Valentine's Day Flowerhorns
 

Lot's of luck! I was at Fistown USA a few weeks ago and saw a male, easily 7+ inches.
They are beautiful fish.

Thanks.
 

They are tired today and eating a lot of bloodworms.

fry
 

it must be the romantic holiday

The Most Expensive Flowerhorn
 

Jing Chan in Chinatown (Elizabeth St) has a 2 foot long 10,000 dollar King Kamfa Flowerhorn. It has a kok as big as an avocado.

:angel:

10,000 fish
 

i like to see the person that buys that
thats a fish u don't flush if it dies
thats got to have a decent burial

Fung Shui Flowerhorns
 

Jing Chan, who currently has the 10,000 dollar Flowerhorn has a clientel of wealthy Chinese who practice Fung Shui.A large hump in Fung Shui beliefs signifies good luck and happiness. There are a few famous monks and saints in ancient Chinese religions who are depicted with humps as well (my father brought one of the statuettes back from China during WW2). These giant King Kamfa Flowerhorns have sold on auction for over 100,000 dollars on the Pacific Rim.

More modestly, my pair of Flowerhorns is currently working on their second nest in their tank. They sleep one on top of the other behind the slate rock nest they made, and now they are constructing a pit around a large smooth fossil oyster shell in their tank.

My Bearded Dragon has his little pillow and blanket at the end of my bed and he walks right to edge of the matress after he wakes up and stares at the Flowerhorns while they are digging. The day before yesterday, my male Flowerhorn spit 8 pebbles and a squirt of water at The Lizard (They are only about 3 feet away in that situation and have always disliked each other).

There are some odd criteria for the sale of top notch Flowerhorns. Traditional stores always try to stick as many 8's in the price as possible. Little ones sell for $88, then $108, $188 dollars etc. Color and kok (hump) size determine a male's price. They have to have both to command big bucks. I'd like to show mine eventually (he's still a Flowerhorn teenager): he's good enough to enter a show at 9.5 inches with good pearly color and a tangerine sized hump, but only likely to bring $700 to $1000 dollars. The 10,000 dollar one is 3 times his length and has a kok bigger than a grapefruit. Females are not worth much; usually $38 to $68 dollars.

:angel:

flowerhorns
 

I did not realize they can go so high

High Priced Flowerhorns
 

The record for Flowerhorns was the Grand Prize Winner in Manila a few years ago that sold for $300,000.

flowerhorn
 

wish it was mine

As of this morning, the female's breeding tube is out.

New Flowerhorn Dances
 

Now into their 31st day of mating dances, my pair of Flowerhorns have added a few new ones.

1. Shimmy shimmy shake. The pair swims side by side, and both vibrate their front halves to the left and right, and a shiver goes down to to their tail.

2. Sideswiping. This has become their dance de jour. They swim towards each other and just as they appear to be head butting, one bends away and the other glances off it's body. They sometimes do this 3 or 4 times.

3. Tail Dancing. The female remains still in the water and the male stands on his tail just above her and turns left and right, and occasionally does a full 360 degree turn.

(Don't try these at home!) :slap:

The mating Flowehorns used a cooperative effort to remove a large obstacle in their nest. They are digging faster now, and uncovered a a 5 x 3 inch clam shell this morning. The female tried to lift it up but couldn't. Then the male lifted one end off the ground, but dropped it. They swam away to have one of their little conferences, and then both came back and got on the bottom with both their noses under the lip of the clam shell. Then they both pushed off simultaneously and moved the shell up and over the top of their 10 inch high nest mound.