eveyrones ripping us off!! with arowanas and fish!

[henward]

I get annoyed

i go to pet shops and they say, oh yeah its expensive this fish etc.

you know that i looked into this. called maf

maf only charges $105 for a year to import fish.

arowanas selling right now are the lowest grade, it osts 1$150 sing dollars.

to ship 12, doesnt cost more than 600 to ship to nz.

thats $50 dollars each! that makes the cost of the fish 200

plus gst 225.

then i get this crap about cites costing 500, it doesnt, wqhen you buy the fish from panda aquatics - they do it for you included in the price!

then they charge 1900 per fish in the stores?

thats nuts

wonder if there is a way of getting this fish cheaper?

[tHEcONCH]

There is a lot more than just the cost of the stock that the shop has to recover - their margin has to cover losses, the lease on the building, the interest on the loan they took to build the tanks - the cost of maintaining the tanks, the staff costs, the ACC levy on the staff, electricity, insurance, paying their accountant, advertising, the list is endless. You can't take one fish in isolation like that - you are ignoring the real cost of doing business.

[HaNs]

I agree with tHEcONCH, there is ALOT of expenses when running a business, it would blow your mind if you really knew how it all operated and if it didnt make money why would anyone bother????????

Dont forget the quarantine processes

We are lucky to get the rare fish that we do get over here

[Salty]

How hard is it to get a permit to import fish?

Just curious.

Its no real shock the mark-up that LFS put on they're stock though, due to the elements that conch listed.

Are arowanas quite hard to breed?

I never considered keeping these fish, before but I'm appreciating them more they have such a graceful way of moving.

I'm leaning more towards helping out our natives.

[henward]

im not ignoring it

i guess im not aware of the costs

but you would think that high volume works better

they would sell far more arowanas selling it for cheaper than expensive.

selling two at a cheaper price mightbe better than selling one at a higher price.

i do know the cost of business, i guess im just bitter cos i want them cheaper:P

but how can a silver arowana, a hardy fish selling for a $1 nz price! $1!! be 120-130?

..... mmmmm thats all im askin

i mean you import 100 of that fish lets say, costs you 100nz dollars, probably less cos they wouldgive a disount.

but fair enough i dont have enough experience in importing animals. it just annoys me!!!!

i just called quarantine places and they dont let you bring in your fish, they do it themselves to control price... smart but annoying

one of these days someones gonna come and lower all the prices.

similar to beardeds and reptiles

beardeds were selling for 1500 each, now you can get some for 400

[paekakboyz]

but is there that sort of demand for fish like Aro's? they get big and require a large tank to be kept in any sort of comfort.

As noted by earlier posters businesses bringing fish into NZ have a lot of costs/risks that they need to recover in the price (plus profit). They are the ones that deal with the red tape and all the other paperwork that gets the fish into the country.

that person who is gonna come in and lower the prices isn't gonna lower them much otherwise they won't last long at all.

seems the only way you'd find cheaper Aro's was if someone started to breed them in NZ... and then you get into the quality argument - healthy, colourful etc fish are worth more than less robust, pale etc fish.

[henward]

http://www.unoaquatic.com/message/index.cgi?read=3737

chgeck this out, purple red!

nice!

yeah, i love arowanas, partly cos im asian

and i grew up with these

i love them! my uncle had about 4 of them

it snot impossible to breed them, but needs to be outdoor, and for nz, HEATED outdoor, expensive. but nt impossible.

one thing though, there is a chance that these fish are sterilised prior entry to nz. if so then game over

[coelacanth]

there is no way an importer would bring in 100 arowana. You may like arowana but the majority of fish-buyers are in no position to keep them. Importers are in a business, they do what is best for their business. Importing large quantities of unsaleable fish would be commercial suicide. And because they cannot (in a business sense) import fish like arowana in large numbers then the price will remain relative to the cost and trouble of them importing the ones they do.

[shadowfax]

it seems to me if the set up costs were cheaper they would sell more fish, like cheaper tanks & gear it would encourage more people to get into fish.

[HaNs]

but you would think that high volume works better

they would sell far more arowanas selling it for cheaper than expensive.

selling two at a cheaper price mightbe better than selling one at a higher price.

High profit low turnover VS Low profit high turn over

I know what id want to be doing

A lot of the breeders may be tied up with contacts to importers, would be stupid if they where not

AFAIK all that come in are sterilized

I wouldn't mind investing into a rare arowana breding setup

[henward]

whats afaik?

yeah, breeding them would be cool

jsut need some land and warmer water. but a solar heater im sure can work and supplmented by a electric heater during cloudy days.

or in a hot house

[HaNs]

whats afaik?

It's an acronym for As Far As I Know.

[alanmin4304]

I imported goldfish about 20 years ago. Ignoring all the costs listed (which are very real) I imported 9 varieties, 200 fish, cost $US200 and freight $US200. 7 inspections in 6 weeks at $NZ140 each and a $1 fish now costs $7. When I asked Maf how many inspections I would be paying for over the next 4 years the fish were in quarantine they would not even make an estimate so I gave them all to maf frozen into one lump of ice and told them they were all there and they could count them when they thawed out. The importers are actually going through a hard time at the moment as the controlling authority has changed and it is all under review. I think you will find that soon there may be even less importers than at present. The freight on large fish like that is very high and so is the risk. One importer down here had thousands of dollars of silver sharks taken away because maf thought they were diseased. Protests that the gills were burned from an excess of ammonia fell on deaf ears. All the fish died in Maf care. The results of the tests came back negative and they also got a bill for the tests.

It is easy to import if you have megabucks and don't need to make a profit.

[henward]

fair enough, from the horses mouth. well im sure you dont have a horse mouth its a figure of speech

but thanks

i didnt know

i know maf is difficult

but yeah, its abit funny how strict they are to fish that isnt really gong to survive in the wild here

[Electric Head]

It costs ALOT more than $105 per year to have an import licence.

Then on top of that you have MAF audits on your setup, not to forget the $$$ MAF charges for each visit while the fish are in quarantine and the MAF/customs/gst charges just to get the fish in NZ.

And then running a quarantine facility isn't cheap, there is a lot of work that goes into keeping fish healthy for 6weeks (freshwater) not to mention the stressed state they arrive in.

One bad shipment can really pump up the costs of importing.

I know the price Aros go for overseas/landed in NZ, if you can find some for $1NZ there would be a fair bit of demand for the name of the exporter that can sell them at that price!

There is only 1 importer bringing in aros regularly because there is not the demand. And only so many of the expensive varieties will sell therefore less are imported which puts their price up further.

If a retail store had say, red aros and lost 1 then they would have to sell a few more before they could recover the cost of the lost fish and make a profit.

If importing fish was that cheap and easy to do a lot more people would be doing it.

You would need an importer to sell freshwater livestock direct to the public to get pricing well below retail, then to make it worth while and to move enough stock they would need to open a retail front anyway...

[henward]

that would be good

if someone was to do that, have a very no frills front but selling fish cheaper than anyone

that is a goer

[HaNs]

that would be good

if someone was to do that, have a very no frills front but selling fish cheaper than anyone

that is a goer

Funnily enough people actually pay for service

Bring some Paraná in while your at it lol

[henward]

fair enough.

[reef]

if someone was to do that, have a very no frills front but selling fish cheaper than anyone

that is a goer

If you did analysis on the aquarium industry in NZ you might find that many have gone bankrupt.

Selling cheap means you have to have a large turnover and we dont have the population to do that,

[Warren]

Keep also in mind that NZ is a microscopically small market. To most overseas exporters we are just a nuisance as our volumes are too small. Our entire population is smaller than many overseas cities. Considering our market size and population we actually get very good service from the supplier to NZ...

As our market is so small the volume is very very very low. Small market = higher prices. It's completely unfair to compare NZ prices to overseas prices where some shops turn over in a week what it takes a NZ shop to turn over in a year...

[candy]

Fully agree with what everyone one has said...

But im curious. How meany people on here have a set up capable of holding an arowana at full size. I used to have two aro set ups but moving into a smaller house ment both had to be sold. As much as i would love to get another aro i think i will wait till i have my own house as selling the aros was a horrible experiance.

Yes the price is a kick in the teeth. But i think it is very much worth it.

[alanmin4304]

Most exporters will give different prices for quantiy also. 10 fish--$1 each, 100 fish---80cent each, 1000fish, 50 cents each, 10000 fish---30 cents each. Some markets like USA could buy millions so they get first choice and we get the left overs.

[livingart]

How meany people on here have a set up capable of holding an arowana at full size

give me the aros and i'll heat the pond