Breeding fishes and keeping fishes are 2 different things. I did both and keeping is much more enjoyable. Breeding fishes is lot of responsibility. The little fishes have to fed twice and day. Frequent water changes is a requirement. There is the cost of heat and food. Trying to sell a limited variety of fishes to the LFS is not easy. They don't want to pay you anything close to whole because they know you produced them and expect a cheap price. Any area can only use so many of one kind of fish at a given time. Also, you can't go on vacation. The list goes on. The best is to either have a decent business or work some overtime to allows you to play the hobby hardcore or close to it.
making money selling fish
- Thread starter Rocktacoproductionz
- Start date
The business was called Wet Thumb Aquatics. They retired a few years back. I didn't live in michigan at the time so I wasnt able to check them out one last time. Any african cichlid keeper in MI ahould be familiar with them. I bought from them for years both as a hobbyist and as a shop owner. Great old school fish people, they even made their own flake foods.
A local shop breeds all of their own livebearers, dwarf cichlids, bettas, and angels. They do this because it was the only way they could get consistently high quality fish of these types for their customers. The fish breeding room is less than 400 sq ft and I bet they produce an avg of a few hundred sellable fish per day. It is possible, but as was mentioned earlier it takes effort. They have a full time person running the breeding operation.
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Perhaps if they had a facility like this, it could be done: http://www.livefishdirect.com/facilities.php
But not in 400 or 800 square feet of space.
But not in 400 or 800 square feet of space.
Under most circumstances, it's really not cost-effective to try to make money off of breeding and selling fish. It can be done but it's a tough road and not something you're going to accomplish with a couple of spare tanks.
I have a 50-ish tank fishroom (in my basement laundry room) and keep and breed lots of fish (mostly New World and West African Cichlids) and I've found that trading and selling fish and supplies with other fish club members is the best way to go. I'm not sure why more MFK folks aren't involved in fish clubs but they're the best thing going with reagrd to cutting the cost of the hobby and having an outlet for spare fish and supplies. Oh yeah and being able to learn something, too
Another approach is cutting costs. I use almost all air-driven filters, overhead fluorescent lights and very few heaters in my fishroom (I tier my racks of tanks with cool-water ones on the bottom). I culture my own red wiggler worms so that I don't buy live or frozen food. I buy all of my tanks and most stuff used. It means that I can maintain a decent fishroom at a relatively low operating cost...and save money for other things (like going to South America).
There aren't really any stores in my area that buy fish. There are hardly any LFS left at all, for that matter! Whatever you breed, you'll quickly saturate the local demand if you're not careful.
Matt
I have a 50-ish tank fishroom (in my basement laundry room) and keep and breed lots of fish (mostly New World and West African Cichlids) and I've found that trading and selling fish and supplies with other fish club members is the best way to go. I'm not sure why more MFK folks aren't involved in fish clubs but they're the best thing going with reagrd to cutting the cost of the hobby and having an outlet for spare fish and supplies. Oh yeah and being able to learn something, too
Another approach is cutting costs. I use almost all air-driven filters, overhead fluorescent lights and very few heaters in my fishroom (I tier my racks of tanks with cool-water ones on the bottom). I culture my own red wiggler worms so that I don't buy live or frozen food. I buy all of my tanks and most stuff used. It means that I can maintain a decent fishroom at a relatively low operating cost...and save money for other things (like going to South America).
There aren't really any stores in my area that buy fish. There are hardly any LFS left at all, for that matter! Whatever you breed, you'll quickly saturate the local demand if you're not careful.
Matt
^ Really good advice. I've gotten many good deals on fish and supplies at my local aquarium club.
Yes you can make money selling fish. I think anyone that says you cant either has not tried it or is horrible at running a buisness. if you now how to start and run a buisness it should be a piece of cake to grab a piece of the $15 billion interenational market. You do have to be smart about it and not treat it like your hobby but like I said if you know how to run a buisness tropical fish is no different. now with that said dont expect a full time income unless you have about 10K to throw at a facility.
If you pick your species wisely aquire good stock you will have no porblem making money.
If you pick your species wisely aquire good stock you will have no porblem making money.
There is no aquarium club where I live for trading. Also, one of the local stores is going belly up in a couple weeks. Petsmart and Petco killed them. I was going to consider raising and maybe breeding g. surinamsis?, spelling is probably wrong. There is only one store left here that might take babies and they probably won't give much if they did. I may just go with a display of 3 compatible south americans and enjoy raising them to full potential. I'm not sure I really have the time for the attention that the fry would require.
Good luck with your ideas, hope you can make them work.
Good luck with your ideas, hope you can make them work.
