Acquisition of Stock

There are four methods in which to acquire stock for your aquarium. It is important to note that each method has its own strengths and its own weaknesses and none are inherently superior to the other. We will examine the strengths and the drawbacks now of each methodology and please feel free to consult related pages if you need recommendations on how to overcome some of the drawbacks of each method:

1.) Local Fish Store:

• The Benefit: Local fish stores commonly contain the widest variety of fish available to the hobbyist. It is commonly an amalgamation of multiple sources. From fish farms, to wholesalers both foreign and domestic, and finally hobbyist breeders all contribute to the variety typically found in local fish stores. For that reason alone the local fish store represents the best chance the hobbyist has of finding a particular fish that they have selected for their tank. The owners of local fish stores also commonly possess specialized knowledge in that species and have gained through experience specialized knowledge that allows them to provide advice on a species and tend to be a valuable source of knowledge that the hobbyist can consult in order to make more educated decisions on how to overcome challenges. The final benefit of a local fish store that can’t be overstated is that the hobbyist can choose which particular animal they want. You may of course want to select this for color patterns that often indicate the sex of the fish or you may want to select based on behavior. It is very common for a LFS to show proof that the animal is eating before many hobbyists will purchase it.
• The Drawback: The first drawback that you have to overcome as a hobbyist is that the store owner has to price in the cost of a brick and mortar building into the price of the fish that you are going to purchase. Additionally the tanks themselves are often times a vector of disease. What you have to understand is that each time a local fish store purchases new stock, that stock may be arriving carrying a new disease itself. Most stores do not quarantine stock, as such the new fish that replace the old fish may very well be sick and placed into tanks that used to have other sick fish. The pathogen loads then tend to build up and spread illness amongst the current inhabitants of the tank. Due to the fact that many LFS operate on smaller margins, many can’t cleanse tanks or quarantine thus fish that look fine when purchased can come down with illnesses one or two weeks after arriving in the home of a hobbyist. Please consult the resource on hospital tanks in order to learn how to address this drawback. It will outline how one can address sick fish, initiate biocontainment, and treat fish so that illness doesn’t undermine your goals or cause you to damage the aquascapes you worked hard and invested time, money, and energy in building to retrieve and remove sick fish.

2.) Online Store:

• The Benefit: Online stores often times focus upon particular species or suppliers. You can think of them as being very similar to an LFS only with online stores they select the stock you tell them that you want and then they ship the fish to you. Online stores often times have a much wider variety of rarer stock then local fish stores do. The reason for this is that a local fish store tends to be more geared toward a customer that walks into the door. Thus you will find local fish stores flush with commonly requested fish such as cardinal tetras, angelfish and various livebearers such as guppies, swordtails, and platys. What an online store does is serve customers who aren’t interested in the common fare. They serve a clientele that is looking for a specific species, to put together a specific biotope, or the hobbyist which has more specialized goals in mind. A brick and mortar store typically doesn’t have enough demand to warrant devoting space to the fish that this subdivision of the hobby is more interested in and thus the online store steps in to fill the need. Additionally you have stores such as Dan’s Fish, Dave’s Rare Aquarium Fish, and Uncle Joe’s Fish Shed that are more geared toward acquisition from hobbyists. This helps to ensure that they have higher quality stock from hobbyists that are passionate about the fish they breed. Each shop has its own additional internal controls that directly translate into healthier fish being shipped to the customer. Additionally these stores are commonly expert shippers, having DOA fish or even struggling fish means that customers would be less likely to choose an online shipper to acquire new specimens. For this reason every online store has a vested interest in making certain that the fish that arrive have the best start possible. This often translates to elite care such as vet services on the stock, internal testing, expert packing, and a reliance on procedure that minimize the chance of animals being shipped in foul water.
• The Drawback: The online store is hands down the most expensive of the choices available to the hobbyist. In addition to an often larger expense when acquiring individual fish, you will also have to deal with a very expensive shipping procedure and you will be at the mercy of the carrier to deliver your fish to you at a specific time. It can’t be understated that shipping delays, the reliability of the carrier, and the expense alone are enough to cause many hobbyists to seek another means of acquiring fish. The burden of taking off of work is often one that many hobbyists do not have the option to do and if your carrier leaves the box in the open sun during a Florida summer for instance the hobbyist will likely open the box coming home from work only to find dead fish carefully packed inside. Additionally you don’t get to pick which fish gets shipped to you as a result the fish that you receive may not have been the best fish that was available.

3.) Club Auction

• The Benefit: When you purchase from hobbyists directly you are often purchasing a higher quality of stock, that is cheaper then you can get anywhere else and has the additional benefit of having a name and a face behind the sale with expert knowledge of how the fish was kept, how it was fed, and how it was handled prior to arrival into your home. It isn’t an exaggeration to say that acquiring fish in this manner can be the very cheapest way that can’t be matched by any store front. Often times many fish can be purchased at a club auction for a fraction of the amount of the price of one. As many hobbyists take personal pride in what they raise and consider themselves in many cases as people on a mission to lessen the affects of wild collection on the environment you can often times find a higher quality fish from hobbyists at club auctions. You may in some cases also find that hobbyists that are actively developing strains of fish that can be found no where else. This can result in fish of a given species baring unique markings or displaying unique traits that make them markedly different then wild varieties.
• The Drawback: There are many drawbacks from purchasing fish at a club auction. The first is that there is a very low chance of a particular fish being made available at any one auction. Often times what is available is a very low variety that represents only what one particular hobbyist was interested in at that particular time. Additionally hobbyists are experts in husbandry, they aren’t exactly experts at preparing fish to be sold nor do they provide a warranty in case fish are lost. This means that you often find fish in bags that are woefully underprepared for sale, that have not been prepped for a long period of time in a bag and thus are often subject to ammonia burn, temperature shock, and low oxygen while in those bags. Please consult the related resource on how to handle club auctions, transportation, and acclimation if you need help dealing with these types of problems.

4.) Online Auction

• The Benefit: Online auctions have the same benefits of online stores in that they often provide the hobbyist of a way of locating highly specialized species and morphs that are not normally available nor feasible for LFS to house and acquire for purchase because of a lack of demand. The benefit of using an online auction site is access to these unique stocking options. Additionally many times you can not only acquire unique stock for a more reasonable price, but also can see pictures of the exact animal(s) in question. As you are often talking directly to the hobbyist you can ask questions about the origin, the husbandry, and can often get advice directly from the hobbyist before making the decision to enter the auction. Thus you get to verify that the stock in question would be compatible with your overall goal for the tank.
• The Drawback: The principle drawback of using online auctions is that the mechanics of the auction means that you often must wait a period of time before winning that auction. During that time the particular auction that you are interested in may attract others who are also interested in the fish you wanted. Thus a FOMO situation can easily develop (Fear Of Missing Out) and two or more hobbyists determined to acquire the stock can send the price spiraling to the point where its no longer cheap to acquire the stock. Additionally because some auctions are for a specified # of individuals, you often times are given fish that are not yet able to be sexed so after spending the money winning the auction and shipping the fish to your location you aren’t even guaranteed to receive a mixture of male and female fish. This represents a very large and unacceptable risk to many.