Eggs from abroad

Hi all
Having just returned to the Bka after a number of years away,it nice to see not much has changed,apart from the availability of eggs and fish from internet sites such as Aquabid. Having obtained some eggs from EC countries i am thinking about trying further afield in the spring.Has anyone had problems from non EC countries ,the US ,South America or the Far East

I am more interested in obtaining eggs than fish but would like to hear views on both,

regards
Chris.

hi im new at this,i've have had a few sets from the far east,most have been good but a couple of sets failed to hatch, mainley notho eggra rufiji river

I have had no problems whatsoever with eggs from Ken Tanaka (Japan)
I have however, had delayed and disappeared packages from Germany!
Phill.

I would suggest against purchasing eggs from perpetual hot places like SE Asia. They do not seem to ship well. Just my opinion.

I live in South Africa and have the best results trading with the UK and Japan (oddly enough). Kenjiro Tanaka of Japan (Ton2003 on Aquabid) is an excellent breeder and shipper. Zakaria safiel (corycory on Aquabid) is also a good breed and shipper. He is from Germany.

I imagine, give the short travel time, you should be able to do good business with people in the USA too.

Hi Chris

Never had any problems with eggs from abroad , you do get the lost envelope now and again but that also happens with our so-called wonderful postal service.
Shipping times seem to be about 7 to 10 days .
Try Ken Coombs in the states or any member of the AKA they are usually more than willing to help out.

Mike 198 AKA 9397

I bought some eggs Nothobranchius foerschi of ebay from Thailand, as a start to get into killi's.
they took about 2 weeks to arrive, and then needed a further incubation.
I had about 10 hatch, with a 50% survival ratio.
But this maybe due to my inexperence.

We cannot complain about eggs from abroad. Surely, all of as some times have problems with the eggs at home. What should we expect from the people who do collect the eggs and have the courage to send out of their site in hope for someone to be able hatch them? I am not aware of any seller asking if the buyer is confident enough to manage the wellbeing of progeny of his beloved fish.

"I had about 10 hatch, with a 50% survival ratio.
But this maybe due to my inexperence."

You are right to question your experience. Try to wet the peat in couple of week time. I am sure you would have more fry. My first eggs from Thailand took over one month to arrive (it was around of last Christmas). I did not managed to raise any spawning pairs from ten lots of eggs despite the 100% hatching rate, but sure, it forced to do a further research. From the moment they hatched (the easiest part), it is up to you to raise them all (more research).
I have enough experience with Aquabid as it is a good chance to get the new species.
Ken Tanaka’s (Ton2003) eggs are good in fact. I do buy Chromaphyosemion’s eggs of him. The envelope in post is for 3-5 days. The most amazing thing is that the collection day of eggs is 1 day before the dispatch, but I never seen any of the eggs turned white. In addition, the fry start to hatch on the indicated hatch date.
Today I want to give the overview of sellers from Europe.
Zakaria Safiel (Corycory) is selling good eggs and nice fish. Everything was delivered safe to me. He does support our Convention. I had the chance to buy his fish on Convention auction as well. One more seller from Germany is Killifischblackforest (Dieter and Nancy). They seem to sell ready to hatch eggs quite often. It is nice.
David (Gagal) from Czech Republic not only does wonderful photos but also has a lot of passion about his fish. I bought the eggs and fish. He is not in a habit to send the fish but he managed perfectly to send the dozen of Aphyosemion riggenbachi to me. They were packed in the Kordon brethable bags, styrofoam box, and delivered in 3 days. I found the Czech postal service is cheap and reliable. Another Czech seller is Cinna – perfect eggs, fast delivery. He has not a lot but nice popular species and offers enormous amount of eggs nicely packed and presented. So, even you have not much experience it is quite hard to fail a hundred perfectly visible eggs. All you need is rain water and plenty of java moss.
I am always happy with eggs from Andrei (Mnogokilli). He became the member of BKA recently and I hope he would join our Killiauction (as soon as I find the time to reply to him about its existence). Although, the Russian postal service is even worst just make sure do not go for ready to hatch eggs. The eggs are packed nicely, safe amount of moisture in the peat, so if I had forgotten to wet the eggs in time (for a month) for numerous occasions they were safe enough. The eggs are visible through the plastic bag (no much peat) you do not need to open it to make sure they are ready.
Didier Pillet (Pillet) offers not many species on Aquabid ones at a time. I did contact him after my winning and he offered further list of available eggs. Good communication. He is thoughtful. On the dispatch, he e-mails the detailed instruction of hatching and details of the biotypes of fishes you are ordering.
One more European seller is Kiril Kardashev (Emagic). He has the great selection of fish, great knowledge. I have a lot of species from him. The biggest surprise I have is some species of Simpsonichthys instead of Nothobranchius eggersi 'Ukuni' TZ 08-27. For sure, it is nice Simpsonichthys sp., probably new location F1. The only thing, I have to find what species it is.
Another seller from Bulgaria is Metcho. Latelly, he offers nice Rivulus sp. I had nice eggs and friendly communication. The Bulgarian postal service is also cheap and reliable.
I was ordering the eggs from less often appearing on Aquabid sellers from Europe and have to say that postage time is convenient and they do care about sending the good eggs. If for some reason you have no luck to hatch sufficiently, for sure, the seller would be happy to replace the loss for a postage cost in most of the cases.
My special world is for Tdcaquatic. They always have something nice to offer and their offers are great. They do not lose any of the fry in their fish house so they make sure it is not lost during the travel.
To be continued…
Oxana

Well done Oxana.

The post you've written will surely be helpful to those who are trying their luck with Aquabid.

Yes Oxana, all well respected breeders there who are willing to go that extra mile with correspondence and replacements where necessary.
Maybe we should start a definitive list of who to utilize and who to avoid as far as Aquabid is concerned.
All the Best
Colin

Colin,
I suggested this previously but no one was willing to spend time with it or moderate it. I can see how telling the truth about some sellers would have them considering it an insult......but thats their problem for being better with excuses than eggs!
We could call it a BKA ratings list and keep it in the members area, only allowing members to read it or leave comments. This way any BKA member who normally does not buy eggs from Aquabid could view other members opinions instead of a short line of feedback. Remember if you leave poor feedback you may get some in reply, plus its also restricted to 40 days. I have previously had money stolen after using paypal and, while they admited they had a problem, they also said funds could not be recovered so I did not get any goods or refund.
I have also had a huge problem with a prima donna who had some of the best feedback I have seen. He admitted the problem and said he would sort it - the eggs went bad, the fish stopped breeding etc. He dragged it on so long with false promises that it passed the 40 day feedback cut off and eventually, after a LOT of harrasment he refunded me. He still has perfect feedback and sells to this day but I do wonder, if this is how he is when it goes wrong, how many others WOULD have left bad feedback if there was no time constraints and more than one line to describe the events?
If our new webmaster does not read this could someone suggest it to see if it could be easily done?

best regards
Laurie

Don't forget about tgenade on Aquabid. He is a very good and friendly seller!

Excellent Laurie,
I'm totally with you on this. At least we could be showing that we care about our membership being ripped off by so called unscrupulous sellers.
Name and Shame is not something that should be frowned upon. If your an honest trustworthy chap (like Tyrone above) then there is nothing to be frightened of.
A ratings system would be a good idea. It would have many pluses as well as a downside but protecting, alerting our membership surely cant be a bad thing.
Don't forget we could also hemorrhage members via these bad experiences, so any helpful information surrounding this facet of obtaining killifish surely has to be embraced.
ATB
C

Gosh thanks Oxana...

Where do me and Dave need to send the £20??? lol (:

No but in all honesty...there is 3 things to remember when being a seller on Aquabid or similar.

1) Keep in communication with buyer of eggs and explain if anything is holding up process of sending (such ass fish not laying,weather too cold etc,maybe you are laid up with flu)

2) Always email the person the DAY the eggs leave...then both sides of the deal have a timescale to work on..

3) If things go wrong and they do when dealing with live organisms...maybe more in the eggs we send (in water as opposed to peat)...

Then its always good to offer replacement for FREE (even if its not accepted) or for the cost of Packaging and Postage to resend the eggs...

After all in the killi world most people are trust worthy and if you are straight with them...then they are straight with you.

And at the end of the day...myself and Dave like making a few £££s like the next guy but sometimes you gotta do whats right and also whats right for the Fish ...which after all is why we guys are here...

Anybody going to be using the KILLIAUCTION website this year???

Cheers


Tim / Dave

I would suggest against purchasing eggs from perpetual hot places like SE Asia. They do not seem to ship well. Just my opinion.

First post here (not a BKA member but..), but I have to address this bit by Tyrone. I live in Singapore and indeed, it is perpetually warm here. However, the temperatures are cooler at certain periods of the year, like how you have the 4 seasons in temperate countries. So timing your purchases from SE Asian sellers will be to your advantage. If in doubt, check with the weather service and get a week-long temperature/weather forecast for the seller's location.

I believe the whole thing about whether eggs ship well or not is more or less due to the timing of the posting and also with handling by the postal service of one's respective country. The way the seller packs the eggs is important as well. If the weather is freezing, or the temperature is too warm, it can cause all sorts of problems.

I've bought eggs off Aquabid before from all over the globe, but as they say, your results may vary. With non-annual eggs, I think the most important bit is how fast the packet/box/container clears Customs. If they take ages to clear, then yes, naturally all the resulting fry or any remaining eggs would be dead if not already rotting. So in some cases, the fault does not lie with the sellers if the postal service are slow in clearing packages or handle things roughly.

As a buyer, one must accept that there are risks when buying eggs/live fish from overseas sources. There's no such thing as a guaranteed thing, especially with killifish eggs.

As for the sellers list, nice job Oxana. I agree, Safial is a good breeder.

I have traded with people in Singapore and have generally had good results with the people who are in Singapore but not that great success with people outside of Singapore itself. I believe the problem is the postal service. I imagine the time between posting and it actually being on a plane is very short in Singapore. Likewise, the time from arrival to delivery is short. The method of packaging is also important. I have always had excellent results from Kenjiro but most people in Singapore report less fantastic results.

When are the SE Asia hot/cool seasons?