FishProfiles.com Message Forums

shipping is 15% of what? the total price of the fish? if you get 4 fish ($9x4=$36) take 15% of that, $5.40. i dont believe it. nobody, i mean nobody is going to next day air 4 $36 fish for $5.40. no way, no how. most online breeders charge that much for the box and heaters alone.
sounds shady at best, unless he lives down the street from you.
you shouldnt mix different species in the same breeder tank. the risk of the calvus hybridizing between the different types would be extreme and nobody wants to buy hybrids.
what is your tap water like? is it hard and alkaline? you are going to have to buffer your water to 9.0 to keep these looking primo. they also are carnivores and will relish live food. i have plenty of fry from my mbuna tank to feed mine and it works out great.
check out this article for some great tips on keeping them.

http://www.cichlid-forum.com/articles/altolamprologus.php

good luck with whatever you wind up doing.

Last edited by acei at 14-Jan-2005 16:05

Last edited by acei at 14-Jan-2005 16:35

there has to be more than a few breeders in new york. i am not familiar with the area and i dont know any in particular in the NE.

again try this. it may take a bit of pm-ing, but could be worth it.
http://www.cichlid-forum.com/locationsearch.php

Last edited by acei at 17-Jan-2005 22:46

im in essex county newyork,

have you tried looking for breeders in your area? that may be the way to go. where are you located? again...cichlid-forum has a breeder search feature.blah.blah.blah...i know you are tired of hearing that name!!!

hmm, thas a bit more expensive than i planned but... i have e-mailed another, closer place to see what they have availible to ship, and if they are willing to do so, im still waiting for them to get back to me

i am familiar with them. i have never bought fish from them, but they charge a lot more than 15% for shipping. take a closer look in their shipping pages. it will cost around $40-70 to overnight airfreight them to you. they are a great, reputable breeder. just make sure you get a solid shipping quote from them before you order so you arent shocked. they will need to know exactly where you live to get the fish to the nearest airport so you can pick them up.
i would trust them if they say they have f1 comps. i still would get males and females from different sources to breed them, especially if you wnat to do it right and be reputable.
cichlid-forum.com has a reveiw section and there are many reveiws written about them.

i think its 15% but i knowe it is cheaper than most i have seen, it is armke's heres their web page http://www.ohiexchange.com/armke/list.htm
they have some great fish, i guess they are at good prices too

what is their website address? i would love to check them out. if they are only going to charge 15% of the cost of the fish to ship, i am there.

i already looked there, and i am starting to have second thoughts, as of last night when i looked over their stock again and thought maybe a salmon hippo point would better suit me, u see they are almost extinct in the wild, so they want to sell as many as they can to people who will breed them, so they can later be realeased into the wild, they are pretty and i think the same price, and not 15% of the fish, that is usually added to the amount, i sent an e/mail to them to see how much they htought it would be.

anyone own or breed theis? i want to get some, but they are like 9.00 each, anyone know where i can so to get some for cheaper? i live in the us, in newyork, i also want to know anything special they need, i want 1 male and 3 female for when i get my 90 gallon, im thinking the larger the tank the less damege the male can do, and maybe they will breed faster in a larger enviroment, and if i want a few, i have plenty of room

i dont know if the guy wants me giving the name out, i will have to ask him, and the shipping is only 15% i thought it was a good deal, and i dont care if i have "waisted" tank space if i want to keep a a few, then i have to have a place to keep them, and when i start to bring in new stock i want the room, i have a 30 gallon, but i have other fish in it, as well as my other 2 10s i am thinking of getting a male black and a small heram of 3 females and maybe a white male with the same amount of females, i think, they can have territorys, and try to live as natural a life as possible in a tank, i dont want them to be crampt, i think a species tank would look nice, we are probly only going tobe living in this house for another 3-4 years so it is going to start off in the basement and later i will make it a display tank, somewheres nice, i know it can take up to 2 years befor they are "of age" but they look cool, they look like they are suppost to get HUGE, but in reality they are only a few inches i think thats pretty cool

also, what is the name of the online store you are buying them from? you know it costs at least $30-50 to ship them to you? makes the cost of the fish jump pretty high if you only get a few. also, to make sure they are shipped alive, you need to go to the airport to pick them up. i dont know if you have realized the actual total cost of this endeavor, especially if you are worried that the fish are $9 to begin with. i am not trying to dissuade you from doing this, just trying to figure out your plan so you are not surprised.

f1 calvus pair for $17-19 is a good deal. i was just at a lfs yesterday and they want $22 each for one inch juvies. i would try to make sure from the seller that they are not related (brother/sister). these do not make good breeding stock. otherwise, if you wanted to, you could have 20 of them in that 90 with no problems. they are small, non aggressive fish and 2 in a 90 would be a big, big waste of space, unless you have tanks galore. also, they take forever to grow up to breeding size. it could take up to a couple years! i suggest you get some good breeding stock, get a 29 gallon and make that a breeder tank. get a group of about 6 fish or so.
again, i would make sure they are not related and go from there. inbreeding related fish only thins out the bloodlines. there are so many poor quality fish out there from inbreeding and poor breeding practices. good luck with whatever you decide to do.

these are F1, they said so, and itsd not a fish store, its an online place where they capyure rare and interesting fish, sometimes they breed them, sometimes they sell the wilds, the vast majority of the fish they sell are F0 and F1

Mysis shrimp aren't alive. They're a freeze dried or frozen food.

Also, just because they look good doesn't mean they're F1, F2, etc. I've seem just plain tank stock fish that look gorgeous. Just not good to breed. The vast majority of fish you'll get in a LFS aren't the quality of stock you can grade (F0, F1), they're just stock fish. I pretty much agree what only thru F2 fish are you able to interbreed the fish before needing to introduce to blood into the line otherwise risk the overall quality of the fry decreasing.

i think the ones im getting are F1 their stock look very nice, and the blacks are $16.00 for a pair and the whites are $17.00 per pair, they would be alone in a 90 gallon preferably and where can u get those shrimp? we only have goast shrimp around here, will that do? theis are only 26. cents each, not too bad if i can breed them, i am very excited, around here u cant get theis so im hopeing to get a good solid price set up, i will put adds in the paper and such to attract people, yup, i think these are a good idea they are my first attempt at breeding egg layers, i have lots of live bearing fish, and in the summer i am going to set up a pond to breed WCMM and maybe some goast shrimp, only time will tell if i am able to do it, but how easy are they to breed?

i have some alto. compressiceps which are closely related to the calvus. they are very cool fish and i would buy all of them at $9.00 a piece. that is a pretty good price. if you want to breed them to sell,i highly recommend you get nice f0 or f1's (expensive)and give them their own tanks to breed in. at $9.00 each, i assume they are run of the mill f2's and probably wont make good breeders, but i could be wrong. they grow painfully slow, so you will have time to enjoy them before selling them. i bought mine 3 months ago at one inch and they are at 1.25-1.5 inches now!!! i feed them new life spectrum grow pellets and mysis shrimp very regularly too. they require very high ph water, very clean water, and strick monitoring of water parameters. very cool fish though. they are pretty laid back and rarely cause any problems. they are usually the ones getting picked on by other fish. they have a unique way of curling their body to defend against bites from other fish. they curl up and expose thier sharp scales so they cut the other fishs' lips.
they come in many different color morphs. i have yellow ones from mwela. there are white, yellow face, yellow, black and inkfin. all are great. i highly recommend them. a wild male black calvus is an awesome sight.