Bichir Thread #56

Originally Posted by 9900

Agreed. But I think I just paid premium just for the sake of owning a Kamihata lol.

Long ago, a Kamihata Bichir Bichir was worth paying a premium for.
It was a time when WC were very hard to find and expensive.

Kamihata industries went out to places like Chad and Kenya, brought back a load and managed to breed them. The very first!

They charged a premium for very fine quality F1 breeds.

Years later the genes got worse and worse, and Kamihata became greedy (I understand as the demand and price went crazy) and selective breeding went down the pan.

The Kamihata you see now are not F1, no where near. They are mass bred now, and some are not even bred by them anymore, but 3rd parties.

So right now owning a Kamihata is no better than owning an Indo breed IMO.

[Ong88]

Originally Posted by tokyogasmask

....
....
So right now owning a Kamihata is no better than owning an Indo breed IMO.

Sensei TGM,
It is a shattering revelation.
Be that as it may, we in SG unfortunately also get the dregs of Indo stocks : so we don't just get also-rans from Kamihata, we are deluged with the IPBB cast-offs from Indo, we are in no.position to know how good IPBB really can be.

Could you please share with us any fine Indo specimens that you may have come across.
Which Indo farms/lines are commendable in your personal opinion?

[Ong88]

My 10" KPBB

Great insights shared! Now I should really reconsider the glory in owning a kamihata. What would u say about Dory K then?

[Schmike]

Originally Posted by 9900

Great insights shared! Now I should really reconsider the glory in owning a kamihata. What would u say about Dory K then?

That is if you can get a Dory-K here in sg first.

[Kohaku]

Originally Posted by tokyogasmask

Long ago, a Kamihata Bichir Bichir was worth paying a premium for.
It was a time when WC were very hard to find and expensive.

Kamihata industries went out to places like Chad and Kenya, brought back a load and managed to breed them. The very first!

They charged a premium for very fine quality F1 breeds.

Years later the genes got worse and worse, and Kamihata became greedy (I understand as the demand and price went crazy) and selective breeding went down the pan.

The Kamihata you see now are not F1, no where near. They are mass bred now, and some are not even bred by them anymore, but 3rd parties.

So right now owning a Kamihata is no better than owning an Indo breed IMO.

Hmm... Are you saying that what we are got earlier here in Singapore are not the real deal already and its not worth paying, say $900-$1500, for a 3rd generation or more KPBB? I knew of some breeding in indo for supply to kamihata then, but you said kamihata breed their own and never take from others.

I had my doubts when I saw the first kamihata PBB and tried to raised the alarm about the cert quality as it does not have the logo chop on top, but you verified that is the real stuff. Taking your words, I had brought 3pcs since.

From the pictures, you can really see the quality of the certs? I had compared the certs from Aquaone, NKS and Stone, all looks the same to me.
I did the comparasion yesterday with Don after I heard of some winds there is another new batch of kamihata PBB in town.

How do we verified what we are getting is the real stuff now, since you said certs also can dublicate? Please do so since you are so experienced in it.

There will be different quality fish in a certain batch hatched, and they are classified into grades. If the good ones are taken by japan, aren't we left with the lower grades?

For all you might know, Dory K also gets their del, best quality, from indonesia or africa supplier and passing off as Dory K dels.

Dory-k are on a whole different level!

Every Dory-k I have ever purchased has been amazing.
Worth every penny.

The thing you have to remember though is that the Bichir "craze" happened here years and years ago. Infact the Bichir mania started here.
Now the scene here is a lot smaller.
Japanese Bichir enthusiasts collected all known species and variants/morphs long ago and have since moved on to new challenges.

So all the major breeders such as Gef, Dory-k, Kamihata, Igarashi etc are resorting to mass producing for the international market.

I would assume Dory-K will begin to fall like Kamihata and Gef already have.

Igarashi will always be strong as he (Dr. Igarashi) is a pure enthusiast as well as a biologist. (he was a contributor to the infamous "Jurassic Fishes" book.

@ kohaku
I am absolutely sure that the Kamihata you have in SG, are the "real deal".

But IMO, the "real deal" is clearly not as of high quality as they once were.
As for Kamihata getting "supplied" from Indonesian breeders, that's simply not the case.

They have however recently been sourcing their breeding program outside of Japan, providing foreign breeders with breeding pairs that have a proven track recording of spawning.

Are the PBB you see now coming from Kamihata Japan or from other breeders supplied by Japan? Who knows, anyone's guess.

What is clear is the quality drop over the last year or two.


As for Dory-k, passing quality Bichirs off as their own, that's a crazy suggestion.
I know a few people from the Dory-k/bask syndicate, and that's not something they need to do.

Schmike, from what you said, do u mean that a Dory K never landed in sg? What kind of restrictions are we facing wrt importing them?

Btw my "pbb" is starting to color up. At least I see some patterns now.