L173 Spawn

[TwoTankAmin]

TY @bekateen

I will try to put together a thread in the for sale area in the not too distant future. I know I am in trouble when I have not been moving fish out fast enough such that I start to get new fry in grow out tanks. But this puts me in the unique position of having some proven breeders available. I see this for 173b and maybe 236s. It is also possible to have 450s produce a young f1 breeding group as well.

What I would love to do is work with somebody to organize some form of pictorial or video of the development of the 173. I have had the great fortune of being able to observe these fish from egg to spawning now and it is one of the more unique situations I have seen within the world of wormline/B&W Hypancistrus.

It is difficult to ID these guys as 173 until they get pretty old because they really do change their stripes radically between birth and adulthood. There was no way I could say for sure that my F1 group were in fact 173 until recently when the first of them began to have its patterning shift towards its "final" configuration. I have actually seen 173 that looked pretty close to being zebras for a while unless one looked at them really closely.

I am about ready to transition into my down sizing plans next year. The last part of the build up to this is the super white 236s I have growing out. I am still not certain what I have with them. Some look unimpressive while others look like they will turn out quite interesting and unique. I lost one of the 16 in the small tank but have not yet done a recount in the bigger tank.

[TwoTankAmin]

I just did a tank breakdown to check things out. The good news is all 10 173 breeders are alive and well. The bad news is I only pulled 14 offspring. This is about ½ of what I expected. I think I must have lost a bunch because I had eye surgery the end of may and had some complications and then July 4th night I ended up in the hospital for two days and needed a couple more to recover at home. There is also the possibility there was some predation.

The fry were clearly different sizes leading me to believe there were as many as 3 spawns. However, it may only have been 2. I am moving all the fry to their own grow out tank.

[TwoTankAmin]

Either I miscounted or I lost a tiny one. When I went to remove the only 4 I will sell this year, the count was 13. I thought I should start a new thread and see if folks could guess what the fisch were pictured below. But what the heck, they are 173.

173wcfry2.jpg (24.92 KiB) Viewed 5415 times

173wcfry3.jpg (29.02 KiB) Viewed 5415 times

173wcfry5.jpg (17.2 KiB) Viewed 5415 times

173wcfry7.jpg (27.33 KiB) Viewed 5414 times

[TwoTankAmin]

173wcfry8.jpg (34.12 KiB) Viewed 5414 times

I have a vid of the fry I cannot figure out how to upload

[bekateen]

Hi TTA,
The babies look terrific!

Unfortunately you cannot upload videos directly here. You need to have a YouTube account and upload the video there. Then YouTube will give you an address for the video and you put it here inside YouTube tags.

Cheers, Eric

[TwoTankAmin]

Unfortunately, the YouTube route is not available to me because I am not registered with Google (and have no intention doing so). I use a paid site for my pictures and they are also supposed to host videos. I tried to upload it there and for some reason it failed. I do not have the time or desire to find what I need to do make it work at this time. Also, I have no software for editing video and no experience in that area. I hope that eventually Rachel will get them uploaded.

The good news is I can deal with the still pictures.

[bekateen]

I hope that eventually Rachel will get them uploaded.

Here ya go TTA. Rachel posted these videos.

Cheers, Eric

Direct YouTube links:

SUPER Rare Pleco field trip- A day in the life of a Fish Pimp

RARE Zebra type Pleco! L173

[TwoTankAmin]

@bekateen
TY Eric for the heads up. I had not seen the 173 vid yet. Life here is a bit nuts and fish are taking a temporary back seat for the most part.

[TwoTankAmin]

I have a real dilemma with which I could use some feedback. I have 10 wild caught L173 which I do not own but was "loaned" to spawn, which I managed to do. I have reported about this in this thread and vids are on YouTube. These were spotted by an overseas Asian breeder who figured out who owned the fish. The result was the owner was made an insane offer for the fish. He wants me to keep them and offered to sell them to me for a lower, but still insane price. I do not want to talk numbers, so I will just say that, for the price per fish I am being asked to pay, I could instead buy 5 large zebra plecos.

I would love some feedback on what is a realistic price to pay for a proven breeding colony of 10 WC L173?

In addition, to help pay for them I would have to sell half of my F1 group of 14 L173s which I purchased about 20 months ago and which should be spawnable sometime next year. So what are these fish worth?

Since this Hypan. is so difficult to find (it took me years to get them), I have no real idea what they are worth. I know what I would pay for them were I a buyer, but that likely bears no relation to what is a fair market price. I am not asking if anyone would or would not buy them at any given price, but what they are probably worth on the open market.

Last observation- I have a very short window to make a decision. I was supposed to have done so over the weekend, I am going to ask for a little more time.

Thanks in advance for any input.

[Jobro]

An adult pair of nice looking L173 go up to 500€ in Germany from what I could grasp now.

[amazonaquatics]

Chris, I have seen adult sized L173 on a Colombia list before for $700 wholesale. There was only 1 piece available at the time and it was last year.

Keep me in the loop on what you decide to do. Send me a email to chat.

Joe

[TwoTankAmin]

500€ would not be enough for one fish here, let alone a pair.

$700 wholesale is closer but not that close. But that is the wholesale price, then retail has to be double that or more. Since one fish is worthless on its own except as a trophy, more fish should actually cost more not less than an "orphan." But this makes me think maybe the price isn't as crazy as it appears to me.

[catfishplanet]

You can always call Saul Paredes bluff. Afterall, he always claim some Asian breeder offer him this and that for his fish. On the other hand, Chris, you can just keep the fish for yourself and there is nothing Saul can do about it. He has cheated enough people in the hobby, is time you turn the table around on him.

[Jobro]

Never forget what a single bad heater or a big power outage can do to a breeding colony of plecos. I would refrain from investing that much, when you can have your own breeding colonies from the offspring and that second group of juveniles that you already purchased...

[catflshplanet]

Chris Leighton is coming up 70 years old in March. His advanced age couples with a plethora of health issues, do not afford him the time to wait for the offspring to mature.

[bekateen]

@catflshplanet,

I'm not sure what your point is. I'm confident that Chris knows how old he is. And I'm pretty sure he takes that into account on his own behalf.

I'd suggest that whatever the validity of your comment may (or may not) be, the OP's intent was not to be admonished about his age or health. We all have interests and desires in life, regardless of our ages, and as we contemplate fulfilling these, we factor in our own health status as much as we see fit. My dad is almost 90 and is still very active in spite of a history of health issues.

Please keep your opinions about Chris' readiness to take on new duties to yourself.

Respectfully, Eric

P.S., As a new member named "catflshplanet," are you the same person as "catfishplanet" above, who is advocating ripping people off under the auspices that they deserve it?

[Ltygress]

Bekateen, we've made a few posts back and forth. But I have never once posted MY real name, what so ever, on these forums.

Yet this person just posted Chris' FULL name on here AND his age, as well as my own full name on my own thread. And they just created the profile less than an hour ago, and they have ONLY made those two posts, so far.

Furthermore, Jools "closed" the report I made on the post in my thread, without deleting it. My full, real life name, is still on display for everyone at the moment.

Whoever this is, they just ran themselves into some serious legal trouble.

[bekateen]

@Ltygress, PM sent.

[TwoTankAmin]

My health is fine. I do have a back problem and as folks pushing 70 already know, physical work is harder at that age than when we were younger. (Plus water has gained weight over the last 17+ years.) The advantage is that I am fortunate enough finally to have the resources to be able to afford the fish if I want them. That took a lot of years to happen. Plus I am still wickedly handsome, well spoken and loved by all of my fish.

For those who know me, I already reserved my vendor space for the NEC weekend in March of 2018 and I plan to do room sales at CatCon the following Oct.


@catflshplanet
I thought Saul had gone out of business a few year's back? Can you PM me any current contact information you have as to how to reach him? A valid email, a mailing address or a phone number?

[carkichi]

@TTA, go for it, since you can afford them, or you will be regret it if you let them go. They are doing well in your tank and spawn for you.

My 2 cents

[TwoTankAmin]

In going back and forth, I got a sweetened offer. I was asked if it would incline me to do the deal if I were allowed to keep the 6 fry I owe to owner. I think I sold the 4 that I allowed out too cheaply at $200 each (they were 1.5+ inch TL). And that was a discount. I am not sure what they are really worth. But considering how rare they appear to be, something in the $250 -$300 range seems like a better/more realistic number.

So, those six fish would reduce my cost for the deal by whatever I might sell them for- or $1,500 - $1,800. Somehow I think I might just hang onto them a while. It is hard to walk away from the idea that I would have 33 L173s in my tanks. And that doesn't even consider that as things here settle down, that I will get them spawning again or that the F1 group will be at spawning size next year.

[TwoTankAmin]

After a lot of haggling, I own the fish. I know I probably overpaid. I did get all the fry which helps a bit.

Life has caused me not to be able to focus for any length of time on working with any of my groups. Home renovations, a few health issues etc. conspired against me. But this is ending and I have been trying to punch up feeding. I am getting spawns in many tanks, but not the 173 breeders. I for sure spotted two very fat females today while working on the tank. I may have to bring in Barry Whitefish to sing underwater love songs.......

My F1 group, acquired separately, has been morphing from the phase where many look zebra like to where they develop the zig-zag striping pattern I see on the 10 adults. I also saw all 9 of the 173 fry recently. They are all healthy looking and almost all appear nothing like they should grow up to look. I am torn between a desire to recover some of my costs and a desire to watch them grow for the next few years. Another spawn would make this decision much easier.

[amazonaquatics]

Great news Chris! If you want to sell any more let me know. I will be up you end at the end of the month.