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Hi all.

Just a quick question about the average pricing for a Zebra pl*co??? Here in Bermuda (the fish guy I go to just got his first batch in years) the price is $200US!!!

Is this average??? Something about Japan been buying them up and S. America putting an embarkation limit on them...

Sean

Here in the US they go between $50 and $100. The absolute cheapest I have seen is for $30, but as you can imagine they were all sold. Hope you find a better price though!

Just asked my LFS, for some, reason they are outrages in price, $130 and they wanted half as a down payment. Last year the same LFS sold them for $85. They seem to get only 1" Zebra's and never larger.

latest prices in Norway is 1790 NOK thats like 262 US$.

mallemalle

I notice that most of you guys didn't mentioned about the size. The average price here in Canada is around $100 US for a 2" zebra. Although I recently bough two 2" zebras for around $70US.

Barbie wrote:I'd be seriously surprised to see them being offered retail at $50 this year. The cheapest I have seen them on WHOLESALE lists is $60. I've only seen them available at all on 3 lists, as opposed to the usual dozen. 3 years ago I bought a dozen of them at $20 each. I wish I hadn't sold so many of them!

Barbie

Agreed, to see a zebra anywhere in the US being offered for less than $100 at a retail store is a bit absurd. If in a LFS, expect to pay more around $100-$150, some charging as high as $200, for a small zebra. An importer I know also says they just went CITES II finally, which would mean price will only go higher. As for wholesale in US, usually you will not find less than $50-60, and this would be for small specimens. Zebras are not cheap, and likely will never be until they are produced reliably, or near that, by fish farms and/or breeders. $200 really isn't all that bad if your really want one. At least it's not as bad as Aussies who have to deal with $1K average per fish.

Why is it so overpriced in Australia?

Is it all pleco's or just the exotic ones?

Everything is pricy in Aus. It's a long way, the planes aren't cheap and the Aus dollar is relatively poorly valued compared to US and Europe (so it's v cheap for hols).

Norway - cheapest I've seen zebras this year is 750 NOK in a Shop near Sandnes, and 350 at Auction in Stavanger.

I do not expect to see those prices anymore. To the best of my knowledge IBAMA, who control fish exports from Brazil have stopped the export of these fish until the wild population recovers. I believe a total of 7 are available to retailers in the UK at the moment, not 7 boxes, 7 fish. That number is likely inaccurate, but is a rough indicator of how commn these fish aren't.

Can a Portugese speaker/reader please confirm what I have said by checking if IBAMA have a website

Wayne in Norway wrote:Can a Portugese speaker/reader please confirm what I have said by checking if IBAMA have a website

Some one already confirmed this in one of the topic I posted a few weeks ago :
http://www.forum.planetcatfish.com/view ... 7&start=30

Hi!

From a german forum i heard that somebody heard from Hans Evers that theyll be on the redlist in September.
For the time being its still being imported to germany as it looks...http://www.goslinea.com/Gallerie/L-Wels ... L%2046.htm[/url]

G'day

I found a website that advertises here, the Zebs are listed at US$80 each.

http://www.riverwonders.com/catalog/c7_p1.html

Is this website for real? Do they still have stock?

Thanks Sinatra

There were two at a fish store in Arizona this past weekend. The asking price was $150 each!

They were beautiful, though.

In Spain they have been always very rare. This winter a few came and the price was beetwen 120â?¬-180â?¬, fish with 4 cm

someone can send me one or two to Madrid?

@Sinatra... they are advertising in PC... they must be for real or they will feel the wrath of angry pleco lovers!!

regards

River Wonders is for real, and they did have around 400 which are currently sold out. They have informed me they will be getting some more in the future. As for how they are managing to collect them, I am not sure. They are supposedly not being collected now, but since RiverWonders collects/exports/imports, they handle everything themselves. Don't really know how they are managing it, but nonetheless they are.

hi all a bit expensive arent they i,ve seen them for £85 and £100 sterling here in uk. Thats why i don,t have one yet these guy,s were about 3 inch. I have heard from LFS that these are hard too keep can anyone confirm thanks...

The Zebra's here in Australia are from $750 Aus to $1000 Aus, current USA to Aus $ 0.695 nothing to do with that or the cost of freight it is to do with .....they are illegal imports. .... it is a simple as that but they are not illegal to keep , work that one out if you can

plecmad wrote:hi all a bit expensive arent they i,ve seen them for £85 and £100 sterling here in uk. Thats why i don,t have one yet these guy,s were about 3 inch. I have heard from LFS that these are hard too keep can anyone confirm thanks...

I've never had any problems so long as you don't keep them with tankmates that bully them. My oldest zebras are about 3 years and still going strong.

The l-46 is fairly easy to care for. In my many years in this hobby, i have kept this fish and never had any problems. I just recently picked a few of them up and they were very strong fish. I bought them from a guy on aquaticbid.com, it looks like he has a few left still, he told me his stock was low and that they are becoming very hard to get because of current water conditions in brazil. i dont know, i dont net fish but this is true im sure. Got to jet, talk to you guys later.

In denmark they are sold for 200-800kr.=30-100 us$

They come regularily.......in the weeks a shop i know gets 100

thanks zebraplec . What about food do you have to feed bloodworm? and can this cause problems with disease and stuff? thanks.

Hi ALL!

I can't send e-mail to daniel.matthaus /www.amazon-exotic-import.de/ because it come back .

"A message that you sent could not be delivered to one or more of its
recipients. This is a permanent error. The following address(es) failed:

daniel.matthaeus@t-online.de"



Anybody can tell me the good mail?

I was at a wholesaler last weekend, and he had about 20 zebras going for $60 each wholesale. On another note, I just recently contacted the guy that I sold my 9 zebras too. He has bought a bunch from other people as well. He said that one of the ones I sold him was part of a breeding group

i recently bought 4 for £70 each which now sounds like a good deal.
i have been to lfs's that had them for sale for £100 but recently i have seen them for £90 at a shop the was selling them for £50 only 4-5 months ago.
i am planning an order from the USA in a few weeks for some fish and will use the decent exchange rate to get a decent yet still not cheap price for some of these.
dixon

riverwonders are for real, they paid us good monet to advertise here. I cannot vouch for their stock mind you.

On the subject of stock, I (lightheartedly) wonder if I should put a zebra pleco pricing java ticker applet on the forum reporting current zebra pleco prices the world over.

Heh!

While we're on it, anyone else heard the rumor these fish may go on CITES protected list in the fall? Probably just aquatic myth?

Jools

Jools wrote: On the subject of stock, I (lightheartedly) wonder if I should put a zebra pl*co pricing java ticker applet on the forum reporting current zebra pl*co prices the world over.
Jools

We could also start tradeing them like comodities.

Will trade first and second born for a viable zebra pair?

sodapopdima wrote:Why is it so overpriced in Australia?

Is it all pl*co's or just the exotic ones?

It's so over-priced in Australia for many reason.

As suggested before, the cost of transporting them here is quite high, the demand for these fish in Australia is also very, very low. All people here seem to buy are goldfish and neons!

Also, Australian lfs don't reguarly import exotic plecos becuase many of them require a lisence to import. For example, Zebras, clown and Royal plecos are now illegal in Australia (As of the January 2004) because of the enviromental impact which could/would occur if they were released in Australia. However, i strongly doubt Zebras would breed in Australian waters and wipe out the native frogs/fish/wildlife!! Fish already in-country can be sold and bred, but no new fish are allowed in

Hopefully prices will drop as more people enter the hobby

Jools wrote:While we're on it, anyone else heard the rumor these fish may go on CITES protected list in the fall? Probably just aquatic myth?

Yeah, it was it was up just a while ago here. I've from a very safe source that CITES have no plans at present to list the zebra plec, but may consider it in the future.
However, the Brazilian authorities have banned collection of zebra plecs, due to the fact that a large part or all of the habitat in which the zebra plecs live, is going to be destroyed by the building of a hydroelectric dam (and hence the species probably wiped out).

I'm guessing (note: guessing) that the presently sold zebras are all captive bred. It's not a terribly difficult fish to breed, after all, and the profit margin is great.