The $5,999 pair of Clown Fish
 

McCulloch's Clownfish pair on liveaquaria.com website.

Apparently they are rare, never seen them before myself.

Not sure I'd ever spend this kind of money on a fish, even if I had that kind of money.

Link.

ugly and will probably die in shipping

apparently these are a quite rare species,
and there has only been one man in Australia who was aloud to get a wild pair,
and then from there he bred them.

Well they do offer live arrival and stay alive for 14 days....:biggrin:

But I do find them not so attractive.

Ya they aren't very nice, especially for that price.

Is it just me or do they look like black tomato clowns?

+1

Wow...so positive.

Its sounds to me like a typo... $599.99 sounds more realistic! Especially for tank raised specimens. I'd rather go for some inbred freako clowns like picassos. :P

nope, not a typo. There's a marine protected area and this area is the ONLY place this species occurs. so obviously, no collection is allowed from there. Ryan something or other (a high profile breeder) managed to get his hands on a few (legally but only after a lot of trouble) and bred them. I would imagine most went to japan or something, but this one pair found it's way to LA. Now, considering they are probably the ONLY ones in North America... yeah, well long story short, not a typo. these guys generally go for 3-5K$ a piece. note that LA's are not a breeding pair... they're just two fish in the same tank. but still, at 3K a piece, that actually isn't too bad for this species.

are they worth it? to me, hell no. ugly, and i don't even like clowns that much to begin with (they're just overrated damsels). but to a serious collector, maybe. maybe.

You can find out about how he collected them here:

http://www.marinebreeder.org/phpbb/viewtopic.php?t=612

Cheers,
Vic

Check out how much the Japanese are selling them for....... under the heading Sparrow Latch (ran it through a translator)

http://babelfish.yahoo.com/translate...rUrl=Translate

Cheers,
Vic

just finished reading the link, and all I can say is damn that was a lot of work to get those fish.

I will take my Gold Striped Maroons over them any day....:biggrin:

Me too I love my cranky gold stripe, however if I won a lottery, and had money to burn... I would be getting some of these kinds of fish, just because I can. Fish are like any colector's item. the rarer and more difficult to get the bigger the bragging right are to own such things.

Don't hate the player... hate the game.

Hmm how is it even possible to import fish into Canada from the US, when you're only a hobbyist? Or am I not understanding the way things like that work...

sorry but to buy those for that money is plain stupid they lack pizazz in their colors and right they do look like black tomato clowns

If they are a CITES regulated fish then you must have the original import CITES from the country of origin. You then apply for a re-export CITES from the US FWS to get it into Canada. Simple as long as you can get the original import CITES.

By the time the tank is set up, water mixed, rock added, skimmer, suppliments and a few coral to decorate the tank I bet most of us spend close to that to enjoy our little clowns.

Douglas

I appreciate what he went through to be able to offer these to the market, but I myself would never spend that kind of money on a fish. It's hard enough spending $60+ and having it die :(

Cool so it IS possible, even if its more work than it's worth for most fish and things... I did see a Turbinaria coral on the website that I've never seen on any Canadian site :lol: I'll keep this in mind, but how does it work for species that are not CITES regulated? I've heard of something called a photosanitary certificate that they use when shipping orchids and plants cross-border, would there be something like this for fish?

Actually, I will start a thread about importing, so I don't sideline this thread :redface:

A couple years ago I wanted to bring some Seahorses into Canada, before they were on Cities. After all the hoops to jump through I would have had to pay $85 on top of everything else for each box regardless of the content. This is one of the reasons they try to pack so much stuff into one box when the LFS gets stuff. Whether they have $100 worth of livestock or $25000 they have to pay it. Now as to what it was for, I don't remember I know I didn't have to pay it when I brought live shrimp into Canada but they made me sign a document saying they were meant solely as a food source for aquatic animals and not for pets/breeding purposes.

Canadian Border Services has a web site with contact numbers, I recommend you allow yourself a number of hours to sort out what they have to say.

Douglas