Lucky Phil

[Jess]

He is a great looking fishy phil :P

[Em]

Are you guys going to share where you got these beautiful bargains from? Cause I've NEVER seen anything like that around here (and I'm green with envy!)

[Robbies Betta]

That guy is AMAZING. I still can't believe the price you got them for. Can't wait to see what breeding plans are in store for these guys :P

[Phil]

Thanks people, there are still more HMs there and even an extended red DT HM! They are from St George Aquariums at Rockdale. Sydney :P

[Bettabegood]

I wish my lfs had such beauties in their bargain tank. Onya Phil for snapping up these stunning fish with their unbelieveably low price tags. Sue

[najrick]

Wow, I have been looking at all the lovely fish you guys got over the weekend. Truly unbelievable. Do you know why the price was so low? Do you think they were getting rid of old stock, or do you think they just did not know what they had? Either way you have got some real beauty's there, and the price to make any of us non Sydney siders green with envy. Najina

[Chuckie]

They didn't seem to be old stock (ie, suffering ammonia burn and finrot and collapsed fins from being kept in a coffee jar long-term) like you often see in LFS bettas, but they do seem to take rather good care of them there. I suspect that they just didn't know what they had, as they were the same price as the VTs. Normally we see SDs foraround $25 here. HMs (if they are actually HM which is rare) can cost $50. We did do well, didn't we! I went out on Saturday with no intention of buying fish, but I couldn't leave these to suffer the fate of the Betta Ocean or similar. Not at that price.

[splendidbetta]

:D Nice fish! Maybe someone is doing what I plan to do: Sell local-bred halfmoons at a low price so more can be moved at a time and they don't rot on the shelf. I was thinking I would sell them wholesale for $5 so the retail would only need to be around $10, instead of the $40 that they go for now. That way the store would be more eager to buy my excess stock because the customers would also buy the cheaper fuller-finned bettas more readilly... But I wonder if the store would actually sell them at a lower price because they buy them at a lower price? What is stopping them from charging $40 for a fish they bought cheap at $5 ? Could you come to an agreement with the store? *lol*

[Chuckie]

Stefan have you sold bettas to your LFS yet? If they take $5 a fish, you're probably doing very well. It's my understanding that they can import them for less than a dollar each. I think if they can sell them for $40, why wouldn't they?

[VickiPS]

The two LFSs that I sometimes sell bettas to pay the current wholesale price (as per Bay Fish price list) -- this is usually given as store credit, though. The usual retail mark-up here is 100%, less if the shop is having a sale or promotion. Best way is just to ask the shop first if they'll pay the same as the current wholesale price: Bay Fish's prices for HMs are definitely more than $5, and usually around $3.50 -- $5 for deltas and SDs. Some shops are a bit coy about telling what their wholesale prices are, it depends on how well you know the manager However, the LFSs here don't usually stock anything but VTs and a few CTs, so I don't usually sell many to them. (There's nearly always a small but steady demand for females, though, and the imbellis proved fairly popular).

[splendidbetta]

I've really only sold VT females to the lfs. I get $2 for each female. But I was talking about selling HMs. I know one of the local Pets Paradise takes HMs wholesale for $18, and that would mean they can sell them for $40. My family-owned 2 lfs can do the same. But the thing is, they know that the customers don't buy the HMs because of their higher price, and unless they are breeders like we are then they don't know the difference between a HM and a VT, so they get the cheaper VT. So if I sold my HMs and SDs to the stores for $3-$5 each, then the store would be able to sell them at a much lower price aswell. The store needs to make a full profit at least, so double the wholesale price should be enough. Well, I will have excess SDs and HMs early next year, so we'll see how the pricing goes. :)

[sharkey]

Do you know why the price was so low? Do you think they were getting rid of old stock, or do you think they just did not know what they had?

Definitely not old stock as this is probably the biggest auarium in Sydney and has a huge turnover. I really think they didn't know what they had and they probably don't care anyway, they sell all their bettas for $7.95. Some of the people I have spoken to in the LFS's around here have no idea what I am talking about when I say HM or SD, to them a betta is a betta.

[Chuckie]

Hi Stefan. The trouble with encouraging the LFS to sell HMs at lower prices is that it means that breeders have to sell for even less than we already do to compete. While I have no expectation that I will ever get my money back, and most breeder sell their bettas for a song IMHO, having to compete with the LFS who sells them for $7.95 forces the price down even further for breeders and we'll never make anything back, and some people may be forced to give up breeding if they can't even put a dent in their overheads. Besides, do we want people buying gorgeous HMs and keeping them in a filthy unheated jam jar because they always did that for their VTs who lasted a couple of years in those conditions? Surely if the fish costs more, the person is willing to spend more to house and care for it. Just some food for thought.

[splendidbetta]

Hi Lisa, I understand your point, and I wouldn't force the price of HMs down lower if I could help it, But, if I have a large spawn of HMs and SDs that I need to move out, I cant just go to the lfs and expect $20 for each fish. I will never move my excess stock, and I wouldn't expect all of you guys to go crazy on the fish I list in the classifieds section. You know my main interest in bettas is breeding them and producing my perfect goals, and I can't see the point in keeping an extra infinite of non-breeding stock which would leave less time for caring for my growing spawns. What would you consider to be a fair wholesale price for hms and sds? And I could always put up flyers on the local shopping centre bill-boards for people interested in buying directly from me... :)

[najrick]

Lilli makes a good point when she said that you really don't want an unexpecting buyer to buy a HM just because its almost the same price as a VT. We all know how much more time and care that a HM requires over a VT. Patrick and I were only discussing this last night. We still have about 20 VT's that came from our first spawn. They are fantastic guys who have a whole shelving unit to themselves. They are now over 18 months old. We do only the basic water changes on them, and even with that we push it to its limit. I have never had one come down sick or with fin rot. In fact if I could treat my HM's the same way this hobby would be so much easier. But the fact is I can't. HM's take a lot more time and maintenance. I don't think many of us can say that our HM boy that we got at 4 months old looks just as good now at 12 months old. In fact I would say that many of us count ourselves lucky to get a HM past 12 months old. Unless your LFS was willing to educate everyone that bought them, then you could be sending your fish to god knows what. And you would also have unhappy customers who brought back this scraggly little fish with all its fins missing in a couple of months time. The other problem with LFS is the size they want them to be. Most want them to be BIG. Ours will not accept anything under fully grown (6 months). I have had a lot of success advertising on message boards at supermarkets. Also word of mouth has really been a big seller lately. So most of my fish do go, but they do move slowly. so be prepared to have lots of free space for them. But we always have stock from each spawn that does not sell. The girls will go into a female community tank, the boys just become our pets. We recently lost a beautiful red BF HM to dropsy. He had become one of our pets because he never sold. So do please plan for the worst. And then you will not be disappointed if you end up with unsold bettas at the end. Najina

[splendidbetta]

:) Thanks Najina. So HMs don't really have any place in petsores and lfs. One of the family-owned lfs that I go to are able to get a halfmoon in on special request of the customer. I wonder if I could become that supplier? The billboard option is sounding more attractive to me now that I know someone else has had success with it. So do they come to your house to pick up the fish, and you educate them on HM care at the same time? And some fish do grow on you over time too, especially if they are attractive. But what about excess females that don't have any real breeding qualities? Are they still ok to sell to an lfs as SD females? And would you expect a higher price than the vt females? Btw, I'm not breeding to make money, I am just asking what to expect when I am selling...

[najrick]

Stefan, I think HM's have a place in lfs if they themselves know what they are doing and are willing to put in that little bit extra care that the VT's obviously don't seem to get. Our local ones have no idea and I wouldn't trust them to care or know anything about a plastic HM/CT/DT let alone a real one. The billboards work for us and account for quite a few of our sales. We also barter our bettas to other fish breeders. We love all our fish whether they are perfect formed HM's or humble VT's. We still have VT's that have only one ventral because they are our pets and we have had to tell some people who have come around to our house to buy fish that they can't have little "Bubbles" because he is our pet. As for excess females with no breeding plans then they live happily in our community tropical tank. You can sell them to a lfs I guess but will they know the difference between a HM geno female and a VT? Would they even care? Our's don't have a clue and we'd rather give them away than put them in their care for the few cents they'd give us. We will often give them away when someone comes around to buy fish. We recently had an older gentleman come around who was going to restart breeding bettas after 20 years away from the hobby. He bought a ragged old CT from the lfs but they told him they couldn't get female CT's. Najina bumped into him at work and funnily enough he started talking about fish because the lfs had instructed him to condition his bettas on liver and they had no idea what to feed fry. Najina said he could come around and get a CT female from us which we gave him and also set him up with a MW and VE culture. He came around a few days later when the ants destroyed his MW culture (which I replaced) and he happily talked about his new spawns and our CT girl who bred for him in a few days. It's all word of mouth and it makes a difference especially in a town like Gladstone. And whenever someone comes to buy our fish we always give them advise on care and they get our phone number and know where we live if they need any help. As for a sale price that really depends on what you are happy with. If you have 20 females and can sell them for $2 each then it's $40 in the pocket and that's one HM for you But it's what the lfs will offer not so much what you want. We have a ready supply of bettas for our lfs but we're not prepared to sell to them for all the reasons I have said: they don't know, they don't care, they think they know more than what they actually do and in one case they are plain rude. Pat

[Phil]

When i last saw the bay lists, about 2 or so months ago the cheapest HM on there was $22. I didnt think that that was bad. :)

[Joepmaster]

Hi all,

Very impressive fish for that price!! You guys were really lucky. I hope you will be able to get some really nice offspring from these fish. Phil, that blue/green mask is really beautifull .

By the way I don't think this fish has any damage, it more looks like an extreme form of rose/feathertail. I've seen this type before ......and characterized also by these smaller caudals in comparison to the body and rest of the finnage.

Many greetings from the Netherlands,

Joep

[Chuckie]

^^ This fishy is my one . Phil bought the other 2 metallic blue HMs.

[Robbies Betta]

:P Lisa, just had to make sure, right? I don't think it's a rosetail tho, his scaling is to uniform, and not all over the place like a rosetail's scales are.

[splendidbetta]

Thanks for your information and experiences Pat Robbie, a rosetail can be a rosetail in the fins only, and still have normal scales. Can you see the heavy, thick looking finnage with a large number of ray divisions per primary ray? That is what to look for when dealing with rosetails My C/G male has partial rosetail fins but perfectly normal scales and scale arrangement. :D

[Chuckie]

irregular scalation is also a very common rosetail trait though.

[splendidbetta]

Yes, but not all fish with the rosetail finnage have rosetail scalation. But that doesn't mean they won't produce fry with rosetail scales...

[Phil]

You usually find the irregular scales on extreme rosetails, not on normal rosetails. From the looks in your sig, it looks like yours is a borderline extreme with all that branching, but very nice other fins and scaling. Back to topic though, they fins on these guys have improved over the last week, they are amazing! Now to get some decent pics....