More than a hobby

1478 Views 5 Replies 5 Participants Last post by cichlidaholic, Jul 2, 2008

kingpoiuy

Discussion Starter · Jun 30, 2008

We've (wife and I) have only been seriously into the fish hobby for a year now. We have 2 running tanks, One cycling, and one dry which is going to start cycling soon.

That's our history, now here's our future.

My wife is sick of her dead end retail job. I told her she could stay home cause I make enough to support her, our 3 dogs, a gazillion fish, and the mice that sneak in from the woods occasionally. We are throwing around the idea of attempting to make some money from breeding. We have already started with the easiest being convicts. As we speak the eggs are probably hatching or one day from it. I have a feeling we wont be able to get rid of them since they don't seem to be in much of a demand, but it's our first step. Eventually we want to move our way towards discus. What we actually end up breeding we don't know. I have a nice pole barn which would work great as breeding grounds if this ends up working out.

I guess I am just asking for opinions and to see if anyone out there other than the obvious big time LFS types have any tips or suggestions for the little people like us.

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Number6

· #2 · Jun 30, 2008

If you can do mail order/ web site ordering, if you can ship perfectly and if your cichlids are great quality, then yes... your hobby can be a part time job.

Someone once told me a cute over-generalization but one that I find helps set expectations well...

with a home based business, making $20,000 dollars per year isn't that difficult... it's the next 20K that'll kill you! LOL

but if it's a full time job "from home" she wants and any amount of cash would work then the money makers out of a barn would be Frontosa, Discus, and Cyprichromis/paracyps.

There seems to be a pretty steady demand for these fish and a frequent replacement cycle with non-fish geeks... there's probably other species one could add to the list.

Hope that helps.

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MidNightCowBoy

· #3 · Jun 30, 2008

It's very unlikely you will be able to make any significant amount of money breeding fish. You might make enough to cover your costs, but probably not enough to pay bills and such.

Sorry to be a buzzkill but I'm just trying to keep it real!

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Darkside

· #4 · Jun 30, 2008

Synos are a license to make money as well.

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kingpoiuy

Discussion Starter · #5 · Jul 1, 2008

Well, the good thing is it doesn't have to make alot of money. Enough to pay for itself would be nice.

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cichlidaholic

· #6 · Jul 2, 2008

Your biggest expense will be in getting started with the tanks necessary for breeding. It could take some time to "break even" from that expense.

There's also the expense of obtaining the fish to breed, and the risk of saturating the market for those species in your area and finding yourself stuck with alot of unwanted fish. (It doesn't take long, so unless you plan to get into shipping, it may not be worth it...I've got F1 Cynotilapia White Top Galireyas coming out my ears...A year ago they were hard to find in this area, now you can't give them away!)

If you don't want to get into shipping (I won't do it...It's more trouble than it's worth, IMO), then be prepared to switch up your breeding groups often rather than keeping and breeding the same species for any length of time.

IME, if you want to do it for the fun of it, then go for it.

If you want to break even, give it alot of thought and don't be in a real hurry to get your $ back!

I'm pretty sure we went in the hole when we were breeding our fish, and we sold to hobbyist as well as LFS.

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