October Meeting

[Fishnut]

Omg...I'm not even into cichlids and I'm shocked at those prices.  Maybe I should have stayed and expended my horizons into those africans if they were so cheep to buy!

I went to a Brant auction.  They start the bidding at just below what the fish is likely worth, then go from there.  If nobody wants to start at their initial price, the go down until someone bids.  Often when that happened, it went up past the original starting bid .  I bet those fish would have gotten $30+ there.

[Jody]

Hiya Everyone,

      Auctions are always hard, sometimes the cheaper fish can just fly out at higher prices than the rarer fish. I remember a few years back we had a speaker talking about collecting in Central America, and he brought in a red fin convict, he couldn't even get $1 for it.
      Does the club decide that if they bring in a speaker, their auction items get an automatic minimum starting bid, just to bump up the prices?
      This is a hard call, because then you can argue, well I have the same fish, why don't mine get a minimum bid on it?
      This is the nature of an auction, you never know what you will get, and you can't expect to get what you hope to.
I find most mini auctions are definately buyer friendly, where the larger auctions tend to balance out a bit more for the sellers.

Jody

[Brent Shaver]

I agree auctions are tricky, I ended up getting $22 for a 40 gallon tall aquarium with stand.  That was barely worth the effort it took to get it there, but its a chance you take.

As for the fish, I only held my hand up until no one else competed.  I will add, yes I got 2 bags of fish cheap, very cheap considering what they were.  Now with that in mind, it was nice to catch a break, as most of you know I lost all my fish to a crash not many months ago and I can assure you every one of the 30+ fish were purchased at a LFS as I was not part of a club nor had access to local breeders when purchased.  I took a hit for over $500 in stock so to get a break on some fish was nice.

Also before the meeting I did not know Larry or had heard of him, but I can assure you I will be purchasing fish from him in the future and he will be given more then a fair price for them.  It will all work out in the end.