What to Breed for Income?

[yourockit]

Ok, another fanciful idea I have here. Given my circumstances, what fish would be good to breed in order to make an income? Here are some of the parameters:

The breeding operation must have a low start up cost ($5,000 or less).
The fish must be easy to sell as a baby.
The baby fishes must be transportable by package delivery in N. America.
I want to breed a fish that is unusual and therefore be a supplier to a niche.
I want to breed a fish that is not being bred by a lot of people.
I want to breed a fish that is no more than moderately difficult to breed (I'll accept your definition on this given the other parameters).
It must be freshwater.
It must be small to medium in size (3feet five inches max TL).
I want to earn $1,500 a month profit (income after expences have been deducted) at minimum.
Once the operation is set up I would expect to work less than an three hours per day to maintain it.

THANKS! THIS IS AWESOME! I WOULD LOVE TO GET PAID TO DO SOMETHING I LOVE DOING!

Lastly, I have to breed a fish that I am fond of. Below is a list of fishes that I am fond of.

It would be great if someone who knows breeding like there is no tomorrow and who knows these fishes could give a rating next to each fish on the list. The rating will indicate if the fish is likely to be easy to breed or not. Lets use a 1-10 value system. A one is as easy a guppy to breed. A ten is impossible to breed. A five is can be bred but is moderately difficult. Five is the average difficulty for breeding. Even if you only know the rating for one of these fishes, please supply it. Thanks again!

bala shark
baracuda
sting ray
armatus?
Adonis plecos
Chinese Sailfin Shark
Ctenopoma Acutirostre
Leaf Fish
RoseLine Shark
payara
Paradise Threadfin
wolf fish
sturgeon
freshwater eels
freshwater puffers
arowanas
aligator gar
knife fish
vitatus african tigerfish
Polypterus
lobsters
chaca chaca
datnoids
baby whale
elephant noses
electric eels
sturgeons
alligator gars

 

[richardhmc]

Ahh, another "I want money from Fishkeeping Thread."

Well, you can always try to create a hybrid which could come out nice.

Stingrays, guppies, and discus thats coming into my head

 

[X24]

you aren't going to make that profit with only that work breeding fish. all fish that are decently easy to breed ARE being breed in high quantity. fish that AREN'T easy to breed are being breed in high quantity lol.

breed fish for fun, not for a living as you are almost never going to reach that point.

having said that, depending on area i'd go with rays, plecos or flowerhorns.

with $5000 you could get yourself some nice stock with flowerhorns for $2,500 and use the rest for the tank setups/other initial costs.

you won't make NEARLY as much money as you are wanting to make at all.

if i was wanting to rake in a little extra cash around here, i'd probably get 3 pairs of kribs in 10 gallon tanks and a 29 gallon to raise fry. You can get $2-3 a piece from LFS's selling kribs as they charge around $6-8, and you'd end up pulling a little past your electricity/food/water and probably make $2/hour with the work LOL

if you want money get an actual job like at BK or McDonalds lol.

 

[Wolf3101]

Both red bay and green bay (normal) snooks bring a fairly high price and are in more demand than current supplys can support. They are reasonably simple to breed under the right conditions and can be sold and shipped at a relitivly small size. They fit your eventual size requirements and are in my humble opinion a great addition to almost any aquarium.

Breeding for profit is risky at best and I belive it would be better to branch out a bit. Start up costs can be controled by buying baby fish and then growing them out to form breeding pairs and slowly building an efficiant tank and feeding system to support the program. All of that takes time and patiance however. The changing nature of the market precludes breeding any one fish unless it's an industry staple like Angelfish...discus...Koi...ECT.

Freshwater clams...giant pond and apple snails...and crayfish all ship well and have a fairly good profit margin. They also have a well established demand.
High doller fish like freshwater rays bring a huge price but can be difficult to move on a consistant basis and, of course, have a preportionally higher start up cost.

What you start out breedng NOW may well be a fish that has saturated the market by the time you have young fish for sale so you really need to anticipate the future market carefully. IMO it's unrealistic to set a monthly income goal in ANY kind of breeding operation because you may have one or two MONSTER income months followed by several months of negitive cash flow.

ONE shipping disaster, even one thats not your fault can wipe out 2 or three months of profit. You also need to stay away from any fish thats in good local supply because you can't possibly compete with the huge numbers cranked out by giant comercial fish farms.
Most LFS want to be able to pick up the phone...place an order for a fast moving fish and have it arrive in time for an advertised sale.

You have a good idea and it's one that a lot of us in the hobby think about from time to time but it's VERY hard to pull off for all of the reasons I listed.

The best way to start a small scale breeding operation is to stick with what you know and don't get in over your head. In other words don't go into it EXPECTING to make money...at least at first.
It CAN be done and IS bieng done but once you turn a hobby or passion into a buissness you run the risk of losing all of the joy and pleasure you got into the hobby for in the first place.

 

[bigspizz]

First fish on the list...Balas.....never been bread in home aquarium. I just got back from the dentist and laughed so hard I think I popped a stitch.....

 

[ewurm]

How about Alpacas?

 

[rjmtx]

Don't breed for income. Breed to maybe break even. If you want to make money in the fish business, start out making nothing at a store. Learn how to clean other people's tank. Get a clientele, and go from there. If you're looking to make money breeding fish without a base to sell to, and a garage to fill with tanks, you're going to end up with a money pit on your hands.

I used to make decent money selling Gold Ancistrus and some Discus, but I also had a solid base to sell to...

I've had 15 grow out tanks running before, and I'll tell you I enjoy fish a lot more now that I'm only running one show tank. That means one water change a week, not daily maintenance (which, depending on how much your time is worth, can cancel out profit).

 

[Sturgeon]

breed dogs for income, not fish. If you want to make a little money on the side breeding fish, go with fancy plecos and stingrays.

 

[Wolf3101]

Breeding dogs properly and responsably isn't a Money making proposition either...besides we kill over 7 million unwanted dogs a year. The last thing we need are more breeders.

 

[DiXoN]

convicts!