Hi what should I breed in 14 small tanks? The tanks sizes are 9 10 gallons, 2 15 gallons, 1 25 gallon flat back hex, a 20 high and a 20 long. So I know that I want to breed, the question is what. I need something that fish stores and people will want and something that I will make a profit so that it will be worth the effort. I was thinking about discus, angels or some kind of small pleco. Please let me know if you have any cool ideas. Thanks
What should I breed (I have 14 tanks)
- Thread starter stingray94
- Start date
Jewels... Angels... plecos might be a bit difficult... Snails (don't laugh...good market for apples and giant pond snails and the LFS's are almost always out.) Some of the more colorful crays are quite profitable.
It's a trade off....simple to breed generally means TON's of them in circulation so you make about a buck a POUND for the babies. Others sell well at a larger size so you need grow out time.
It's a trade off....simple to breed generally means TON's of them in circulation so you make about a buck a POUND for the babies. Others sell well at a larger size so you need grow out time.
Id go for Angels, there is some profit in healthy ones which to me seems SO rare these days as angels have so many crap genetics I havent seen a healty angelfish in a LFS in a very long time. I used to get 2-3bucks each for a about a penny-nickle body sized baby. Corydoras would also work well in these tank sizes...hell you could do both angels and corydoras in those tanks. Corydoras really dont need more than a 10G to do thier thing in. Those also fetched me a decent price at the LFS of about 2bucks each, they dont usually have very large broods tho.
Above poster's idea is good, with fancy betas but I think you have more tanks than youd need. Cons will breed like crazy, you'll be filled to the brim with them and no lfs is desperately seeking em trust me, so bad idea there.
With the size of tanks you have you could do some small angels (I mean the extra small ones) most barbs, danios, any livebearing fish.
You may never realize a profit but if you do it's going to be with common fish that lots of people want ie. those I mentioned just before. Id go with some guppies, pick a nice variety you can get both males and females of and line breed for a particular desirable trait. LFS always have multiple guppy tanks and guppies always sell so you should be able to move them. Platies and swordtails are also a good bet, even some mollies.
If you happen upon some really spectacular specimens of a particular common breed, for example zebra danios (unlikely with this breed lol) grab them and breed them. The lfs will always carry that species but if you can supply a constant stream of nicer looking ones they might make you the primary supplier. I have some red glass rosy barbs like this. We see them in the stores often but the store fish are drab and misshapen compared to ours and as a result we have lfs after ours now. Ironically we purchased the fish from one of those lfs and they looked just as good when in store and the manager has a huge fish room he breeds in, and hes bred rosy barbs before but he didnt snap any of those up so hes left with the poorer stock coming in from farms. If there's a few lfs around take a look at them all and mark the best stuff, look it up on the net and see if you can breed them with your setups, if so go back and grab em.
The other route to go for money making is to breed rare and exotic fish that few people can get their hands on. Problem is getting the initial fish, replicating their breeding environments and then finding enough people to offload these expensive suckers too.
Discus are probably one of the best species to go with Id imagine, as they sell for quite a bit, are in demand and lfs can carry hundreds of them at a time (small ones anyways) but your tanks are too small and youd need to buy many good specimens and then hope for a pair.
IMO best bet is small cheap fish that are highly desirable and easy to breed in your setups. Make sure you use at least one tank just to look at though, otherwise it can get to feeling like a job
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With the size of tanks you have you could do some small angels (I mean the extra small ones) most barbs, danios, any livebearing fish.
You may never realize a profit but if you do it's going to be with common fish that lots of people want ie. those I mentioned just before. Id go with some guppies, pick a nice variety you can get both males and females of and line breed for a particular desirable trait. LFS always have multiple guppy tanks and guppies always sell so you should be able to move them. Platies and swordtails are also a good bet, even some mollies.
If you happen upon some really spectacular specimens of a particular common breed, for example zebra danios (unlikely with this breed lol) grab them and breed them. The lfs will always carry that species but if you can supply a constant stream of nicer looking ones they might make you the primary supplier. I have some red glass rosy barbs like this. We see them in the stores often but the store fish are drab and misshapen compared to ours and as a result we have lfs after ours now. Ironically we purchased the fish from one of those lfs and they looked just as good when in store and the manager has a huge fish room he breeds in, and hes bred rosy barbs before but he didnt snap any of those up so hes left with the poorer stock coming in from farms. If there's a few lfs around take a look at them all and mark the best stuff, look it up on the net and see if you can breed them with your setups, if so go back and grab em.
The other route to go for money making is to breed rare and exotic fish that few people can get their hands on. Problem is getting the initial fish, replicating their breeding environments and then finding enough people to offload these expensive suckers too.
Discus are probably one of the best species to go with Id imagine, as they sell for quite a bit, are in demand and lfs can carry hundreds of them at a time (small ones anyways) but your tanks are too small and youd need to buy many good specimens and then hope for a pair.
IMO best bet is small cheap fish that are highly desirable and easy to breed in your setups. Make sure you use at least one tank just to look at though, otherwise it can get to feeling like a job
.Too small to breed discuses in my opinion. Try shell dwellers? Those aren't as common as some cichilids like convicts.
breed jewels, yellows, maingano, bristlenose,venustus. i breed all them in 60 litre tanks. easy and pretty decent return. i dont know what prices are like there but i work in an aquarium and we sell all those livebearers for $3.50 each, which means we would give you maybe 50 cents a fish. 200 guppies equals $100 where as we sell jewelled for $12 meaning we buy em for $5. 200 jewelled equals $1000. ah decisions, decisions.