South American Suppliers

keenonfish · Aug 24, 2009

Hey folks speaking to a few of LFS folk lately they are complaing of problems with suppliers from South America ATM.. various reasons sited from stock quality to credit crunch but I am wondering if anyone else knows what is happening... I have noticed some fish have been less readily available (I still can't find my hatchets

) and also Neons / Cardinals have gone up in price lately - one LFS I went to recenlty said he has started getting them from Asia now and his SA list has gone from 6 sheets to 1 sheet.

BTW my current record for Cardinals is 4 for £10 :crazy:

Might start a breeding program off myself at that price! Maidenhead near me sold them 6 for £6 recently but now £7.25 which is the cheapest I have seen (at least in 'stock I can trust' catagory!). My prefered LFS in Manchester is 4 for £6 and that is glowlights too! Things are definately going up in price but is it just 'overdue' or is there really a supply issue here?

Essjay · Aug 25, 2009

I got some cardinals recently. I phoned round first and a couple of shops didn't have any. One said that the wholesaler didn't have them on their list at the moment, so they were thinking of trying another. It does sound like there is some sort of problem.

I found some at the third try, £13 for 8, or £2 each in one of my prefered shops - I now have a shoal of 8. I saw them later in Maidenhead Aq for £2.75 each.

saz326 · Aug 25, 2009

Is it the same for most tetras? They've gotta be the "bread and butter" of these fish shops. You see so many fly out the door (bagged up of-course!)

fiskkeeperpro · Aug 25, 2009

cardinals are £2 each in my lfs, no offers though

Spishkey · Aug 25, 2009

cardinals are currently 12 for €10 here (whats that about £7?)

saz326 · Aug 25, 2009

If Spish can get them at that low price then maybe its due to transport costs rather than the farming etc costs.

Spishkey · Aug 25, 2009

definatly no shortage over here, most shops sell them at €1 per fish (less than £1) and ever shop has them

keenonfish · Aug 26, 2009

Spishkey said:
definatly no shortage over here, most shops sell them at €1 per fish (less than £1) and ever shop has them

Wow, that is cheap!

So anyone know for sure what is happening or is it just a local thing?

tr0p1cal · Aug 26, 2009

cardinals are £2.75 each round my way and neons £1.75

keenonfish · Aug 26, 2009

tr0p1cal said:
cardinals are £2.75 each round my way and neons £1.75

Now that is silly! Yesterday I found somewhere selling 9 Neons for £10. They are strugging to get hold of Cardinals though!

NaughtyT · Aug 26, 2009

£2.10 for cardinals here,can get neons for 80p though

ALW · Aug 26, 2009

At my LFS:

Neon 5 for £5
Cardinal 5 for £6

Tolak · Aug 26, 2009

It's a Brazilian thing. I have a buddy that deals with SA imports, 20-30 boxes every few weeks. The Brazilian government had a crackdown, nailed illegal exports. There was some sort of ray that was selling big, and considerably easier to catch due to the water levels being so high. Different countries have different laws on what is legal to export and what is not. Apparently they were skirting these laws through various methods. There were also a few other species they were nailed with zebra plecs being among them, this is from correspondence in Portuguese, so there is a bit of translation difficulty there.

It also doesn't help that they were arrested and held with no bail, as well as having their facilities locked down by the government. This means no entry at all, the fish don't get any care whatsoever. Apparently the government is talking about rereleasing all stock into the Amazon, which is not real bright, as many of these fish were collected hundreds of miles away. They would be released in much less than optimal areas, survivability is doubtful.

Columbia is still exporting though, while a much smaller country the list he was showing me last night is pretty large.

keenonfish · Aug 27, 2009

andywatson29 said:
At my LFS:

Neon 5 for £5
Cardinal 5 for £6

Oh that in Leeds? Where abouts?

Tolak said:
It's a Brazilian thing. I have a buddy that deals with SA imports, 20-30 boxes every few weeks. The Brazilian government had a crackdown, nailed illegal exports. There was some sort of ray that was selling big, and considerably easier to catch due to the water levels being so high. Different countries have different laws on what is legal to export and what is not. Apparently they were skirting these laws through various methods. There were also a few other species they were nailed with zebra plecs being among them, this is from correspondence in Portuguese, so there is a bit of translation difficulty there.

It also doesn't help that they were arrested and held with no bail, as well as having their facilities locked down by the government. This means no entry at all, the fish don't get any care whatsoever. Apparently the government is talking about rereleasing all stock into the Amazon, which is not real bright, as many of these fish were collected hundreds of miles away. They would be released in much less than optimal areas, survivability is doubtful.

Columbia is still exporting though, while a much smaller country the list he was showing me last night is pretty large.

Thanks Tolak, that's interesting! So obviously dependant on where LFS sources it's fish then, determines price and availability! I will at least have some info when I next talk to my local place.

Olly.