noob questions

[paOol]

hi, im starting a 60 gallon for the first time.
im getting my live rock tomorrow, and i'll cycle for 1-2 weeks.

should i have the skimmer/filter running while the rock is in there or after?


anywho, i want to set up this tank for clownfish.
clownfish are my favorite fish and i plan to breed them.
is it all types of clownfish that breed easily or just the ocellaris?

ocellaris are my favorite looking clowns, but i want to breed my fish so that i can sell the fry to local fish stores for some money.

does anyone do this? is it profitable?

should i just keep hatching a bunch of ocellaris and keep selling them for like $8-$10 a piece? or should i get some rarer breeds like 2 black clowns.
which one would make me more money?


also, what are some breeding triggers? for example, for freshwater, using blackwater extract promotes spawning.

 

[stykthyn]

do it for love of the hobby man. Once you learn to succesfully harvest occelaris you can trade the young in, but be careful not to flood the market or you wont make anything.
Once you have some experience move on to the rare fish.
Where I live Occ. dont sell for that much, but they do SELL, every little kid out there wants a Nemo.
I highly suggest getting Wilkerson's Clownfish book. It should be every clownfish owners bible and has a section on breeding fish and how to sell them.
Personally I only make store credit off my fish, which is cool b/c it basically funds my hobby.

 

[stykthyn]

ps, if there are no fish in the tank I wouldnt run the skimmer or the filtre, just give it good water movement.

 

[NicoleC]

You can't sell too many ocellaris, not from a single pair. (And not likely anyway.) They are not only the best selling fish, but still the #1 wild caught fish!

It CAN be profitable, but, for a while, imagine your money flowing into a large black hole.

Yes, run the skimmer while the rock is curing and provide good water movement. You will probably need longer than 1-2 weeks to cure the rock and cycl the tank.

 

[paOol]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=6761866#post6761866 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by stykthyn
ps, if there are no fish in the tank I wouldnt run the skimmer or the filtre, just give it good water movement.

i already have everything running, and my liverock is coming in a few hours. if i turn the filter off, wont the bacteria die off?
yesterday, i threw in a raw shrimp and i also added some sludge off my other tank. i got the cartridge and i splashed it in my current tank to get some of the bacteria in there.
what else can i do to speed things up a bit w/o using drops?

 

[paOol]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=6761905#post6761905 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by NicoleC
You can't sell too many ocellaris, not from a single pair. (And not likely anyway.) They are not only the best selling fish, but still the #1 wild caught fish!

It CAN be profitable, but, for a while, imagine your money flowing into a large black hole.

Yes, run the skimmer while the rock is curing and provide good water movement. You will probably need longer than 1-2 weeks to cure the rock and cycl the tank.

would i have more success with the ocellaris or the onyx?
i would imagine the onyx, but i dont think i would be able to breed those if they are too hard to breed.

 

[stykthyn]

I hear onyx are harder to breed

 

[Kathy55g]

Conventional wisdom:

For both success in breeding and to pay the bills, go for the ocellaris.

 

[JHardman]

Re: noob questions

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=6760550#post6760550 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by paOol
does anyone do this? is it profitable?

should i just keep hatching a bunch of ocellaris and keep selling them for like $8-$10 a piece? or should i get some rarer breeds like 2 black clowns.
which one would make me more money?

Profitable, yes and no. When I went thru the IT slump after 9/11 I supported my household by breeding A. ocellaris and GSM. But frankly I make more money playing poker for a few hours than the best month I ever had breeding fish. Or in other words there are a lots easier ways to make a lot more money that breeding fish.

But I give you fair warning, it takes a lot of work, time and money to get profitable.

If I were to do it all over again, I would do seahorses. They bring a much higher per "unit" value to the "hatchery" than clownfish. Some species are near impossible to breed/rear, however some are much easier than clownfish.

As for wholesale pricing, yes $8 to $10 per A. ocellaris is about right for selling to the LFS, but unless there are a lot of LFS in your area, you are going to need to sell to large wholesalers, which is going to cut your price in half or more.

My best recommendation would be to get a currently breeding pair of A. ocellaris and dive in. Don't spead very much money, consider everything you do as temp, that you are going to replace everything in 12 months. Be really cheap! Get a feel for what it takes, get good at it. There is a ton to learn, none of it is really hard, it's just a large volume of information.

Once you have been breeding the one pair of A. ocellaris for about a year, make up your mind on what you want to do. Maybe it will be starting over with 20 pairs of A. oceallaris and a few pairs of other retail species. Maybe it will be 20 pairs of seahorses. Maybe that one spawning pair will be living in a nice display tank.