Siberian Brine Shrimp egg sales went through the roof in March/April. Many of our fish farm customers ordered in the same week which put a lot of pressure on our stocks. We sent out hundreds of kilo's of eggs. Despite putting orders in for a re-stock some weeks earlier we had a 6 week delay in getting the shipment in. In all the years we have been importing these eggs we have not had this problem & we apologise to customers for this break in supply.
Artemia is something breeders cannot afford to be without & to this end we are again bringing in eggs from the USA in the form of premium grade 90% hatch rate. New stocks of the tiny franciscana egg is now in.
We have contacts in many other countries producing Artemia but in many cases freight rates push the price up too far.
Now - here's an advance warning - Higher grade eggs in the USA will rise in 2008. This is due to a low harvest of dry weight cysts this year. Stocks of the lower grades are still good but expect the premium grades to go up. In fact we cannot now buy top grade Utah eggs as they are over subscribed. Artemia prices have always been very volatile. I know our customers can get frustrated at rises in Artemia prices but we only deal in good eggs & these always get hit first in price increases. Last year the US & China had worse than expected harvests. Our Siberian source had a decent harvest but the Chinese started to buy heavily from them which in turn pushed the market price up. China has become a serious influence in Artemia prices worldwide.
We are trying to maintain our low price for Siberian eggs. Our margin of profit is small on these eggs but rises in costs of freight & costs in changing currency have meant we have been forced to increase our 550g pouch to £20. The EURO is a real pain at the moment. Exchanging this currency with Sterling is getting expensive.
The Siberian pouches are unique because they are nitrogen flushed to stop egg decay & also have a safe preserver which can be seen as a white powder in the pouches. This is the same preservative put into food in the human food chain so is completely harmless to your fish. It certainly helps in maintaing a long life for the eggs. We have experimented with an open pouch in the fridge & on the floor in the fish house & still get good hatches 12 months on. Some of our customers have kept pouches in the fish house with similar results.

The flake page on the website is starting to change. We are getting many of our flakes packed at the manufacturers now for a variety of reasons. One of these is freshness. To package at the source of manufacture makes sense. No re-packaging or second handling. Some of the flakes in a previous batch came in very brittle. Beef Heart & Brine Shrimp were brittle. New manufacturing techniques are now being taken up which have vastly improved the flake.
Specialist flakes are hard to produce. If they were easy the 'big boys' would be turning it out. One of the biggest aims in producing these flakes is not to add artificial colours or stuff to bulk up or bind the flake. Not easy to do & each batch is manufactured in small batches in case of failure to hold together. I'm a little amazed at the prices we put these specialist flakes out for especially as they have to be freighted half way round the World.
Our packs in many cases are being reduced slightly in weight to get them under a fiver so now they are really cheap on the pocket to try out.

We are now stocking the Tony Tan range of foods. We had a show a couple of days after we had the first shipment & ran out of a couple of lines. We looked at these at a show last year & just had to get them on the site. Primarily aimed at Discus but why let them get all the best stuff.? We are currently trying it out on other fish such as Killies in our breeding sheds. We just love trying new stuff out with our fish. To this end we are looking at ever more products. Trouble is we are in Daphnia season & our tanks are stuffed with it.

We are breeding fish like crazy at the moment. Anabantoids are fairly new & we have some nice mouthbrooding species on the go. Our Betta simplex operation is currently raising over 500 young & harder species like B.channoides & B.brownorum are doing well. We have a great food for these fry in the form of the new GP diet 5-50 micron feed. It's basically a really fine, smelly powder but we have now tried it out extensively in our breeding operation & IT IS FANTASTIC !! We are selling loads of the small 57g tubs. It's cheap, lasts for ages & .... well try it out for yourself & send me an e-mail with your results. we feed this as a first feed in the morning - even full sized guppies hoover it up from the surface. This is a feed you really should have in your fish house !!
Other GP grades are slowly catching on. It always takes something new a little time to start moving. We are using it on brood female guppies. Very good results....the fish look really good. Ask the Guppy group about our female Guppies?

Getting geared up for the Midland Charity Fish Auction in June. See the link in the yellow box top left corner of the home page for up to date information. Alan & myself have been running this for many years now & it grows year by year. This one is a huge leap forward in organisation & even hosts a pig roast. We must be the first fish auction to hold one !
Get involved. This is a fantastic auction where you can find really rare fish.

Also introduced the 'mini filter' which is great for small tanks or margarine tubs on hatching fry of Killifish for example. Really quick to strip down & clean the sponge. Trouble is when we got hold of it we stripped stocks from our supplier & they ran out. New stocks are on their way & we apologise for delays.

Many years ago in the 90's we were quarantining wild fish for the largest UK fish importer & looked at starting up a network of UK breeders in an effort to supply good foods & take bred fish.
We attracted a lot of UK breeders from the rare down to stuff like Zebra Danio. Obviously we needed something different but it was great to see up & coming breeders wanting to take part. I think UK fish retailers give breeders a rough time in either not taking any bred fish back or offering a silly price with the old chestnut of 'yes but I can import them for pennies' thing. Some retailers do support local breeders but something really has to change in the UK.
Czech breeders have been well organised but operate from a country which is cheaper to breed fish in. Economies rise & this phase will pass with rising costs & freight/delivery costs. What happens next? UK breeders can get organised. The worst part of breeding fish is having a nice tank full of good quality home bred fish you can't move on. It blocks other fish you have growing on from moving to bigger tanks & it makes you start thinking - why am I breeding fish if I can't get rid of them?
Many breeders I've talked to at shows etc have said they can breed thousands of fish but nobody wants to buy them. It seems crazy to me that we continue to import fish where UK breeders could help fill the demand. Maybe we are looking at too high a price for bred fish where the Czech breeders settle for less but produce in bulk.
UK breeders are going to be popular in the next year or so we feel. Ride out the extra electricity prices & start breeding fish. Work your fish houses & make them pay.

Ocean Nutrition & Astra foods will be working into the site. We had some advance tubs to do a photo shoot & I've got to say these flakes look absolutely fantastic. Really rich colours. On opening the packs the smell was really fresh. We are putting photos of these foods on the site. Other online websites just put up shots of the tubs but we open them up & try them in our fish house. By putting photos of the foods online you can see what they look like.
The Salmon is used in many feeds from fresh fillets to their eggs & even oils. We all know how good Salmon is...
Ocean Nutrition is really big & sells worldwide. Why not give it a try.

This is just a sample to show the diversity of colours.

The Ocean Nutrition range is very big & we are putting a neck on the block but we feel our customers will really like it. Our fish do.

We are also stocking the Astra range which is manufactured in Germany. This feed has a good name in mainland Europe. Our aim is to check out feeds from overseas & introduce UK fishkeepers to these new foods.
We try to be progressive in this area. New feeds due in are dried Arctic Copepods.We previously stocked fresh chilled Arctipods but had supply problems. This food was amazing. I took it to shops & fed marines - Rift Lake fish etc. Always the owners commented on seeing fish come out to feed where they normally sit & sulked. Now you can get it freeze dried in a really rich looking powder. This is going to go like hot cakes.

The new Marine flake samples we had in are interesting. The make up is really good but what struck me is how useful this could be for Rift Lake Cichlids.

New Astax granule shipment due in. We always sell out of this stuff. Our half ton shipments are distributed to importers & commercial breeders. We sell loads online. This food is fantastic - if it wasn't why do professional importers & breeders keep buying off us?

With our policy of compliance with trading standards in the UK we are making some radical changes on the site. We are now an accredited business with official recognition to package animal feedstuffs in the EU. We already weigh out feeds on approved scales. Turnover on some lines doesn't warrant us going to the expense of labelling up & some lines are being dropped. Some lines we have done in the past we cannot get necessary paperwork needed for our inspections.
Every business has to evolve & take in changes & we are looking to more & more feeds & new equipment.

Our philosophy is - every knockback creates twice as many opportunities.