Newsletter 12-01-23

News & New Items

Hey Folks,

Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving holiday, and a great weekend of sales afterwards. Feedback I've gotten has been very positive. This week has been a good sales week, the holiday week was better than expected, and week prior was excellent. I'm optimistic that we'll have a good December and then roll right in to a normal crazy busy January.

I have axolotls in stock for the first time in years. I used to get these pretty frequently but the price skyrocketed with Minecraft, and of course COVID, so I haven't had them in a long, long time. I'm not sure the demand has died down that much, but the supply has increased. I've got them at a competitive price, although if you haven't gotten them in years you'll have a little sticker shock. About double what I had them for a few years ago, but I guess that's on par with just about everything else in the world now.

As a herp geek IMO axolotls are way more popular than they should be mostly because of their stupid gills. Keep in mind these about as far from tropical as possible, and they need a cold tank. I know some people do OK with these at room temperature but I'd recommend a chiller. Hence why I'd rather see something like ribbed newts be more popular, but they don't have the goofy external gills that everyone loves. Axolotls are highly cannibalistic if they're not very well fed. They love blackworms and frozen bloodworms but they'll also do fine on a pelleted diet. I have both wild-types and leucistics this week.

Got in some L52 butterfly plecos from Colombia this week. Haven't seen these for quite a while. This is one of the flatter plecos that likes high-current. Like many fancy plecos these are omnivorous, but they fall on the herbivorous side. Give the plenty of algae wafers and veggies, and you can also mix in things like shrimp pellets.

Sticking with a butterfly theme, I have some OB butterfly-type peacocks. This gets stuck on their name from having jacobfreibergi in the mix, giving them long fins with a nice white edge on the dorsal. All of the new peacocks and haps that came in this week are amazing. Fresh from vats so they've had plenty of sunshine and look amazing.

Please give a call if you have any questions.

Thanks,

Joe Hiduke
Sales Manager
Nautilus

Tetras & Other Characins

Marble hatchets came in from Colombia this week. This set came in look really good and are holding up well so far. Not always the case so get these while you can. I also have a new batch of diptail pencils that look pretty good. Restocked on silver dollars, bleeding hearts, and green neons as well. Still have flameback bleeding hearts too, and they look better every week. Also have limited numbers of flagtail Prochs at around 4", small red hooks, and a very few emperor blue hooks.

Been seeing some colder temps here so Florida tetras are not all running big. As we're into the winter it's well worth your time to read my notes about what's running big. Longfin serpaes are big and nice right now. Red-eyes, head and tail lights, black skirts, longfin white skirts, gold neon tetras, x-rays and bloodfins are all decent size right now. Candy canes and Colombian tetras are OK size. Tiger silver dollars are a little small but look great. Serpaes, von rios and orange von rios are all pretty small this week. Note that this high-volume fish are restocked most days, so I can't 100% say that these big fish will be big all week, but they tend to come in around the same size for quite a while.

Back in stock with far-east standard and black emperor tetras this week. They're both pretty small but otherwise look good. Penguins came in on Monday after a long absence. They're good size and look great. New all-male Congos are very nice and always popular. Some other Asian farm-fish that look good include ember tetras, cardinals, rummynose, glass bloodfins (limited), and green fire tetras (limited).

Barbs & Other Cyprinids

Snakeskin barbs are in stock again from Indo. This is a small and peaceful barb species that you can treat more like a tetra or rasbora. Back in stock with galaxy rasboras, although they may be limited this week. Redline rasboras are also back in stock but you're not likely to see a red line on them unless they're in super soft water. Gold white clouds are coming in great size right now. Far-east imports but they're big and look great. Red panda barbs got even bigger this week and they're at the size where they should be showing color in your tanks. Red-eyed gold tinfoil barbs are in stock again and decent size, and the standard tinfoils are big too. I have acceptable import albino and green tiger barbs, and great size platinum green tiger barbs.

Plain old tiger barbs are decent size, the regulars are a little bigger than the import albinos/greens. Still getting mediums and larges too; mediums are bigger than the regulars, larges are only a little bigger than the mediums. Rosy barbs look pretty good; they're big with a decent male/female ratio. Veil-tail cherry barbs continue to look great (but regular cherry barbs are imports and microscopic). Pearl danios, longfin leopards and giant danios are all running big right now. Skip the longfin zebras, they're terrible this week.

Livebearers

Swordtail selection is all imports this week. Black swords are my nicest swords but I have very few. Pineapples are decent size with mediocre color and no males. Neons have a few more males (not many). Sanke swords are small but look great. Velvet wags have my best male/female ratio and look pretty good but closer to a brick red than a velvet red. For premium swords, I still have great looking firecracker swords and vampire swords.

Got in a new set of huge XL platies with a good mix of colors. Other platies that look good this week include sunset mickeys, gold calicos, gold twin-bars, and dawn platies. Bumblebee, rainbows and red crystals look pretty good too but they are small this week.

Blue Moscow guppies are nice size with big tails and good color, and on top of that they're on sale. Some other guppies that look good right now include pink tux, blue cobras, red rose, and both green and red Endler's for a nice Christmas Endler's mix.

Chocolate sailfin mollies are back in stock and look really good. Also have greens and golds this week. Objectively they're nicer than the chocolates, but I haven't seen a chocolate sailfin in a couple years. Gold dust and black lyretail mollies are both decent size, and they're both on special. Skip the standard black mollies, they're very small.

New World Cichlids

Lots of fun stuff this week. I have some new Geos, some new rare Centrals, and a few big show fish.

4" balzanis are in stock and look great. They already have lots of yellow, and they'll just get brighter as they grow. This is a really good strain. 4" red-head Tapajos look great too, although this is one of the hardest fish to get a decent pic of. Also have regular size red-head Tapajos that are a little bigger than usual. I have a few new 3" brasiliensis pearly eartheaters too. These are pretty and they're also jerks. Treat them more like Centrals than most of the Geos.

Best looking of my new Centrals are some large zonatus. They're not huge, but they're showing really good color already and they'll keep getting brighter. New fenestratus have lots of red on their heads, and they will get crazy colorful when they mature. FYI, the mediums and large are the same size, and I just realized they're the same price too. Order the larges, they're actually a little smaller but they're more colorful. I have the biggest centrarchus in the history of ever. Snook cichlids are back in stock and a little bigger, around 3" this time.

Got ones and twos of jumbo green terrors, 5" salvini, 5" chocolate cichlids, ~7" true parrot, jumbo flaveolus, and jumbo black sagittae. Also have a handful of gorgeous large istlanum, and a few big trimacs.

For cheap fish, I have OK firemouths and pink convicts, good size black convicts, and small Texas cichlids.

Chocolate cichlids are available in a 2" and 3" size this week. Also have limited numbers of green severums.

For imports, I've got plenty of platinum parrots and blood parrots in stock this week. Restocked on assorted Singapore discus too. And I still have lots of the yellow-finned double-'red' Apisto agassizii.

Old World Cichlids

Lots and lots of big fancy pea-haps in here this week. These are hybrid OB varieties. There's not always a lot of difference between some of the strains (especially after they're here for a few weeks) but every one of them is exceptional. The OB yellow peacocks are crazy bright and bigger than the mediums. OB Z-rocks do have a nice blaze down their backs, and a very lithobates-like shape. OB cherry peacocks have a pearly sheen and plenty of red. The OB jungle haps and red empress have been here a few weeks so they're not quite as bright, but they will fire up in your tanks.

Beyond the big show fish, I have regular sized venustus, red-fin borleyi, and blue dolphin moori. All of these look pretty good. I also have red empress and Taiwan reefs that are good size but these fish are nothing but silver at this size.

For mbunas, I have a new larger size of the bubblegum socos. This is an awesome fish that looks great in my tanks and never photographs well. Trust me, they're nice. In the tanks they look like a pink and baby blue OB fish. If you want bigger fish I still have about a dozen each of the way oversized medium OB zebras and socos. Some regular mbunas that look good include chailosi elongatus, gold Tropheops, red-head macs, albino auratus, chipokae, red zebras, yellow labs, albino zebras, and acei.

Catfish and Loaches

Royal farlowellas are in stock again and they came in very good size. I have some standard farlowellas that are pretty good size too.

Restocked on some new cories this week. I have new arcuatus skunk cories that are pretty good size. Metae bandit cories look good too. Got a ton of pygmy cory cats that look good so far. And I have some nice size emerald Brochis cats.

Green phantom plecos are all over the place in size. I have new small green phantoms that are about a quarter the size of what's been going out as a small. Order the mediums (or larger) unless you want the adorable baby green phantoms. Still have a handful of super nice flier plecos and I can't understand why they're still here. Got a few sultans left as well. Got in plenty more Colombian snowballs and Colombian zebras. Both of these are on special and the zebras may be the best value on the list.

Back in stock with spotted raphael cats. They're pretty good size and look good, but I probably don't have enough to get through the week. I do have lots of striped raphaels and they're nice size too. Also back in stock with good size banjo cats. A few other things that look good include pictus cats, four-line pims, Burmese sun cats, and wild bushynose plecos. Skip the cats this week, size is terrible.

Still have all of the tank-raised Synos here. The little petricolas are adorable and on sale, but they're nowhere near as nice as the bigger Florida Synos. I have pure petricolas, an assortment of hybrid spotted Synos, very nice decorus, and beautiful angelicus/eupterus crosses.

Back in stock with Borneo suckers. They're small with a nice spotted pattern on most of them. There's a pretty good chance I'll be able to fill kuhli loaches next week. The rest of the loach selection is the same; nice redtail and tiger botias (both on sale) and small yo-yo loaches.

Other Fish

Green GloFish sharks are still in stock this week, and they're a perfect Christmas shark. I doubt I have enough to get through the month so you should get these now.

This section is going to be rainbow-centric because I've got a few new types this week. Crimson-spotted rainbows are back in stock and they're big and super nice. This is a green fish with red spots, unlike most rainbows in the trade. I'm not old enough to remember this, but rumor has it that this was the original Australian rainbow. A shame it didn't stick because these are about a million times prettier than the standard Australian rainbows.

I'm also back in sock with large Deepwater Creek splendida rainbows. Another fish that should be more popular. I suspect a lot of stores don't order these because they see splendida and think they're just like the standard Australian rainbows. This is a much brighter fish, with great color especially in the fins. And I put them on sale this week so you can try them out.

One more new rainbow this week; Madagascar rainbows are in stock again. They don't look like any of the other rainbows in the trade. They're cigar-shaped, not high-bodied, and their colors are bright but more subtle and harder to show in pics. Blue/green body with red fins when they're big and happy. The fish I have today are not big, so you're going to have to be patient with them.

For more common rainbows, get the yellows. They're running big and have good color. I'm out of medium boesmanis today but might have more on Monday. Turquoise got smaller but still have OK color.

Restocked on both gold and red honey gouramis. The golds are brighter, the reds are a little bigger. Blue paradise are imports and small. Albino paradise are Florida and little bigger than the imports. Opalines are the best size common gouami. Blues are a little bit smaller. Golds are quite a bit smaller. Pearls are so small that you don't want them.

Pretty sure I'll have some big Santa Klaus comets for next week. Ask on Monday. Still have very limited numbers of lionheads and black ranchus. Big fantails are very nice.

I have medium Siamese algae eaters in stock. If you ordered mediums when they were on special for a few weeks you probably got the smaller size. These are legit bigger than the regular size.

Various other fish that look good this week include Florida flagfish, dwarf puffers (limited), albino rainbow sharks in every size, peacock gudgeon gobies, doctor fish, panda garras (on sale), 6-7" fire eels, daisy rice fish, and orange medakas.

Shrimp, Snails & Other Inverts

I may have an assorted rabbit snail on the list this week. If I do it's mostly not rabbit snails and not very assorted. Almost everything in the tank is a volcano Faunus snail. Got plenty of assassin snails and probably black racer nerites for next week.

Florida albino mystery snails are pretty good size. Got plenty of nice golds and maybe a few blues as well.

I have limited numbers of bamboo shrimp in stock this week. This is a filter-feeder, very different from the small ornamental shrimp. They may do OK on a powder food, and they'll certainly do fine if you can feed them daphnia, baby brine, or other tiny live foods. 

You get pics of red crystal shrimp nearly every week because they're almost always the best looking shrimp here, and this week is no different. Other shrimp that look good include red cherry shrimp (bigger than usual) and blue velvets.

Borneo panther crabs are back in stock. These are a little like vampire crabs but a lot nicer looking, a little bigger, and a lot more aquatic.

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.

Please let us know if you have any questions.
813.315.1094

Nick ext 215 NickF@Nautiluswholesale.com
Steven ext 296 StevenH@NautilusWholesale.com
 
813.315.0116 fax
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