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The following article was composed by the owner of flowerfish.com, one of the worlds leaders of quality flowerhorns. Rather then try to rehash anything he has said, its probably better to just share his advice with yall...... enjoy
My personal advice to all potential FH hobbyists/resellers is this. NEVER buy small FH that has not shown its colors or head, no matter what the sellers tell you. ONLY buy fishes that has shown its beauty and NOT "potential" beauty unless you are on a tight budget and want to take risk.
If you are a pet store or importer/reseller of FH fishes, you will be in trouble if your customers grow the small fishes and it turns out to be crappy. They will never come back and buy from you again because they will feel cheated.
At flowerfish.com, we NEVER sell any fishes smaller than 3". There are many unscrupulous breeders that sell small fishes fed with hormones and plagarising the famous names such as Blue Dragon and Red Dragons. These move very fast because at such a small size, the pearls and color will show already but it will fade in a week or two. The fishes will also be stunted with buldging eyes and very disease prone. These practice is called cheating the customers.
One reason for breeders/exporter to do such practice is because they do not have the infrastructure to individually house the fishes till 3". They will have to push their baby fishes out fast because they will start fighting at about 1". Most other so-called "farms" from Malaysia are actually fish-brokers that market other breeder's fishes on the internet. They will quote that they have a collective farm of 5 or 10 acres,or whatever grandeur, but most of these are home breeders or their friends with a breeding pair or two and not professionally full-fledged farms. Of course this statement is a generalization and there are also farms that are genuine, but very few.
There is a 50% chance that baby FHs will be females, which 90% of the time will not have a hump, if they are females. Out of the 50% that are males, only 20% of it will have good humps, if its from very good stock. (The highest % is the Blue Dragons which is about 25%-30%). And what more, if the top quality fishes should also have good markings, colours and nice body shape? With all these considerations, the chances of a top quality fish is only about 5% and I think its fair to pay a higher price for the top 5%.
Most farms will only yield about 5% top quality fishes, some even lesser and this result in farms trying to push out small fishes early and not taking risks growing them. If you buy these fishes, the breeders will pass on the risk to the buyers and making good and fast money in return.
Also, do check out http://www.flowerfish.com/articles.html and read on how to select the most beautiful FH fishes. This will give you a better idea on how to buy a good fish.
My personal advice to all potential FH hobbyists/resellers is this. NEVER buy small FH that has not shown its colors or head, no matter what the sellers tell you. ONLY buy fishes that has shown its beauty and NOT "potential" beauty unless you are on a tight budget and want to take risk.
If you are a pet store or importer/reseller of FH fishes, you will be in trouble if your customers grow the small fishes and it turns out to be crappy. They will never come back and buy from you again because they will feel cheated.
At flowerfish.com, we NEVER sell any fishes smaller than 3". There are many unscrupulous breeders that sell small fishes fed with hormones and plagarising the famous names such as Blue Dragon and Red Dragons. These move very fast because at such a small size, the pearls and color will show already but it will fade in a week or two. The fishes will also be stunted with buldging eyes and very disease prone. These practice is called cheating the customers.
One reason for breeders/exporter to do such practice is because they do not have the infrastructure to individually house the fishes till 3". They will have to push their baby fishes out fast because they will start fighting at about 1". Most other so-called "farms" from Malaysia are actually fish-brokers that market other breeder's fishes on the internet. They will quote that they have a collective farm of 5 or 10 acres,or whatever grandeur, but most of these are home breeders or their friends with a breeding pair or two and not professionally full-fledged farms. Of course this statement is a generalization and there are also farms that are genuine, but very few.
There is a 50% chance that baby FHs will be females, which 90% of the time will not have a hump, if they are females. Out of the 50% that are males, only 20% of it will have good humps, if its from very good stock. (The highest % is the Blue Dragons which is about 25%-30%). And what more, if the top quality fishes should also have good markings, colours and nice body shape? With all these considerations, the chances of a top quality fish is only about 5% and I think its fair to pay a higher price for the top 5%.
Most farms will only yield about 5% top quality fishes, some even lesser and this result in farms trying to push out small fishes early and not taking risks growing them. If you buy these fishes, the breeders will pass on the risk to the buyers and making good and fast money in return.
Also, do check out http://www.flowerfish.com/articles.html and read on how to select the most beautiful FH fishes. This will give you a better idea on how to buy a good fish.
