Does Anyone of You Make Money Out of Your Fish Keeping Hobby?

Sarcosuchus

Candiru
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Oct 28, 2006
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We all want our favourite fish, our best tank setups, but they are all a liability. It takes time and money to maintain them.

One day (if you haven't) you might reach a stage where you feel, "I spend this much for all this fish and tanks, but what do I get in return? Is there any financial reward? Why waste so much money on this?"

This is more likely to happen if you desire to keep many types of fish and so many tanks and dream tanks in a dream house.

So, has anyone of you decided," what if I could turn this hobby into a source of income (even if it's not big)?" It can be a little side income at least.

Does anyone of you make money out of your fish keeping hobby? How do you do it?
 

kendragon

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Mar 23, 2009
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I start the hobby in koi keeping. Going to koi shows and meeting people I eventually started importing koi from Japan. This was 25 years ago. It was too hard to compete with the big dealers. I switched from live stock to koi medicine, pond construction and design. To this day I still maintain and service ponds. Currently, the hobby income is all labor. Physical labor and UV analysis for large builds around the world. I don't sell product anymore....internet has changed that.
I hate to say it but there are not as much people willing to spend in the aquarium hobby compared to people in koi ponds.
 

kendragon

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I don't but I suspect that some of the members who breed rays probably do pretty well
Funny...that crossed my mind a few years ago but rays are illegal where I'm at :(:mad:.
 

Wailua Boy

Potamotrygon
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Jan 2, 2015
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I would echo a lot of what kendragon said but breeding can produce income. I rely on it for supplemental income, making it a full time endeavor is a little more tricky. I'm a exclusive vendor for some of the hotels in my area providing livestock(primarily koi) but also supply dry goods. I too have noticed the pond side of the business to be more profitable than the aquarium side.
 

Wailua Boy

Potamotrygon
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My family is way more supportive of my fishkeeping once I started to show income from it. Now I can keep an absurd amount of tanks/ponds before they were telling me to seek therapy.
 

pacu mom

Goliath Tigerfish
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Jun 8, 2006
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Use discretionary income to fund your fun--whether it be fish or boats or whatever money pit catches your fancy. Mixing business with pleasure would kill all the fun for me. So what are the options for generating income from fish keeping? Breeding a marketable fish, offering a service like tank set up and maintenance, getting into aqua culture, opening up a fish store that will probably fail, charging admission for people to view your fish.

Everyone has different priorities and different goals. I dearly love my two kitties who bring great joy into our home. Their breeder breeds her cats in the hopes of producing grand champions. Any cat not show quality gets sold for a hefty price. It is enough for me that our cats are beautiful, sweet and loving. I can see breeders breeding their champion koi and arowanas and rays. There are others of us who are content to just have our pet quality fish and other pets.

If keeping fish becomes a waste of money, then discretionary income was probably not used to fund the hobby.
 
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Lawlboom

Jack Dempsey
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Oct 21, 2015
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Use discretionary income to fund your fun--whether it be fish or boats or whatever money pit catches your fancy. Mixing business with pleasure would kill all the fun for me. So what are the options for generating income from fish keeping? Breeding a marketable fish, offering a service like tank set up and maintenance, getting into aqua culture, opening up a fish store that will probably fail, charging admission for people to view your fish.

Everyone has different priorities and different goals. I dearly love my two kitties who bring great joy into our home. Their breeder breeds her cats in the hopes of producing grand champions. Any cat not show quality gets sold for a hefty price. It is enough for me that our cats are beautiful, sweet and loving. I can see breeders breeding their champion koi and arowanas and rays. There are others of us who are content to just have our pet quality fish and other pets.

If keeping fish becomes a waste of money, then discretionary income was probably not used to fund the hobby.

I always figured a physical fish store would fail, but the online ones seem to do well. As long as you master shipping.
 
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convict360

Potamotrygon
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Dec 9, 2013
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I'm in the middle of setting up a website, shop etc for online ordering of fish; helping a friend who breeds and imports etc, it will be interesting to see if it works or not in the coming months
 
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