Why redeyes are no longer available?
Posted: Thu Feb 15, 2018 5:42 am
After looking quite extensively, and reaching the end of their usual seasonal availability, it seems that no redeyes ( carinotetraodon lorteti, irrubescos, salivator and boornensis) have been shipped to wholesalers this year, and it was the same last year.
All the fishes I found seems like specimens from 3-4 years ago sold by their owner, or local aquarium trade in Indonesia itself (with some occurence of reproduction in Japan by a puffer enthusiast), but no imported fishes....
Given that redeyes (irrubesco especially) was not so difficult to find 2-4 years ago, and at the sweet spot price-wise for many LFS (<10€) I wonder why....
Schoutedeni were in the same situation, "common" it seems in the 70s but near impossible to find after. They have reappeared lately (even if expensive), and their disappearance was explained by political instability in the Congo region. It is convincing, knowing that shipping fish require efficient air travel and a minimum of local organisation...
But redeyes comes from regions that are not especially unstable afaik. Lorteti especially, Thailand is a well know exporter of tropical fishes (both wild and farmed), so why? Stock exhaustion? Centralized exporter that went out of business? New regulation? Land use change that closed the easily reached fish source? Volcanic eruption?
Just curious why, and also knowing what happened could help guessing about the probability of a reappearance next year....
All the fishes I found seems like specimens from 3-4 years ago sold by their owner, or local aquarium trade in Indonesia itself (with some occurence of reproduction in Japan by a puffer enthusiast), but no imported fishes....
Given that redeyes (irrubesco especially) was not so difficult to find 2-4 years ago, and at the sweet spot price-wise for many LFS (<10€) I wonder why....
Schoutedeni were in the same situation, "common" it seems in the 70s but near impossible to find after. They have reappeared lately (even if expensive), and their disappearance was explained by political instability in the Congo region. It is convincing, knowing that shipping fish require efficient air travel and a minimum of local organisation...
But redeyes comes from regions that are not especially unstable afaik. Lorteti especially, Thailand is a well know exporter of tropical fishes (both wild and farmed), so why? Stock exhaustion? Centralized exporter that went out of business? New regulation? Land use change that closed the easily reached fish source? Volcanic eruption?
Just curious why, and also knowing what happened could help guessing about the probability of a reappearance next year....