Buying aquarium fish at a local fish auction
Good evening everyone! I spent this Sunday by going to a fish / aquarium auction with my local fish club, for the first time in close to ten years. I used to be extremely interested in aquarium fish in my early 20s, but I haven't had too much time for it in the last few years. I have however kept a few aquariums running with fish that have been living there almost uninterrupted for a long time, but now I wanted to finally get some more interesting species.
The aquarium auctions are a lot of fun if you are interested in aquarium fish, or would like to buy them for cheap compared to an animal supply store. A lot of the fish there can sell for 10 % of their price compared to a store, so it can be very nice for filling up a tank for little money. I came with the intention of buying some more fish for my 120L aquarium to make it more visually pleasing, but by being a catfish nerd I pretty much just ended up with more catfish, and no pelagic fish at all.
I didn't have too much money to spend on fish right now, so I limited myself to buying a group of Corydoras sterbai, a group of C. schultzei, and some common algae-eaters Ancistrus sp.. The last ones are not very exciting at all, but they tend to do a nice job at cleaning tanks, and were very cheap (a group of 5 for $7).
I have kept over 10 different species of Corydoras in the past, but I have never had either of these two before. I have however had C. aeneus, which is almost identical to C. schultzei, and some taxonomists even argue that they should be merged to be the same species.
Anyway, I tried to get some photos of my new fish to share with you, but they didn't turn out to be very good. But you can see kind of what the fish look like from it.
C. sterbai.
C. schultzei.
C. sterbai.
I did of course make a lot of bids on other catfish as well, including some L-numered Ancistrus species, and some more groups of Corydoras sp. But I can't buy them all, unfortunately.
The next step is to make them grow a lot bigger, because they are fairly small right now, with each fish being between 2 and 3 centimeters. The maximum size of the Corydoras is just over 6cm, so they still have a lot of room for growth.
Tips on taking aquarium photos?
I realize that all the photos of the fish in my aquarium look very bad, and the colors are much lighter than in real life. The patterns on the C. sterbai is much more clearer in real life, and so is the black lateral line on the C. schultzei. I find it incredible difficult to take good photos of the fish in the aquarium, and the ones above are the best of almost a hundred different photos. So if anyone had some tips to share, feel free to do so below.
Never thought something like fish auctions existed! Is it also with an auctioneer and everything? Have you ever written a post about your setups? I would love to see them 😊
Oh yeah, there's a skilled auctioneer there. It was the same auctioneer as when I last went to one almost ten years ago, so I think he's one of very few active aquarium auctioneers in Norway. But he's extremely skilled, and seem to know hundred of fish species with knowledge about which rivers these live in in the wild. It's a lot of fun for a biologist like me who doesn't really know a lot about tropical fish.
And I haven't really written about my aquariums before, but it's something I want to do in the near future :)
That's definitely something for my bucket list then! I also can imagine there is a quite limited supply of fish auctioneers in the world. It's amazing he actually knows so much about them, must make a visit to the auction feel like a visit to a museum or zoo.
I'll keep my eyes peeled then 👍
I'm sure it will be possible to find one in Belgium, especially if you live close to any of the big cities. Most cities with 50k+ people here in Norway typically have aquarium auctions, but maybe Norwegian people are above averagely interested in keeping fish. But yeah, it's definitely a cool experience that you can learn a lot from if there's a good auctioneer.
Oh man, this struggle is real! Taking literally hundreds of shots only to find out not a single one is good - I know that too well :D Aquarium photography must be the hardest photography discipline ever :) No tips on that, sorry.
I like catfish too but I could not really keep them as they were super easy target for my crayfish. May the new additions to your fishtank bring you a lot of joy! :)
Hehe, I'm glad to hear that I'm not the only person with that problem.
And I see why you don't want to try catfish with your crayfish; that will likely end up as a very expensive dinner for it!
Exactly. As far as I remember, the crayfish used to have (somewhat morbid) habit of poking the poor catfish´s eyes out first :( It was quite a traumatizing sight, especially for kids (like me back then).
Oh wow, that sounds terrible! Can you keep anything together with the crayfish at all? Or does it tend to kill and eat pretty much anything?
It depends on the species of the crayfish - some are more aggressive than others. Also, the "bottom" fish species are in much greater risk of being caught and killed than those that inhabit the middle or upper part of the fishtank.
That makes sense! I think it would be cool to keep crayfish in my tank at one point, but I'm not a big fan of having only a single animal in the entire aquarium :P
I know, it would look a bit sad :D But like I said, you can have crayfish living with fish relatively peacefully in one tank. If you go for one of the least aggresive crayfish species and you avoid having too many bottom fish, they should be ok. Actually, in ideal conditions, the crayfish should only catch fish that are sick or injured - just like it is in nature. But it requires quite a large tank. Feel free to contact me if you ever decide to try keeping crayfish, I love these guys ;)
I never knew that there were fish auctions...Must have been quite an event.
Can any of the above specie reproduce in an aquarium???
Yep, it was a cool event indeed! And yes, with some luck all of the three species I bought can reproduce in the aquarium. I hope to be able to get eggs and fry from them one day, but they are still too young. I think the Ancistrus ones might reproduce soonish since I have a few grown individuals already.
Never knew there were fish / aquarium auctions! Cool. Next time take some pictures of the event and types of fish for sale.
I was thinking about taking some photos, but I'm a bit shy, so it would feel very weird to stand up and take a photo. I didn't bring my phone, so I didn't have the chance to take a photo without everyone seeing it :P Hehe
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