Expensive fish

I've been collecting fish in Hawaii for the past 13 years. During that time I've known three divers who were paralyzed due to the bends. Many divers, including myself, have been subject to milder cases of decompression sickness all in the pursuit of rare and unusual fish to satiate the collective whims of hobbyists with money. I've caught fish that I've sold for thousands of dollars and heard of fish from Africa that have sold for 7K. The risk for the diver descending to 200"+ is why the fish cost so much. The future of rare fish collection in Hawaii is about to change though. Myself and alikatoes are investing in 15k rebreathers that will allow us to collect at depths of up to 500". Now that will be some rare fish. How much do you think someone would pay for the first fish of its kind to be discovered? What do you think they'd pay the collector to name it after them? Some people have way too much money - that's what hobbies are for...
 
Well my pair of Dragon eels were $2,400 for both with the female costing me $900 and the male at $1,500 and later when finally my reef tanks be ready, I will be looking to get some high price fish with the spotted tang for about $1,500 and I not at this moment remember the name of this dwarf angel, but a pair will run about $5,000 I think and if later the clarions become available again, I be looking for a pair there as well, that would be another $5,000. As well I no idea what the redface moray eels cost, I`ll be getting a pair of those as well.

Buddy
 
Yes, fish like the sunset basslet,sunset wrasse and holanthis
thrive in captivity. If deep water fish didn't survive there would be no market for them.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7582150#post7582150 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by steve the plumb
If someone drops a net catches 100 fish and says this is worth this amount and thats worth that amount then its a differant ballgame.Less effort to catch a wildfish and place a price tag on it.
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Oh really!
You ever tried catching any!
I'll give you a big tip, unless you know what what you are doing, (based on YEARS of experience) catching fish is not as easy as you would think.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7661975#post7661975 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by freedive43
I've been collecting fish in Hawaii for the past 13 years. During that time I've known three divers who were paralyzed due to the bends. Many divers, including myself, have been subject to milder cases of decompression sickness all in the pursuit of rare and unusual fish to satiate the collective whims of hobbyists with money. I've caught fish that I've sold for thousands of dollars and heard of fish from Africa that have sold for 7K. The risk for the diver descending to 200"+ is why the fish cost so much. The future of rare fish collection in Hawaii is about to change though. Myself and alikatoes are investing in 15k rebreathers that will allow us to collect at depths of up to 500". Now that will be some rare fish. How much do you think someone would pay for the first fish of its kind to be discovered? What do you think they'd pay the collector to name it after them? Some people have way too much money - that's what hobbies are for...
Click to expand...

IIRC, it's the describing scientist that names the fish, sorry. A friend of mine has brought up a few undesribes, only to recieve zero reconigtion for it. I guess they didn't like his name "Candy *** bass" :D
 
I cant belive that some people would pay thousands for a fish but if that is what you want to have I guess it all comes down to what that person wants.

Tim
 
My friend works at birch aquarium.
Last year they bought 4 leafy sea dragons at $4,000 a piece!
$16,000 for 4 fish, and when they arrived they had air in their stomache's that made them float to the surface and they almost died right away.
They had to remove air with a hypo and med them.
Now can you imagine spending $16,000 for 4 fish and have them die right away!?
 
The most expenisve fish I've bought would have to be a mystery wrasse for $300 and a helfrichi firefish pair for $140.

What I don't understand is why people keep insisting that you have to be crazy to pay a lot of money for a fish. If a person has the money to spend on a fish, then why not? If I had the money for a lamborghini it would be parked in the driveway.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7665187#post7665187 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by reefinmike
$23,000?
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Try 30 G's.:)
image02.jpg
 
it's only worth as much as you will pay for it. if i had the money and a larger tank i would have no problem throwing away a few 1000 dollars for some nice rare fish. better then throwing it away at the bar or for drugs( a friend of mine told me herion addics can go through 3k + a day) its not for the rareity its for the fact that some of the fish i would like to have in a tank would cost me a couple bonus checks.
 
The most expensive fish I've seen with my own eyes was a baby arowana priced at $10 000.

I think the most I've spent is $80CD for a Potter's, which promptly died on me. I've lost three now; all together I've spent somewhere around $200-$250 on a fish I don't have. My flagfin was priced at $120CD, but I bought him for about half that (I worked at the LFS at the time).

A fellow hobbyist visited me and I gave him a tour of my tanks. He didn't give a second look to any of the angels, but went NUTS over my $5 Talbot's damsel. They don't swim around with price tags on; I agree, buy a fish because you like it -- the only one who knows how much it cost (or didn't cost) is you :D
 
I have seen a "wrought iron" angel of some sort at the LFS that cost 2800 US. A weird lion that was like 700. A dragon moray that cost 1K US to 1300. Wrasses that range from 100-500. A few other fish that cost around 1500 but cant remember exactly what they were because it is the only time i have seen them. Some LFS get a variation of a fish that you just wont see again unless you Dive and all you do is look for different variations of species. Not to mention expensive mated pairs of angels like the french angel.

Aside from all of this the most ive spent on a fish was 70 bucks, so my tastes pale in comparison to what i have seen some people buy.(someone bought them because they werent there after a while.)
 
IIRC, it's the describing scientist that names the fish, sorry. A friend of mine has brought up a few undesribes, only to recieve zero reconigtion for it. I guess they didn't like his name "Candy *** bass" :D [/QUOTE]

Whats IIRC? and what do you need to be a offical describing scientist? If I know my ichthyology well and do all the clads, mers, etc., who is to say I cant name a fish? How does it work? If its the first species described, you document all your descriptions, and no one else has that info, it seems like no one can really say what the name should be. If you know anymore about this procedure please let me know
 
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