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I can't imagine supplier traveling more than about 25 miles from their main location to get certain fish. After all, most of the actual collectors are probably poor and don't give a crap about the fish - they just want the money.

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I'm not your neighbor, you Bakersfield trash.

My store uses availability lists as well, in fact I'm usually the one who goes over it decides which catfish to order. But when we order something and and they don't send it to us, they just give it to us the next time they have it in. Or if they are not getting that fish in again, then they, like the supplier of your LFS, will send us an "equivalent" fish.

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I'm not your neighbor, you Bakersfield trash.

I agree with Cup- the fish stores near me also recieve "availability lists" from their suppliers. (All the stores near me get fish for 4 different suppliers, and 2 of these suppliers recieve fish from up to 9 different wholesalers).
If the fish are not on the list, the stores cannot "request" them. If they arent there, too bad. They can comment that they would like to be sent more fish of one type, but it is by no means an order, nor is it likely it will be responded to. Often as well, if a fish on the list comes to "unavailable" status while filling an order, the supplier will often substitute a fish of similar value instead, and so the stores often end up with rare or unknown fish because they are substitutes, and these subs are never even named on the order list. This is how I got my polka dot loach- she was a substitute species for Kuhli Loaches.


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Well, I guess each wholesaler does it differently then...

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I'm not your neighbor, you Bakersfield trash.

We don't have a policy like that. Your supplier must be awfully nice. If the stock doesn't come in, it's tough luck for us. If wholesalers always demanded the same fish, you'd get the same lists every week, this not being the case means that your wholesaler is not always recieving stock from the same suppliers or they're just catching other fish down there.

I also work at an LFS, and I'm pretty sure I've got most of the system down. Actually, it's a reptile specialist store, but with a decent fish section to boast (all FW). I'm always on the phone with the wholesaler, as my boss doesn't have the best of judgement on ordering stock. While there may be transactional variety between stores, I'd think that most suppliers would want to provide more than one or two species worth of fish; it's, as stated, not economical on their part, and is an inefficient way to invest in resources.

Collecters do go down and take what they want--provided they let you. As stated, fishing families jealously guard "hot spots" from outsiders. Any obtaining of fish is usually done through them, without the hobbyist ever setting hands on a net. Various guidelines are also put into place regarding overfishing. Even local fishing communities aren’t allowed to overfish a certain species, export bans included. Also, our wholesaler does list limited stock, and requires that you call them to recieve any information on these fish. Most wholesalers do this, from what I'm aware of.

If they can't find any, that that's just the way it goes... They don't get their money. It's not too uncommon that we don't get the fish that we ordered because the distributor didn't get enough in. We just get them without charge the next time that they have them.

I work at a LFS, so I know how all of this works. The manager at my store has a friend who regularly goes down to South America to collect fish and plants, and he actually brings in lots of plants for us.

If the collectors could just go and take whatever they wanted, they would most likely take too much to get more money and more fish would be endangered. Also, the collectors would not get enough of certain types of fish, and then the distributors would not want them. Distributors will only list species on the availability list that they have thousands or at least hundreds of. They are not going to pay someone to go out and collect five individuals of a certain, rare cory species. Who would they sell it to?

Trust me... I know how this works. Collectors are told what they have to collect, and that's what they do or they don't get their money.

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I'm not your neighbor, you Bakersfield trash.

Told? If my knowledge of the fish catching industry serves me correct, they catch what's high in demand as well as whatever they can find. If they were "told" to catch fish as McDonalds takes orders, what would happen should they not be able to find a certain fish, or numbers are limited? That's why stocking lists vary.

They only get what they are told to get... They know what they have to look for and that's what they keep, which is the reason for occasional contaminants in shipments.

There are many species of tetras that are common in the wild but are not imported simply because the collectors are not told to collect them.

With plecos it's might be a bit different, but with schooling fish they are told only to collect certain species. If they could take whatever they wanted, just think how many more, rare species of corys we'd have in the hobby. But for some reason or another, they are told not to collect certain species...

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I'm not your neighbor, you Bakersfield trash.

They don't have to care for fish--so long as they get a high reward off of them, which means getting fish from all around the area makes perfect sense. More variety means more money. One supplier to our wholesaler sells them altums, wild peruvian scalares, several Rio Xingu loricariids, and cardinals. None of these occur in exactly the same region of Brazil (or Peru, for that matter), but they still make good money off of them. In a recent article I read about discus catching, the author stated that individual famlies trade amongst one another, as they guard their own fishing spots jealously. Therefore, they keep their spot on the market while supplying the wholesaler with more variety.

[link=Here]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v223/Racso/DSCF0073.jpg" style="COLOR: #0000FF[/link] is a picture that shows the difference between a true Corydoras julii (on the right) and a false julii (C. trilineatus) on the left.

Mr. Clown says hi in the back.

Who's to say the suppliers don't collect from multple regions--the smart and economical thing to do?

The main distributor at my LFS only uses about two suppliers in South America, neither of which are in C. julii's range.

Like Ian always says, the only way to know for sure is to find out exactly what part of South America the corys came from. He says that in just about every thread about these two species.

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I'm not your neighbor, you Bakersfield trash.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the indivdual suppliers go to the wholesalers, which then ship them fish to your local store. There could be many suppliers providing to your wholesaler that you wouldn't know about. Furthermore, if they are indeed so hard to tell apart, how are you so sure that's a tri line and that his fish are julis? Last time I checked with Ian, he said that, though rare *in England*, there are several suppliers of the "true juli", a good deal of which are likely shipped to the U.S., especially given their close proximity. Also, as far as I've heard, there hasn't been any info of reticulated julis.

Last edited by Cup_of_Lifenoodles at 07-Jan-2005 01:29

Do you know where they came from? Chances are if your LFS uses only one distributor for their corys (which most do), then the fish were collected in the same area as the reticulated corys and would be C. trilineatus.

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I'm not your neighbor, you Bakersfield trash.

That julii is a true julii. I had more with them when i got them, but they all died off but that guy .

Also, prior to them dying off, the schooled separatly. The Juliis to themselves and the trillineatus to themselves.


When the others died, this guy joined with the three lines.

Both species can be spotted, and both species can be reticulated. Physically, they are very difficult even for experts to tell apart. But judging by the fact that C. julli so rarely imported, I'd say that both of those corys are C. trilineatus.

Without knowing exactly what part of South America those fish were imported from, it will be almost impossible to tell which species they are.

Here is a photo of one of my spotted C. trilineatus.
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I'm not your neighbor, you Bakersfield trash.

are they a closely related species? i sometimes see them sold at petstores, labeled as "spotted corys"...and being that they are usually a wild caught fish, i didn't think too much of it.

Perfect example Rasco and a great photo too