Loaches Online Forum

Is it just me, or have I been out of touch for awhile on the general price increase of all freshwater species across the board: inflation / limited supply? I live west of Toronto,Canada.

I went to 3 pet stores yesterday [2 chains, 1 independent] and I was astounded by the prices of most fish. For example, one store had Dwarf Neon Rainbowfish for 7 bucks each. Yikes.
Most bread & butter characins such as tetras were over $3.00 each. Whereas many mbuna cichlids which I haven't kept in years seem to be minimum $8-10+/each. Central/South American's were min. $10/each as well, for small ones. With few exceptions such as Convict Cichlids, less than $3.00/each, likely because they breed like rats.
Excuse my old man rant, I was fairly surprised, since my last purchase was over a year ago for yoyo loaches which were quite cheap at the time.

My best recommendation would be to join a fish club. My club has auctions every month where we can bring home bags of fish for a few dollars. I don't know about Canada, but in the US, our economy is such a mess that the prices of everything is up. Many people are giving up their tanks, because they can not afford pets at this time.

Don't take this the wrong way, but we were paying those same dollar amounts back in the late 80's when I first started keeping fish. Now figure for inflation and the exchange rates between the US (where I am) and Canada, and you realize that fish are a LOT cheaper now than they were 25 years ago.
In fact, it seems kind of odd that the pricing has stayed about the same all these years: $3-10 depending on species and size. I'm not complaining, that's for sure.

starsplitter7 wrote:My best recommendation would be to join a fish club. My club has auctions every month where we can bring home bags of fish for a few dollars.

Good suggestion

West of Toronto, there are clubs in Brampton, Hamilton, Brantford, Kitchener-Waterloo and London.

Where abouts are you and where have you been looking for fish, maybe I can help ?