Opinions on buying retired broodstock (and paying a premium)?

[Labora]

Has anyone had positive experiences with buying expensive older fish labeled retired broodstock. Does being used to breed make them live shorter lives.

Also don't know the age.

 

[ichthyogeek]

Well...I think it depends on what you're wanting out of the older fish. I don't have experience with buying retired broodstock, but here's why I would want to buy them

• A desire to replace a similarly sized fish/pair of fish, for something like display purposes
• A desire to buy already large/mature fish for the purpose of sexing future fish (such as using banggai cardinalfish to determine if juveniles you have are male or female).

Unless you are personally buying from the breeder, you don't know why the fish have been retired.

• They could be old and near the end of their lifespan
• The fry they produce seem to consistently produce a defect (bad gills, deformed spines, etc.)
• Their egg clutches have reduced considerably, or have stopped

 

[BlennyTime]

Liveaquaria’s divers den occasionally has retired broodstock of clownfish. But as said above, there’s really not a great way to know why they were retired.

 

[ThRoewer]

I would want to know why they were retired.
It would generally be okay if the breeder wanted to work with new species and needed to make room.
But if it was because they are no longer productive or produce bad eggs (I have 2 gorgeous pairs of wild onyx percula that only produce dud eggs) or inferior offspring then they would be worthless for anyone planning to continue to breed with them.
On the other hand, if they are just bought as a pair for a display tank then the above would not matter much.

 

[Surfzone]

I would want to know why they where retired as stated above. Also, think about what you want to do with the fish. If you don't care if they produce viable eggs or not I say go for it. You got yourself a good pair of fish to enjoy, but if you want to breed fish I've always rather pair them up myself.