of 200+ fry. It's all guesses. All were happy upon receipt of the fish.

While I'm sorry to hear about your incident. All sellers are not the same. And kamfa's are a different breed when trying to pick a good fish. This is why most buy large quanitys and sort them as they go. This is the best way to buy fry. I've had fish that were bought at 1" that turned out good and fish that were bought at 3-4" that didn't turn out good. We've all been there.

 

[terminalMTS]

btw, killer, i think that you have alot better males that you could choose from. you have some very nice males that with this kamfa, would create awesome fry. i was in a hurry earlier and didn't have time to say that.

 

[armac]

I disagree. Most of the time, breeders do not show the parents, because they don't look as quality as the juvies that they are selling and don't want the buyers to shy away from seeing the quality of parents or see the "limit" of a trait that buyer is looking for in specific(such as KOK) Another reason could be that they don't want to share to to make a such a breed that's hot(like KK, TK, Thai silk, and etc...)

Not many people share the pics of parents, and they do because they are confident of their parents when it comes to quality. You are right on one thing, MP parents do not produce all MP frys. Only a few from a batch come close if not surpass the quality of parents. However, good quality parents will produce MUCH more quality frys in percentage vs low to mid quality parents producing anything nice. If a seller shows pics of parents and they are something you are looking for, I'd risk my chances by getting their frys and grow them out and hope they will turn out similar as their parents in quality. Especially when I am in a budget with high taste and you can get several of them for less than $100.

Another thread with the parents posted, seems like that happens more than you thought.