Hope everyone had a good July 4th holiday. I had a lovely one day vacation to Milwaukee for a punk rock show where it was about a million degrees cooler than Florida. It's a short week, and I've been a little short staffed, and probably working a short and/or remote day today due to some family issues. Not a lot new in here this week so I'll keep my intro brief, and frankly this week's email is going to sound a lot like last week's. Should have plenty more incoming for next week.
I did get shipments from Sri Lanka, Singapore and Bangkok this week, and a handful of Florida fish. I expect my Monday new fish list will be pretty extensive as there's a lot of stuff on order for this weekend. Should be getting the normal Sri Lanka, Singapore, and Bangkok stuff over the weekend, more Singapore Tuesday and Colombia Wednesday. Plus whatever cool stuff I can round up from Florida.
I did get in a few new bettas this week. I have some black samurai plakat bettas, a gorgeous short fin variety. Also have some new half-moon dumbos. They're a bit nicer than the standard dumbos that I usually have. If your betta selection is males, crowntails, and maybe a couple halfmoons then you need to do better. I'm not bringing in every type of betta that I can, but I do have a lot more variety to offer than I used to, and I'm rotating some of the pricier ones through here. I've always felt like my independent retailers should be able to do everything livestock-related better than chain stores. If you haven't seen the betta selection at Petco in the last year or so you need to check it out. I think it's great that they're getting more people exposed to fancier bettas, and it should make it easier for you to sell them too.
Please give a call if you have any questions.
Thanks,
Joe Hiduke Sales Manager Nautilus
Dumbo Halfmoon Male Betta
Tetras and Relatives
Rainbow tetras that came in from Colombia last week look great. They're showing more color today than they did last week. I somehow still have about a hundred ruby tetras. Perfect nano tank fish, they stay small and have great color. Still have gold tetras and a handful of green neons as well. And I probably still have a dozen or so Triphorteus giant silver hatchets.
Some Florida-bred fish that stand out this week include glowlights, big diamond tetras, silvertips, longfin blushing white skirts, Buenos Aires, penguin tetras, and gold neons (small but showing good color).
Indo farm-raised black emperor tetras are growing up and look great. Rummynose are pretty nice. Still have a few hujeta rocket gar, they're growing fast. Some other far-east farm fish include mixed size but very pretty albino Congos, ridiculous balloon red-eyes, small green fire tetras, and nice orange ember tetras.
Rainbow Tetras
Ruby Tetras
Gold Tetras
Medium Silver Dollars
Longfin Blushers
Penguins
Black Emperors
Albino Congo Tetras
Ember Tetras
Barbs, Danios & Relatives
For Florida fish, I still have a few very nice albino cherry barbs in stock. Pretty good size with nice long fins. Hopefully restocking on regular and veil cherry barbs and black ruby barbs over the weekend. Large tiger barbs are still nice. Almost out of red glass barbs but I what I have looks great. Longfin zebra danios are still great size and look fantastic. Brilliant rasboras are pretty and scissortails are big.
For import cyprinids, I have the same red panda barbs as last week. They're OK size, with the biggest ones close to showing color.
Albino Cherry Barb
Scissortail Rasboras
Red Panda Barbs
Livebearers
Get the brick swords this week, they are still twice the size of most other swords in stock. They aren't the brightest swordtail but they're big, male heavy, and have plenty enough color to sell. The certainly don't match what I think of as a brick sword, but they're pretty. Marigolds are brighter but smaller by a lot. Velvets are still kinda clampy. For imports, the vampire swords (red-eye red lyretail) are good size and bright, and not crazy expensive. The firecracker swords are a little bigger and brighter, but they're a lot pricier.
I have more guppies here than I've ever seen on a Thursday (although they be gone by the time this email goes out). I have a new blue dumbo that looks amazing. Not a small tail type like the blue panda dumbos, these have big delta like tail fins, plus the dumbo pelvic fins. Like a red dragon dumbo but in shades of blue. Also got in some white dumbos that are black and white so you can call them panda dumbos. I have a new 'copper dumbo' that's very red, also a big tail variety. Koi guppies are a little closer to tricolor this week, super bright and outstanding.
A few platies that stand out include gold twin-bars, bumblebees, sunset wags, sunset mickeys, rainbows, candy cane mickeys, and highfin gold calicos.
Lyretail balloon mollies are very nice. The stupid round body combined with the big lyretail is a nice combo, they really do stand out.
Brick Swords
Blue Dumbo Guppies
Copper Dumbo Guppies
Koi Guppy
XL Asst Platy
Highfin Gold Calico Platy
New World Cichlids
I have firemouth cichlids that don't suck this week. They're not big, but they're twice the size of what I've been getting. Showing plenty of red already, and they'll just get better as they grow. Green terrors are still coming in daily. Argentea, red devils, EB carpintis, managuense, dovii, and pink convicts all look pretty good as well.
If you want fish with some size the medium salvinis are still running big and have fantastic color. Got a few 5" blue umbrifermum left, and I think one piece each of istlanum and sagitae.
Still have a few of the red-spot gold severums in stock. Decent size and very nice color. They're bright yellow now with a bit of red. As they grow they'll stay yellow and get a lot more red spots.
German blue rams are coming in at a medium size. They look fantastic, although the regular size isn't that much smaller. Gold rams look good too, plenty of orange on their heads.
Still have almost all of the Amapa red-back angels. This is a Florida-bred fish and super solid. Yes, they look a lot like a silver angel right now, but they'll get plenty red as they grow. And they're really cheap considering how uncommon this fish is. If you want a prettier but a lot less exciting angelfish than get the gold pearlscales, they're a little oversized and very nice.
For wild cichlids, I still have a tank full of Colombian 'surinamensis' that came in a month ago. They look good, and they'll look amazing when they're full grown. Still have a couple of big true parrots, and one or two little curare tiger severums.
If you prefer your parrots to be abominations I got that covered too. I have adorable baby platinum parrots, little blue tiger parrots, and some nice size blood parrots.
Firemouth
Argentea
Managuense
Medium German Blue Ram
Geo surinamensis
Platinum Parrots
Blood Parrot
Old World Cichlids
Not sure I have anything new in this section, but based on my orders this week none of you read this last week.
Redstratus hybrid haps are one of the best looking fish here. The dominant male in my tank gets brighter every week, and is getting nice black edges on the fins. This is an awesome fish and would make a great centerpiece in a big hap display tank. On a similar note, I have exactly one large OB jungle hap and it is spectacular. I do have a decent number of medium non-OB jungle haps. These have a ton of blue, rows of red spots, and hints of the Nimbochromis pattern under all that.
Keeping the Florida peacock sale going, mostly because it's a short week and I don't have time to completely redo the specials. I do think we'll be busy next week so if you want a bunch of these get with your rep early. The special price is a great value. They're big, and a nice mix of dragonblood types, red-shoulders, sunshines, and blue pea-hap crosses.
Bubblegum socos are gorgeous. Been really hard to get a decent pic but they're a baby blue and pink OB soco. Color is outstanding, but they fire down when I scoop them up in a net.
Next best mbunas this week are still the avanti yellowtail zebras, with the goldbar elongatus a close third. Redhead macs and patricki zebras and both way oversized and a great value. Restocked on cobalt and red zebras, and they're both decent size. Albino auratus are back in stock and super bright. Regular auratus, albino red-top cobalts, Likoma elongatus, and medium daktari continue to look good.
A few other things that stand out include Lake Turkana jewels, albino comps, sunflower helianthus, Maswa duboisi, and Kipili regani.
Hybrid Red-Stratus Hap
OB Jungle Hap
Medium Male Florida Peacocks
OB Electric Butterfly Peacock
Bubblegum Socos
Rusty
Albino Auratus
Snow White Socos
Zebra Oblique
Albino Comps
Catfish and Loaches
Still have plenty of plecos in stock, and the little baby ones are getting a bit bigger. I'd still describe them as little baby blue phantoms and orange-seams, but they are definitely bigger than when they got here. I also have big blue phantoms, exactly five pieces. Green phantoms are very nice, well acclimated and very bright. Sent out a ton of galaxias plecos this week but I still have a couple dozen. Very clean black and white pattern, and their fins look great. I might have limited numbers of snowballs, zebras and/or butterfly plecos too.
Your cory selection this week is skunk cories. They're big and look great, but I do expect to be out early in the week. There may be a dozen or two of gold/greens and punctatus, but all wild cories are very limited this week. Pretty sure I still have plenty of tank-raised sterbai cories.
Found a handful of thorny cats last week that have been here for several months. Some other imports that look good include zamora cats, Lima shovelnose, big striped raphaels, a few farlowellas, talking cats, banjo cats, BB cats (very mixed in size), Colombian sharks, and pictus cats.
More loaches in stock than usual. I still have plenty of highfin banded loaches, redtail botias, yo-yo loaches (they're very small), robusta botias, and maybe some clown loaches.
Baby Blue Phantom Pleco
Green Phantom Pleco
Arcuatus Skunk Cory
Bicolor Panda Cory
Thorny Cat
Lima Shovelnose
Spotted Shovelnose These came in as tiger shovelnose but they were too small to ID. Feeling pretty confident these are the hybrid food fish 'spotted shovelnose'
Albino Hoplo Cats
Redtail Botia
Other Fish & Stuff
Ghost sharks are back in stock. This is a rainbow shark with no red. Also traded as whitefin blue sharks, this is an interesting color mutation. Identical to a rainbow shark in everything other than color. I'm still getting some 3" redtail black sharks, and they look great.
Madagascar rainbows got a fair bit bigger this week. These are only distantly related to the Australia/New Guinea species, and they have a very different streamlined appearance. They get a lot of color in the fins, and more subtle colors on the body. Great looking fish, but it's difficult to capture the beauty with a phone camera. Kamakas and Goyder River trifasciata are still your best bets for bigger rainbows. Signifers are fantastic, bright yellow with black and white fin edges. This is one of the small blue-eye species.
Still have some of the gorgeous red paradise gouramis. Also have small albinos. Hoping for more gold and opaline gouramis over the weekend but for now blues are you only option. For smaller gouramis I do still have some red fire gouramis plus all the color varieties of the import dwarf gouramis.
Got a handful of nice 6" orandas in stock. They've been here for ages, and their heads just keep getting bigger. Pretty sure the black ranchus that came in a couple weeks ago should be good to. For pond fish, the 4" shubunkins that came in last week look great, with huge tails and lots of big mirror-like scales.
Still have six of the big 8-10" silver arowanas, plus a ton of the medium size. For other fish that are too big for most of your customers, I have oversized 8-10" Florida gar. These aren't super fast growers at this size but they're going to be better suited for a pond (in southern states) than most tanks.
A few other things that look good include brown ghost knives, clown knives, big royal clown loaches, little zig-zag eels, large panda garras, Asian needle gar, arrohead puffers, dwarf puffers, leopard Ctenopomas, and delhezi bichirs.
Shrimp selection today is deluxe mix. It's a nice mix, but will probably be sold out Monday morning. Check the Monday email because hopefully I have more shrimp over the weekend. Mystery snail availability keeps getting a little better every week. Golds and mix look pretty good, and blues and ivorys are great size. Also have tons of assassin snails (still on sale), a few orange rabbit snails, and a few horned nerites.
Ghost Sharks
Madagascar Rainbow
Signifer Rainbows (and a von rio tetra that jumped)
6" Oranda
Black Ranchu
4" Shubunkin
8" Silver Arowana
8-10" Florida Gar
Arrowhead Puffer
Deluxe Mix Shrimp
Blue Mystery Snails
SALTWATER/CORALS
The Saltwater stock-list gets sent out on MONDAY afternoon.
In saltwater, we offer tons of top-of-the-line corals. If you need really nice frags to sell for $10-15, we've got you covered. If you want a $400 show piece unique Australian brain corals, we've got that too. Tons of the coral frags are aquacultured in-house and are named lineage pieces of various SPS and LPS. Import frags that are MADE in-house are also available, and are great options to get slightly bigger pieces that customers want like torches, hammers, blastos, acans, zoas, etc.
Effective February 1, 2019 Pictures for freshwater DOA claims are REQUIRED. DOA credits will no longer be approved if there are not accompanying pictures. This is to see the bag sizes, water quality at arrival, if heat/ice packs are present, etc.
Just snap a picture of the bag with your cell phone as you're putting the bags in the tank to float and that will work and should only take literally 10 seconds per bag that contains losses. These will help us to figure out why they arrived DOA and how to prevent it in the future. It is preferred that you email the pictures to your rep, but you can also text them into your rep as well. Thank you for your understanding and assistance.
SALTWATER DOA POLICY: All Saltwater DOA need a clear picture of the fish out of the bag on a cooler lid from your shipment and emailed to your sales rep the day or day after your shipment arrives. Any fish lost in shipment will be credited if you follow that easy instruction. Fish that die overnight are not creditable unless they arrive in very rough condition (basically dead) and you notify us of the condition with a clear picture of the issue the day it arrives.
