How to make money in the aquarium hobby?

[Rtc/tsn]

So what you're saying is, drop out of school with zero or very poor academic skills, resulting with little chance of getting a good job at the end, and your life will be rosy because you've learnt about some other more important life stuff?

You need to take a screen shot of this page, frame it, and put it up on your wall. Then when you get a lot older you will look at it and realise how naive you were thinking like that. I can guarantee that it is certainly not advice you will thrust upon your own children.

It will leave you off better in life if you worry about adult responsibilities at a younger age.
The only important things they teach in American schools is math, and language, unless you want to become a historian or something in that type of field then yea go for it study history I personally don’t find the importance in it, same with art, music, Phys Ed. Etc... I don’t know how they teach in the UK but all I’m saying is from what I have experienced, school isn’t for everyone, you can be good at school or good at life take a minute and think about where you would be if you were to drop out at 16 because you felt you had proper knowledge on what school has to teach about the real world, then spent the rest of your life pursuing what you have wanted to do since before you could remember, you’re making money not a lot but enough to provide for yourself for the time being until an actual job occurs, you’re happy and enjoying the moment, honestly I love my life I may have not grown up as the start of the football team but over the years I have turned that around changed who I am and gotten to where I am today yes I am young I understand that and all I ask of you is to understand that I’m living life as it should be, I’m happy and have plans on moving out, getting a job and continue my life yes I know it will be rough and won’t be easy I know and I feel like I am prepared for that (I have lots and lots of free time and have put a bunch of thought into my future)

 

[neontetraking]

Right now, I do think school is for me, I want to be a doctor or dentist. With my schedule I can't get a job because a barely ever have any free time with school and sports. Anyways, I was thinking about trying to breed bettas and cherry shrimp and maybe selling them on facebook.

 

[Rtc/tsn]

Right now, I do think school is for me, I want to be a doctor or dentist. With my schedule I can't get a job because a barely ever have any free time with school and sports. Anyways, I was thinking about trying to breed bettas and cherry shrimp and maybe selling them on facebook.

Cherry shrimp would be good I think just stock a bunch of them and with bettas i don’t know why but I’ve never actually heard of someone breeding bettas I’m sure it’s possible it wouldn’t make sense if it wasn’t but I’ve never actually heard of it lol as of school 1. What sport you play, I played basketball and basketball when younger and wrested 8th and 9th grade also good luck on becoming a dentist or doctor that’d be a cool job plus you’d get to help the world. Edit: if you feel that school is for you then yes it’s for you I support that it’s your life and it is a big debate between of school is useful in not and I’m in the middle. Good luck

 

[Deadeye]

10$ for an ornate, at this rate you might as well you walk in, net it yourself, bag it up and walk out that’s an actual steal. What was it labeled as? They might of had bichirs before and not of known the difference when someone dropped that one off.

Labeled as an ornate. I couldn’t get it. I don’t have a big enough tank and would have gotten too attached to sell it...

Just note, breeding fish is a risk. At the lfs I was told that someone had bought a pair of bd rays and the female killed the male before breeding. That’s a lot of money down the drain rather than what would have been a lucrative business.

 

[Gourami Swami]

If you want to make a few bucks, breeding neocaridina shrimp (keep the colors separate) is a pretty easy way. It won't be a ton of money, but it's easy enough to get going. Also growing plants like java moss and fern, they can be easily sold on ebay and shipped.
I've dabbled in these operations, mostly for fun. It's possible to make a few bucks, won't likely pay for your whole hobby but everything helps I suppose.
Depending on your area, breeding some fish may be an option as well. You would want to be in a highly populated area where people want to come pick up your fish, because shipping them will be prohibitively expensive. You also want fish that people in your area are interested in.

 

[neontetraking]

I live in N.H. I am going to a lfs in mass(I think) And I am going to see if they want any of the fish, If not I probably won't breed them.

 

[C. Breeze]

1. Out of all I said that’s what you got out of it?
2. Those two parts of what I said are different
3. School is important I’m saying from my experience I believe that it’s better to learn from experience at younger age

Yeah. Your experience in this matter hasn’t happened yet. It’s still occuring. So far you’ve experienced school didn’t get you off, and dropping out. In 4-5 more years you will be able to give voice to a little bit of what experience you gained along the way.

I droppped out. Got my GED. Country was attacked on September 11. I went to the recruiter on the 12th and he told me I could t join the army because of the GED.I would need to comeback in the next fiscal year when there would be GED waivers available still, but thet were all used for the year.
October, new fiscal year, go to join, want. Ranger Contract. Couldn’t even pick my own MOS with a GED waiver, no station of choice or additional training (like airborne) and no signing bonus. Just a “needs of the army” job. So whatever they needed most that day.

I had to go back to high school at 21 years old and do half my junior year and all my senior year. It took me 5 months. I got a high school diploma, and. GED like the only guy in the world witha dual degree from high school. Whatever

I got myshot at RIP, got my scroll and my beret and got to fight the war. For real.

I learned tons of stuff along the way. One of the biggest lessons was that a high school diploma is the bare minimum. Consequences. When you know and have lived with them you can give some advice about experience.

man- I notice more and more that this forum is mostly kids.13-16 years old.

 

[neontetraking]

I just picked up 4 cherry shrimp, cholla wood, and a female betta to breed.

 

[ichthyogeek]

So...here's some food for thought in regards to breeding:

Shrimp: Good choice, they're not aggressive, they don't take up a lot of resources (space, money, time, etc.). People breed these, because it's easy to breed them, grow them out (you can get a viable "crop" of shrimp in about half a year with the right choices), sort them (they won't change colors halfway through their lives like goldfish), and sell them (few people don't like dwarf shrimp). Culls are easily gotten rid of (either by feeding them out, sticking them in their own tank, or selling them at lower grades)

Bettas: I think the reason why you never see people raising bettas is because they're kind of the opposite of a shrimp. Males will attack each other, and to an extent so will females. Each fish is typically put in its own space (usually a cup, half gallon jar, etc.), which necessitates either plumbing, or figuring out how to maintain water quality. Bettas take a while to grow out to a decent size, but I've definitnely heard anecdotes where people have had bettas change variation on them. And that's not taking into account how good of a breeder you want to be. Nobody breeds bettas for food that I know of. So what are you going to do with all of your culls? You could sell them of course, but then you get a reputation for selling badly bred bettas, which results in lower prices being offered by stores. And you can't just stick them in one big tank like with shrimp. They'll tear each other apart. Oh, and genetics also plays a part. Some betta genetics are great in that they're only one gene and they follow the standard dominant recessive spectrum (oh yes, it's a spectrum, there's multiple genes that go into one slot, but organisms only have to deal with two at any given time), but others are codominant or incomplete, which is a whole headache and a half.

 

[ichthyogeek]

As for the talking about schooling: I can't say anything about high school degrees or anything since I went to college. But I will say this: it seems that a lot of the higher paying jobs do require at least a bachelor's from an accredited undergrad institution. And as much as you want to be the next high school or college dropout turned millionaire, the odds are really, really, really against you.

To put things into perspective, I work a 50K/year job in LA (high cost of living). I don't have that much money for fish, and most of what I've gotten in the past few months has been me coasting off of money I hoarded away during high school and college working a few odd jobs here and there. The MIT Living Wage Calculator says that the minimum living wage for LA is 40K/year (the bare minimum to live, which is food, housing, transportation, insurance, etc.). Now, if I made 50K/year in a relatively low earning area, I'd have plenty of money. I'm pushing it with keeping a 29 and a 20L for my tanks as is.

There will be no monster fish keeping for me at the salary I'm earning right now and with my cost of living. Additionally, you have to factor in that most landlords aren't going to be happy with you keeping giant fish tanks (water damage!), so that means having a house. LA houses are expensive. We're talking 800K + mortgages. 5% of 800 000 is still 40 000$ (basically an entire year's salary!). So no house in LA for this ichthyogeek, unless something changes.