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trop collecting in Hawaii

9K views 22 replies 7 participants last post by  MediaHound 
#1 ·
I'm a full time tropical fish collector here in Honolulu, Hawaii and I was wondering if anyone else here also collects fish? I do a lot of deep collections using scuba and get crosshatch triggers, bandit angels, flame wrasse, Tinkers butterflyfish, gold dwarf morays, and then all of the typical common Hawaiian variety stuff. In fact, just last Wednesday I was diving 120ft. Deep for crosshatch and had a 17ft. tiger shark swim by! Yikes!
 
#2 ·
O man that sounds like pure craziness down there with that tiger how big was it? But now I know who to contact if I want salt water stuff from there. I collect here in Florida for myself and mostly fresh water stuff I’ve done some collecting for marine fish and inverts around here damsels, angels, spotted rays tangs, coral beauties, anemones but there’s a lot more stuff down here puffers, Parrots fish and wrasses just to name a few. but guys like mediahound and some of the salt water guys would be more knowledgeable of the diving in deep water I just have the regular open water license.
 
#3 ·
you know what... Most of the tropical divers down here only have their OW license or no license at all!!! I know a guy in Florida named Rob Feldman that collects and does aquarium maintenance. He gets a lot of queen angels and stuff like that.
 
#5 ·
I don't know. Freshwater fish are too cheap for me to deal with and most if not all are aquacultured here in the trade. I guess from what I can remember from the last time I messed around in a stream there were swordtails, guppies, plecos, and some really uninteresting native species. I really don't know... I don't do the freshwater thing.
 
#10 ·
F/W may not be that interesting to a S/W diver, unfortunate that you are missing out though. But, no, the $ gain in the F/W is not as good as in S/W so I can see what you are saying.
In reality though, and though I do not keep any F/W at the moment, F/W have their own little niche in the aquarium hobby. Watching eartheaters breed and care for their young, tank raised discus of all different color morphs interact with each other and their owner, a shoal or rosie barbs streaming by lush green vegitation and even a tank full of African mouthbrooders with colors of such diversity and personalities to match...
Yes, S/W fish are costly and you can make a goodly amount collecting and selling them, but F/W have their place and are just as facinating, in some ways more so, especially if you are wanting to observe the breeding behaviors of tropical fish.
Please don't belittle the F/W aquarium species for they in themselves can bring enjoyment and awe to the keeper, and that so without having to fork out $600 for a fish that will never spawn in captivity and if it does happen to, rearing the larvae would be next to impossible.
But, for some the $ sign is all that matters.
And before anyone gets all bent out of shape becasue I spoke the truth, if the F/W species demanded a higher price than the S/W, where would you be? Diving off the reefs or standing in the streams with net in hand?
 
#11 ·
if there was more $ in freshwater fish I would be breeding them-- of course! But the thing is... I live in Hawaii.. Not the Amazon, not Africa, not Vietnam, or some other exotic place that has really nice freshwater fish. The freshwater fish HERE are not exciting. No discus or arrowana or anything else cool. We have guppies and swordtails. I'm not saying that freshwater fish suck in general, they just suck when they come from HAWAII.
 
#22 ·
I currrently sell aquarium dry goods and will be opening a wholesale tropical fish company in Minneapolis, things will be operational within a month. I have dealt with one company on Oahu in the past for Hawaiian fish, but would be open to working with other companies. Any referrals would be appreciated, or if you ship fish yourself please get in touch. Thanks.

Dave
WhataFish.com
 
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