Agree! I look at them and think, "are you kidding me?" .......and I'm a wrasse fanatic!
Expensive Fish You Just "Don't Get"....
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Agree! I look at them and think, "are you kidding me?" .......and I'm a wrasse fanatic!
I love them too! Just can't stomach the cost of the Curacao deep water one compared to the others available in the hobby.jsvand5
Valuable Member
I think they are priced pretty reasonably when you take into account the difficulty of collection. They are by far the nicest basslet. If I had a smaller tank I’d consider trying them in a species tank. Unfortunately, I don’t think I’d see the very often in my current tang filled 210g
Ligeia
Community Member
Keep in mind they have come down A LOT in price. You can get them sometimes on DD for like 550 with a sale or coupon. I think they used to be well over 1,000. I had one for about two years. The colors intensified from yellow to a deep sunset orange with electric purple striping. I've never seen such intense coloration in any other fish before.
I love black zebrasoma, my LFS in Santa Clara/San Jose has had one for 6 months for $500, I’m tempted every time, but it’s just to much..
One day I’ll get my gold rim/Achilles hybrid as well..
I’d have a real hard time not pulling the trigger for a true z. Rostrum at $500. Had one for about 5 years between 05 and 10, lost it to velvet (quit until 18 over the losses, QT hard now). Got that one for $275 back then, it was tiny. Such an awesome fish. I never see them for sub $900 and typically more. If you see at $500 again and don’t buy hit me up!
Hemmdog
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Yea it’s a real one. This shop is super old school, no internet sales, no internet marketing, 5 year old prices(no coral over $80), not much business so things sit in there forever if I don’t buy them. The owners are more focused on their planeted fw section and washing their cars for some reason. Come to San Jose, it’s a hidden gem. Lol
ca1ore
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As already noted, price is a function of supply not of appearance. If a fish is hard to collect or comes from a logically challenging part of the world it'll be scarce and thus expensive. Then, of course, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I have both a zebra and a convict tang - latter is nice but the former is spectacular. Just a few hundred extra $$ per stripe. Happen to be a big tang fan so have a gem and a true black also. I don't bother with expensive wrasses though - just too twitichy.
Ligeia
Community Member
I love black zebrasoma, my LFS in Santa Clara/San Jose has had one for 6 months for $500, I’m tempted every time, but it’s just to much..
One day I’ll get my gold rim/Achilles hybrid as well..
Gold rim/Achilles hybrids are beautiful but I have tang PTSD. I can't stand how often they get ich or velvet lol. I already am anxiety prone, to begin with!
Hemmdog
10K Club member
Very true lol.
Me too. So many wrasses that I like and keep but those didn’t really get me
cdare99
Active Member
Divers Den has some seriously expensive fish right now. Like thousands of dollars, there’s a pair of interruptus angels for like 8k and several other fish for like 2-5k+. My fear would be what if they died and you lost your money. Not that I’m even in a financial situation to even think about buying a fish that expensive. I’m getting ready to buy a chevron tang and the prices on those have gone up quiet a bit in just a couple years.
Designer Clownfish....eww
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For me it's just clownfish in general. They are the epitome of the dime a dozen fish of the hobby. I'm okay with not having the most unique fish in the hobby, but I am really put off by the "everyone and their dog has one" type fish.
Obviously @ca1ore is right about pricing and demand/supply, but the fish I'd never buy even if money was no object are super expensive fairy/flasher wrasses. The cheaper ones are beautiful, often more colorful and none of them live that long.
-I personally do not like most clowns and like most designer clowns even less.
That said many of the expensive angels are extremely beautiful to me (esp the conspicuous). I don’t love the adult clarion but I wish it were the price of a rock beauty - smaller than most big angels and supposedly hardy! And for some reason I think the black tang is very beautiful, not my fave tang but one I think is quite gorgeous!
-I personally do not like most clowns and like most designer clowns even less.
That said many of the expensive angels are extremely beautiful to me (esp the conspicuous). I don’t love the adult clarion but I wish it were the price of a rock beauty - smaller than most big angels and supposedly hardy! And for some reason I think the black tang is very beautiful, not my fave tang but one I think is quite gorgeous!
On the other side of that coin is, how many people started this hobby because of clowns? Or to have an anemone and clown tank( me for one) and then branched out to corals an other items. If it was not for the dime a dozen clowns there would be way fewer reefers and fewer companies catering to us with this awesome tech and gadgets at (kinda) low prices. I feel they opened the doors for many of us. That being said I wish I could harpoon my clown because he/she tears apart almost any fish I put in that could be a threat to them. And bites me whenever my arm is in the tank. They are strong for such little guys. Trust me I worked at a LFS when Nemo first came out and holy cow that was a mess. But many stuck with it and have awesome set ups now.
Indytraveler83
Well-Known Member
I’m not a huge fan of the long finned clowns, but love the color morphs! (2 platinum perculas patrol my reef)
With the way things are going, I feel like color morph clowns and color morph frags might be opening up the aquaculture route that will help sustain this hobby long into the future.
Also... to return to the original topic, I can buy dozens, if not hundreds of platinum clowns for the price of some of these wrasse/angels.
With the way things are going, I feel like color morph clowns and color morph frags might be opening up the aquaculture route that will help sustain this hobby long into the future.
Also... to return to the original topic, I can buy dozens, if not hundreds of platinum clowns for the price of some of these wrasse/angels.
Not quite as expensive as some of the others but for 2k my wife would Castrate me. They really do look like candy!! I want one so bad
Check out the poor man's candy basslet, the pacific candy basslet aka swales swissguard basslet. I had one that was a very vivid example(pic on a crashed harddrive). Once acclimated and in a healthy tank, the orange and lavender comes out in this fish bueatifully, that fooled a couple of my friends in the industry.
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