Do Czech Republic Fish Breeders Have A Good Reputation?

[FlyingFish78]

My partner and I have decided to add 1 male and 2 female Dwarf Gouramis to 'finish off' our tank. Upon doing some research into the matter, it appears that Gouramis are notorious for carrying diseases; particularly those sourced from East Asia.

I phoned my LFS earlier and hooray I finally found one which stocks some females. I asked him which country the fish were sourced from and he said the Czech Republic.

Does anyone know how reliable Czech breeders are? Has anyone had experience of them before?

Obviously the last thing we want is to introduce a diseased fish into the tank! Thanks for any help and advice.

 

[hobby5]

Do you have any choice? From my experience Czech breeders are pretty good. And breeders don't sell sick fish and keep their tanks healthy as they simply cannot afford to lose fish all the time. Furthermore sick fish don't grow or grow poorly. Fish get sick while at the LFS, due to the stress by transportation and by bad keeping at the LFS. Imho its rarely the breeder who is to blame.
 
There is a special case with dwarf gouramis as they can suffer from an iridovirus. (Best read here: fact sheet) But this should not be contagious to your other fish.
 
Did you try to source your DG through any of the forums and get locally bred ones?
 
I would go the the LFS and check the fish carefully spending some time observing the whole batch and try to buy the most healthy looking ones. If they all look week or misshaped don't buy any. Also I would go for the wild form (hard to get I know) and not any of the fancy breeds, as those are weeker.

 

[TwoTankAmin]

Here is a quote from the Siegrest Farms blog:
 

 
[SIZE=small]The Czech Republic, unlike many of the tropical regions we receive ornamental fish from, is not known for its breathtaking biodiversity and has no native fish of interest to the hobby. What it does have, however, is a large network of dedicated breeders and small scale fish farmers which is renowned for exceptional quality and for the availability of species and line-bred variants seen almost nowhere else such as the black cory cat and mind blowing color variants of Apistogramma[/SIZE]

from http/segrestfarms.blogspot.com/
 
As far as I understand all of the bristlenose variants - longfins, albinos, reds, greens and marbled all were established by Czech breeders.

 

[FlyingFish78]

In the end I went to my LFS and the only Dwarf Gouramis they had were the remainder of a batch from the Czech Republic. In all, honesty the males were very small and most of the females didn't look particularly healthy. I had no choice but to buy the females from there because no other fish shop stocked females. I chose the healthiest looking two and immediately drove to a shop on the other side of town which was selling some fine looking male DGs. Again I spent some time observing the fish and asking the worker how long they'd been there (2 weeks) and where they were from. This time they were from Indonesia. Ive heard that East Asian breeders have a poor reputation but despite that the fish seemed healthy. Also the males were of a good size amd not tiny like in the other shop.

So I took my chances and now the fish are happily swimming around my aquarium. No problems with aggression so far and they appear to be eating well.

 

[hobby5]

Congrats & Good luck

 
Size is not always a good indicator. They might simply be younger.
 
Lets see some pics

 

[MBOU]

The specimens from Czech are definitely far better bred than those from Singapore and that area, that's a given... that's not to say individuals and certain batches don't have other problems or a rough journey or come into contact with other problems at the LFS etc... but after working in the trade for years, I would never buy dwarf gouramis.... that aside... if I *had* to... it would only be Czech specimens and they would be quarantined and pre-emptively treated in quarantine before going in main tank. But in my experience... DGs are more disease ridden than guppies and that takes a lot... 
 
Have you ever considered Thick Lipped Gouramis? (sorry ,seen you got some but for future reference...).... a lot of shops have access to this species but don't tend to consider them unless asked... but you can get orange ones (like orange honey gouramis) or banded blue and red (like the dwarf gourami) and they get to about the same size as a good sized dwarf gourami but without all the health problems and far nicer temperaments.