The value of Flowerhorns

[marauder_77868]

I guess the point I was making about the culls is that it seems that many of them make it to the wild. In the case of the Flowerhorn, a hybrid which does not normally exist in nature, this can wreck the ecosystem. A high price tends to cause people to breed overmuch to try to create certain characteristics...thus an overabundance of culls...and an overabundance of a fast growing aggressive species introduced into the wild. I saw a presentation by Anton Lamboj recently in which they collected Flowerhorns in the wild in New Guinea, as I recall. So its obviously a problem. By the way...I've been around fish for many, many years. The only thing that has ever drawn blood was a Flowerhorn.

[Rico]

i got bit by a flowerhorn at work that had me bleeding a bit. they will bite too. pure species are not the only ones.

[oneoffcustom]

My first flower horn i ever owned i got at 1 inch. He dominated my tank so me and dad put him our pond. 6 months later we cleaned out pond and found him. i barehanded him and he but the crap out of me at about 5 inches and drew blood. He later died at the hands of a big texas cichlid...

[cichlid1409]

My original question remains...I understand that they are overpriced...I think that's pretty well established. The question I think I asked, if I may rephrase, is why are they priced like that? And I'm not just looking for a "well that's the way they do it at such and such store type answer"...I would like to know the underlying reason. Further, when such prices are charged people become much more greedy and much less scrupulous. It concerns me...where are all the culls going?

simple economics. flowerhorns are a man made product. the origonal breeders set the price they thought they could get and some crazy ******** actually paid it. if people are willing to pay the price then the price will remain the same (or possibly go up) if no one will pay that price then the price goes down. no real good reason for the outrageous price other than that.

[peterp63]

good point Nick

How is that a good point? You, as a troph/petro keeper, should know F2's and so on are classified as tank-raised and sold for nearly the same amount as F1's. The seller normally doesn't say F2 or tankraised. Just "Troph fry for sale". There ain't no flushin' trophs.

[Nickintex]

How is that a good point? You, as a troph/petro keeper, should know F2's and so on are classified as tank-raised and sold for nearly the same amount as F1's. The seller normally doesn't say F2 or tankraised. Just "Troph fry for sale". There ain't no flushin' trophs.

Maybe not, but I have seen very little pride with anything beyond F1. I was wondering if they were the shame of the troph world or something like that.

[oneoffcustom]

what is the meaninf of f1 or f2? and why does it matter? i mean i know why wc are special, but why the rest?

[dhavalsp]

Yeah its really interesting to know why and how Flowerhorn, which seems to be ugly and disproportionate(when you see it for first time) is so popular and people end up spending huge amount in buying it...
According to me its popularity can be attributed to many things:
1.It is very interactive, not a boring fish.
2. there are know specific natural guidelines which state a flowerhorn should have 'n' characteristics to be called as Flowerhorn. So you can have your own, different and unique Flowerhorn.
3. All his characters, colour, kok etc, depend on how well you keep your fish, u screw up one thing either temperature or water condition n you will know the difference. this always keeps Flowerhorn keeper more involved, as they can see the visual difference.
All this makes Flowerhorn more famous and it just adds to the cost.offcourse intense marketing and fengshui has also played a big role.

I ll end my boring essay now but i m sure this dose was not all tht bad after all the hilarious stories up there...

[marauder_77868]

after all the hilarious stories up there...

What was the hilarious part...other than the eating Tokyo story? I'm glad to see someone finally mentioned the BS stories that were propogated in the orginal marketing...luck, magic, feng shui, whatever you want to call it. The reason so many culls wound up in various ecosystems is the "marketing"...people thought it unlucky to kill the culls, so they went and dumped them in the nearest body of water. That's the price of someone's marketing idea.

[SOULJAA]

Charles, in an attempt to give you an answer in a nutshell, I think the high price stems from the FH "customization" options (be it an average person's opinion of what's attractive - i.e. "marketable" or what the "renowned" breeder had to do to create essentially a "collectible"). The whole "creation" process is time-consuming, and we know that time is money. So this is also factored into the price I believe. All in all, it's the entire "engineering" process which determines the price. Think about this to get an idea of what I'm saying...a lab-created diamond will cost you more in a store than a natural, God-created diamond b/c to replicate the conditions by which God creates diamonds naturally, in a lab, isn't as difficult as it is costly.

So as it goes w/ FH's...certain breeding techniques have been developed, so the various strains can be produced pretty much on demand (driven by a market somewhere). However, the engineering/development of this techniques took somebody, somewhere some time/money, and these valuables (i.e. time and/or money) have to be recouped someway or another. So it's has to be reflected in the price.

[newb]

How is that a good point? You, as a troph/petro keeper, should know F2's and so on are classified as tank-raised and sold for nearly the same amount as F1's. The seller normally doesn't say F2 or tankraised. Just "Troph fry for sale". There ain't no flushin' trophs.

when thinking about it...I have never seen F2 troph fry for sale. I sell my fry as tank raised only because I have WC and F1 mixed together. I didnt know F2 were sold as tankraised...but it makes since.

[dhavalsp]

@ marauder

well i just read the first page of the thread and replied ...n i was talkin about those initial stories posted there...m new to the thread n still goof up at times....

[Nickintex]

when thinking about it...I have never seen F2 troph fry for sale. I sell my fry as tank raised only because I have WC and F1 mixed together. I didnt know F2 were sold as tankraised...but it makes since.

Ok, but I still don't see people posting about how proud they are of their tank rasied trophs. Just an observation. My perspective is still valid, I think?

[Nickintex]

BTW, if the culls of Flowerhorns are making it into the waterways, will there now be a demand for overpriced WC Flowerhorns????

[tnguyen]

Just out of curiousity...if you set aside the arguments of what other people sell them for, whether stores or individuals, what makes these so valuable? With natural species it's a function of the ease of breeding, scarcity in the wild, shipping, etc. What is it that makes the value of these fish so high? Again...please don't use the argument of that's what others sell them for. Just wondering what makes these as valuable as a whole box (at cost) of wild caught tanganyikans.

Because people are willing to pay for it.