# Best places to buy mbuna that ship to Canada/Are in Canada



## Steve90 (Oct 21, 2013)

Looking to order mbuna and I live in Vancouver, BC, Canada. I'm wondering if anyone knows any good places to order from!


----------



## chiroken (Sep 25, 2007)

spencer jacks in winnipeg has an excellent selection, I am probably going to do a peacock/hap order shortly with him and have them flown here to Comox.


----------



## Marconi (Oct 7, 2013)

chiroken said:


> spencer jacks in winnipeg has an excellent selection, I am probably going to do a peacock/hap order shortly with him and have them flown here to Comox.


Spencer Jacks is the best and probably the only choice (tried to order from Quebec Cichlids but no one ever contacted me back). Make sure if you order from Spencers, that you stick with his f1 farm raised africans. I had ordered some of his domestic/local bred mbuna and wasn't pleased but the farm raised turned out well. His shipping costs are great too.


----------



## Steve90 (Oct 21, 2013)

How come you weren't pleased with his domestic stock? Most of his stock seems to be domestic now


----------



## chiroken (Sep 25, 2007)

My quote post didn't show up in the thread? Must have deleted some of the coding...

I too tried to email Quebec Cichlids on 2 occassions and never heard back. I have a feeling their website email is screwed up.


----------



## Marconi (Oct 7, 2013)

Steve90 said:


> How come you weren't pleased with his domestic stock? Most of his stock seems to be domestic now


Most local bred/domestic cichlids here in Canada are of poor quality (sorry but its true). Many people breeding these fish are inexperienced and are not doing it on a large scale or professionally. Our resources are limited in Canada...you might see one nice strain of fish and then not see them for years. What normally happens around here is someone will get there hands on some wild caught or F1 stock, breed them and sell them. Most of these first and second generation baby cichlids will come out quite well...problem occurs when everyone afterwards who has purchased these fish decide to breed them without re-introducing new genetics to their breeding stock. Most local bred cichlids in Canada come from poor gene pools and are bred repeatedly and become poor examples of what the species should look like. The market then becomes flooded with poor quality specimens which drives the price down and then no retailer wants to buy or sell them. Once the demand disappears, then the strain typically disappears. If the Canadian market was larger then this probably would not occur.

Sooooo....lets just say the domestic stock I purchased, I ended up giving them away for free. If I had read that they were domestic before I ordered them, I wouldn't have ordered them. I wouldn't recommend purchasing any local bred cichlids unless you have a chance to look at them first. Most breeders will have the parents on site so you'll get a very good idea as to what you are getting. Stick to F1 stock if you have the option.


----------



## chiroken (Sep 25, 2007)

I made the assumption that "domestic" fish from Spencer's were still Florida fish, just not F1 or F2. Not locally bred fish. Having said that, I now think that most top end breeders would only be selling F1 of F2 if they could in the first place. Other than the hybrid colourations in the peacocks I guess.


----------



## haleyj (Aug 14, 2013)

All of the peacocks and haps in my tank are from spencer!


----------



## chiroken (Sep 25, 2007)

haleyj said:


> All of the peacocks and haps in my tank are from spencer!


water testing a 55 and 65 this morning. Once all is confirmed good then there should be a Spencer's order in the works!


----------



## Lushaquatics (Sep 15, 2013)

Marconi said:


> Steve90 said:
> 
> 
> > How come you weren't pleased with his domestic stock? Most of his stock seems to be domestic now
> ...


I concur with this theory... Back when I kept Saulosi, the stock from here in Ontario were all very pale, and the females often had brown, or black flecks on their bodies. It wasn't until I went to auction down in NY state till I found a beautiful group with solid yellow females w/o any off markings whatsoever...


----------



## Richelle (Q-C) (Aug 22, 2013)

Hi there,
One of my clients just sent me the link to this thread. 
I apologize if we didn't get back to you. We make it a priority to answer all of our emails.

We updated our website in 2014 and fixed many bugs and made it a online store for dry goods.

You can contact us at Quebec Cichlids here :
http://www.quebec-cichlides.com/contact-us

We also have a facebook page : 
https://www.facebook.com/QuebecCichlides

Don't be shy to send a follow up email if you didn't get an answer in a couple of days. Since we are a small business, we sometimes don't have time to answer the emails on the same day.
I don't come often of this forum, so your best bet to contact me is in the links above.

Best regards
:fish:


----------

