WANTED!!! L397

[Goldoccie21]

Looking to purchase a group of these fish in the usa. adults would be great or larger juvies are ok also.

[bekateen]

Hi Goldoccie21,

You're in good company there; L397 are difficult to come by in the USA and lots of people want to find them. Unfortunately the availability is really low in the USA. There's one guy selling them on Aquabid, but very pricy, higher than most zebras. There are also a couple of good breeders I'm aware of who are working on developing lines in the USA, but I haven't seen any of those people with fish for sale yet. And I, with two friends, recently brought back some from the UK. But ours are all babies and they probably have two years of growth (at least) before they're mature enough to spawn.

Unless you're going to travel to Europe or the UK any time soon (and bring back your own fish like I did), then my best advice is to find a local fish store owner with an import license and convince them to import some from Europe. Otherwise, you'll be really lucky if anyone in the USA pops up with them for sale at a reasonable price (i.e., not $200 each).

If you have questions about the backstory here, please feel free to PM me.

Cheers,
Eric

[bekateen]

P.S., some other fish advertised as L397 recently sold on Aquabid for a much better, price. But AFAIK, they turned out to be something other than L397 (I don't believe the seller was trying to be deceptive, but I heard the ID just turned out to be wrong). So make sure if you buy from Aquabid that the seller is able to provide images of actual fish for sale, not stock photos or generic photos.

[Linus_Cello]

Maybe someone at the catfish convention will have them, or you can meet a breeder who may have some in the future?

http://www.planetcatfish.com/forum/view ... hp?t=43036

[Goldoccie21]

For the mean time i am thinking about biting the bullet and getting a couple of pairs of l397s from that guy with the pricey l397s. I figure you can break even pretty fast from some of the breeding reports ive seen.

[bekateen]

For the mean time i am thinking about biting the bullet and getting a couple of pairs of l397s from that guy with the pricey l397s. I figure you can break even pretty fast from some of the breeding reports ive seen.

Keep in mind that most of the L397 I've seen on Aquabid from that seller are relatively small like the ones I brought from the UK. Unless you buy larger specimens, which will be more expensive than $200 each, you will be looking at a couple of years before yours reach breeding maturity. I'm not 100% positive about this timeframe (i.e., it may be less), but that's what I've been told about my L397, of which the largest now are almost 2 inches TL. And once they do spawn, it will probably be at least 6-10 months before your offspring are of sellable size to recoup your profit. A lot can happen in 2-3 years. If the supply from Europe (or anywhere else) finally opens in the meantime, the market price of these fish may come down considerably before you have any to sell.

It's a gamble, but it's your gamble to take. And I certainly can't argue with you about the desirability of these fish. So even if you can't resell the juvies for lots of cash, you'll always be able to sell them for at least some cash. And if they produce enough young for you, you'll still get your initial investment back in reasonable time at lower prices if the market changes.

Good luck, whatever you decide to do. I would love to see more of these fish around the USA.

Cheers, Eric

[Narwhal72]

It's important to make sure the fish you buy are actual L397 also. Young L271 can look very much like L397 but are considerably less valuable as they are more readily available.