# Any money to be made in this hobby?



## Tazzy_toon (Jul 25, 2011)

So my hubby and I are not able to work due to health issues and have been trying to find things to do at home (that aren't multi level marketing. lol) My hubby is great with wood working but his tools are blowing circuits in the house, so he can't build much. So I was wondering if there was a way to make a lil extra cash with my fish hobby. I notice most of the breeders are across the bridge from me and wondered if there where any smallish fish/shrimp etc that are on demand that don't require large tanks?

on a side note, i'm not talking lots of cash, just a little extra now and then


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## macframalama (Apr 17, 2012)

fish are not typically big money makers unless your importing massive amounts of stuff, home breeders without massive set ups are lucky to make enough extra cash to pay for feed or whatever.

I breed all sorts of fish but all the cash from my offspring is spent on paying for my stuff , gear , feed, new fish... look at some of the angel fish breeders on here $2 each , what a steal for people buying them from them but $2 a fish take 100 fry , which is crazy ... you see where im going , best you can hope for is for your fish husbandry is to help pay for your hobby, i dunno aobut discus and stuff but people buying those types of fish what aaa grade stuff and for normal home people it isnt really achieveable without going in it HARD and that costs $$$$$ ..

some people on here keep bumping ads for cherry shrimp at $1 a piece.... i dunno my opinion but hey if your breeding efforts pay for something towards your hobby its worth it . plus you learn soooo much trying to figure out the best way to do this or that 

besides making $$$ should be somewhere beneath enjoying your fish and having fun... but if you can pay for feed or that new sweet fish , all worth it..


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## Scherb (Feb 10, 2011)

Hello. i agree with macframalama. but you could do a shrimp tank with some shrimp that are worth more money like crs or others. i got some painted fire red shrimp the other day and they are worth more than cherry shrimp but still not a lot. also shrimp food is cheap. Cheers


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## Tazzy_toon (Jul 25, 2011)

Come on guys, only way hubby will let me have a fish room is if I can get a few bucks more then the hobby. I have a 30g, 15g and 10g tank with sponge filters, that I could use. Was thinking of shrimp, but i've had no luck with cherry shrimp so far, but, i've always had them with fish in the tank. What about rams? Or even plants?


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## macframalama (Apr 17, 2012)

plants require lights and lights arent cheap, or in addition to lights they need c02 and i dont have any idea but its fish related so it has to be pricey...
your not gonna get rich lol,but you could breed something unique. maybe talk to djamm and elle they have these things tey call ping pong, i have no idea what the heck they are lol but they are neat , different, small, get along with everything so they tell me and the best part... the very very best part is they are HYBRIDS thats right i said it lol

i mean everything worth $$$$ costs money, and that is the very reason they are expensive in the first place so i dunno what to tell ya, especially with those small tanks of your i just dont see a new hummer or range rover in your driveway anytime soon... but i will say this you find me some crazy sa/ca hybrids lol and i'll buy from you but 2 things, they gotta be weird and they gotta be sa/ca cichlids ....or hybrids, more so hybrids because i think i have everything else lol and a 30 a 15 and a 10 wont house too many things...

put it this way i spent $110 on my new fh freak, and im gonna probably spend $125 or there abouts to find a sexy female for my guy , then i have to use up one of my big tanks which puts production of anything else out, then i gotta feed then, change there water , wait wait wait wait, till they spawn, then i gotta watch the eggs and see if any are fertile, and if the first run doesnt happen i gotta go back to step one and so on just to find out if IF my male fh is even fertile which he may not be...and lets say they do spawn and have fry then i have to raise them to a min of an inch before i can even see what the heck there gonna look like , then i might .... might maybe start making some cash back assuming these thing actually look decent..

it wont fly unless your BIG TIME and to get BIG TIME you gotta spend BIG BUCKS. you'd have better luck growing flowers and selling them on the street corner lol


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## macframalama (Apr 17, 2012)

not to be a party pooper though, and if you figure it all out let me know because my WIFE would love to see some money come in instead of flying out the door

i really dont care its all about fun for me, i have a bunch of kids, no social life, and i live in the middle of nowhere what the heck else do i have to do
i could have a bunch of other bad habits or hobby's but fish are good for your brain


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## Tazzy_toon (Jul 25, 2011)

Thanks for the honesty, but i do think you are missing my point. I never said I wanted a hummer in the drive way, maybe and extra $100 buck a month or something. But if that's not realistic, then that's cool. I'll just keep the fish I have atm and get rid of the lil tanks hubby keeps asking me to find new homes for.


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## macframalama (Apr 17, 2012)

$100 a month i doubt it lol and the hummer thing was for ha ha , but that doesnt mean dont do it , if your hobby is drive solely on making money your gonna need some new gear
i may be the worst person to ask though i spend money on fish stuff like a fat kid on cake
my house is half of seaworld sans the salt and i change my mind like i change my undies


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## macframalama (Apr 17, 2012)

breed for knowledge or breed to make cool fish for yourself , or give some to your friends or family but i think $100 a month on shrimp would be a hell of a shrimp tank..

my midevils for example i had 3000 fry give or take, do you know how much i made off of them $4 , i sold 10 for $4 at 1/4 of an inch the rest were used for feed, and the last 6 i had made me so angry i almost ate them, i threw them in with my new long finned fh so he would dispose of this cursed devil fish and the last 6 starteed niping my new fh's beautiful fins off , took me nearly an hour to fish those rremaining 6 out and i hand fed them to my jaguar cichlids out of spite i was sooo pissed i was ready to eat them lol 

anyways long story short out of 3000 fish and months of my big tank being taken up , having my male kill and half eat my female and all the feed and work just to make food for these demonic fish i made $4


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## SeaHorse_Fanatic (Apr 22, 2010)

On a small scale, not even a $100 extra a month is generally realistic. For instance, that's 50 to 100 cherry shrimp adults you have to raise and sell (flood the market).

For those who already have the equipment and corals, then selling coral frags can be an extra income supplement. However, to get to that point takes a lot of time, money, and "luck"/knowledge. I spend hundreds on my reef tanks and in the past, I used to sell quite a few frags. 

But in this economy, everyone wants a deal and you will be lucky to break even with a side fish "business". 

Over the years, I saved all my "fish/coral frags" money for Felicia's university fund. I was able to save up quite a bit, but that included all the tanks (including a full 210g reef setup), corals, fish, live rock, and equipment I sold for about three+ years. I was spending thousands myself on the tanks, but everything I sold went into that fund. I doubt I came close to breaking even. It was basically a case of taking out of my wallet (for my purchases) and putting some back into the fund (from my sales).

Anthony


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## macframalama (Apr 17, 2012)

i forgot about sw lol... thats a whole other racket


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## Tazzy_toon (Jul 25, 2011)

well that's a bit of a bummer. I was hoping to start with cherries and maybe work up to some more expensive shrimp. I really do just want to do it for the fun, but we just don't have the budget for that. Oh well.


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## Scherb (Feb 10, 2011)

Tazzy_toon said:


> well that's a bit of a bummer. I was hoping to start with cherries and maybe work up to some more expensive shrimp. I really do just want to do it for the fun, but we just don't have the budget for that. Oh well.


Hello. make your 10g a shrimp only tank and you should be good. i have a 5g that was cycled and had a betta in it. all i did is get fluval shrimp substrate and some shrimp. about a few weeks later i have at least 30 baby shrimp, i change about 15 to 20% water every week. i got some fluval shrimp food for 5 bucks and that will last forever with the small amount needed each day. i never even liked shrimp much, but i wanted to change my 5g so i took a shot and now i really like them, they are very active and fun to watch. i don't know much about shrimp breeding but this tank has been awesome with water quality. very low maintenance. also phone some stores and see if they want to buy. obviously they won't pay what you could get selling private but it is a sure sale on a large scale. Hope that helps. Cheers


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## hlee72ca (Jun 29, 2010)

SeaHorse_Fanatic said:


> On a small scale, not even a $100 extra a month is generally realistic. For instance, that's 50 to 100 cherry shrimp adults you have to raise and sell (flood the market).
> 
> For those who already have the equipment and corals, then selling coral frags can be an extra income supplement. However, to get to that point takes a lot of time, money, and "luck"/knowledge. I spend hundreds on my reef tanks and in the past, I used to sell quite a few frags.
> 
> ...


I think that Anthony is being modest, he just doesn't want revenue canada to know about all the money he stashed in offshore accounts  I myself would be happy to breakeven monthly, with hydro, food, equipment and livestock purchases. It is a case of supply and demand, cherry shrimps are over abundant, crystal red and blacks seem to have good demand, and not every one can breed them, especially the higher grade ones.


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## gklaw (May 31, 2010)

If Daniel is using extension court for power tools, make sure the extension cords are heavy gauge, or it will pop the breaker or even fry the tools.


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## Tazzy_toon (Jul 25, 2011)

For some reason doesn't matter what he does (yes he uses industrial extention cords) but even directly into the wall they are causing problems. It's on the same circuit as our living room and keep shutting down my computer.



gklaw said:


> If Daniel is using extension court for power tools, make sure the extension cords are heavy gauge, or it will pop the breaker or even fry the tools.


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## neven (May 15, 2010)

If the place is newer, it could be arc fault breakers not liking the motors. likely its just too much juice being drawn at once. have you tried it with all power off in the living room to see if it trips? If it doesn't then its a matter of getting power from elsewhere to do the wood working. If there is a washroom receptacle near by try using an extension cord from that (its very poor trade practice to tie the bathroom into anything else except another bathroom)


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## Tazzy_toon (Jul 25, 2011)

Thanks Neven. The townhouse we rent is about 18yrs old and poorly built. I was very suprised that a plug in the garage would be connected to a plug on the other side of the house in the living room. Unfortunatley there is no access to the garage from the house to try the extention cord trick.


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## neven (May 15, 2010)

drop the cord from a window


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## Tazzy_toon (Jul 25, 2011)

Oh, I guess we could try from the bedroom. lol. Never thought of that. Maybe we can try some things tomorrow, I know that if he could get it working (it's mainly his radial arm and table saws) he'd be soooooooo happy.



neven said:


> drop the cord from a window


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## neven (May 15, 2010)

if you have a room over the garage and its carpetted, peeling back the carpet in a corner, and drilling through the floor boards is an easy way to route a more permanent temporary solution. Plenty of great quality cord ends you can buy to reattatch in the garage after you run the cord. So its only a matter of plugging in the cord when you need to do the work. Otherwise you need to spend some $$$ to get an electrician to run a cct


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## Momobobo (Sep 28, 2010)

I agree with everyone else...little money to be made in this hobby from breeding. Hard to sell fish these days, let alone large quantities of them. If you put a lot of money in, expensive high grade shrimp should have a decent payoff though. Risky however. Fish, usually not so much. Majority of fish you won't get more than $5 for each one you sell and it will be hard to sell them off.


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## gsneufeld (Jan 28, 2012)

The generally accepted rule is that if you want to start breeding fish for profit.. forget it. Like people above said, its not as easy as it sounds, and you have to deal with finding buyers.

Otherwise, breeding your fish is a great way to get into a new level of the hobby. I think most of us find that when we've gone through all the trouble of hatching and raising fry, it's very hard to let go of them as well! 

If you're looking for something that's pretty easy though, and a little more expensive and in demand than cherries, try Blue Tigers. They're very cool looking.


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## cichlid (Jul 30, 2010)

My babies are just happening. Lol, if I can make 3$ a fish Im stoked.... Im gunna have some gorgious chiclids. But I will be happy with 2$ each, i can not say forsure what they are tho...


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## Tazzy_toon (Jul 25, 2011)

Ok, so hubby is excited and on the look out for cheap/free wood (doesn't have a planer tho, so can't use really bad wood) and can make planters, bridges and possibly small tank stands.

I'm thinking of breeding long fin bn pleco's and shrimp for fun (since I already have them in my community tank) but i'll have them in their own tank. Maybe some endlers.

In my community tank I'll find homes for the guppyies and do some Apistogramma's and maybe rams if they are compatable.


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