Turning a hobby into a business - Selling aquarium fish

Cristian Level X³

October 9, 2016, 9:42 am

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Turning a hobby into a business - Selling aquarium fish

When I was young, maybe around 14 years of age, my main hobby was fresh water aquaria. I knew almost everything there is to know about most species of aquarium fish.
At my peak, I had 5 freshwater tanks, all populated with fresh water tropic fish of more than 20 species.

Turning a hobby into a business - Selling aquarium fish

I soon started to learn how to breed them and in no time I start producing excess offspring that I would sell to local pets stores. I sold them in bulk, around 100 fish at once at half the market price of even lower. I even sold them to my relatives and friends.

Now the easiest freshwater fish to breed are the Viviparous category (Poeciliidae family), the ones that give birth to live young! You just need to make sure the water has the right temperature, PH level and it isn't crowded enough, you'll have to monitor the females and separate them once they are close to giving birth.

Here are the species I used to breed without any problems:

swordtails - they need a good sized aquarium but breeding them is easy once you have a couple of right pairs, probably the one with most breeding problems, at least for me.

Platies - easy to breed, similar needs at the swordtails.
Mollies - cute and easy to breed, I used to mix them with Platies, the offspring were usually infertile but looked cool
Guppies - the easiest to breed fish of all time! At one point I wasn't separating the females anymore because the young found a way to survive (well most of them). Buying just a few pairs will ensure doze and doze of young in a few weeks time.

So there you have it! Have you ever thought about turning a profit around from selling aquarium fish?

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CryptoGuru

CryptoGuru

This is awesome and im so glad you shared this. My kids would love to start this kind of business, and it could give them a sense of running and managing their own company. You make it sound really easy but i am sure keeping the correct levels of the water or temps could be hard to monitor and maintain no? How many hours did you spend on average per week doing this? Whats the start up costs affiliated with starting something like this? Guppies sound the easiest to breed and sell but how much to they go for? I currently need to find new avenues to make money and if i could involve my kids somehow and make them little entrepreneurs in the process then im all game for it. Thanks again for sharing!

8 years ago

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Cristian

Cristian

Buying all the initial equipment you need to keep you fish happy and the water clean may costs a little, at least at first. A 60l tank with decent equipment may cost around 150-200 bucks if you buy everything from a pet store.

But at one point I started creating the tanks myself, it's pretty easy, all you need are some presses, glass cut to the right dimensions and silicon to stick everything together.

Maintaining everything is a whole new talk, but probably around 1 hour of maintenance per day should do the trick, including managing the fish getting birth and the young. And once every few weeks I used to do a total clean up, doing that for six tanks, took my like 4-6 hours.

8 years ago

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CryptoGuru

CryptoGuru

Thats not bad at all i had a talk with my wife about it she says it sounds like alot of work. Maybe you can do a discussion more in dept about the care needed for these fish. Im very interested and i would like a list of things i need. One hundred or two is not a bad start up investment how much does each fish go for? What is the best breed to start with for a beginner?

8 years ago

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augusta

augusta

This is an awesome tutorial, at least with just this knowledge one can be self employed. you go all out for a kill and you can start making a whole of money.

The consumption of fish in my Country is very high,so there will be a readily available market for the fish selling to thrive.Thanks for sharing need to try this out.

7 years ago

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Lynne

Lynne

I have never owned a fish, much less bred them and sold them for money. I only once had a problem with some hamsters I had that kept breeding and I became very unpopular with all my friends moms because I just took the babies to school and gave them away LOL.

I never thought of selling my hamsters...

What a nice idea for making some extra money if you are into fish. It could be great fun and a nice little earner.

Thanks for this, I love hearing about new and interesting ideas for making money online.

8 years ago

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ermini2

ermini2

This is so cool and such agreat idea. My 2 oldest just asked the other night if they could have pet fish. These are the easiest pets to take care of and I probably wont have any problem with getting them some cute little fish!

Now when you sold your fish to local pet stores, did you also sell them online? and if so how did you do that?

8 years ago

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Heatman6190

Heatman6190

Wow, you really did a great job turning such a little hobby into a grand profitable merchandise and I'm quite certain it yields a reasonable sum of money for you on daily basis. Well it's what comes with effort, hardwork and dedication. If you had stopped half way when you started, I doubt that you would be able to get to the point you are in today.

As much as I would love to have a fish pond of my own, I doubt if I would be successful as you because you started it as a hobby and I believe it's what even made you not to have any issues pushing it further. I have hobby of my own and it's collecting of painting and old art stuffs. I have a collection started over 13 years now, just like you started with yours as a hobby and turned it into a good business, I did same as well.

I have had several collections and one day I decided to sell one on one of my social media marketing platform and I was amazed by the amount people were offering to pay for one of my painting collection, that was when I realized that I had made a good resourceful money collection, and till date I still haven't stopped trying to collect more arts and crafts that I would ever be possible to lay my hands on.

7 years ago

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wallet

wallet

I have tried this, and believe me I got a lot of money from this business. I have tried with guppy but this kind of fish was always dying so I have tried with scalars and discus, especially the discus I sold them very expensive. I don't have time now to retake this business from where I have left it, I still have an aquarium with scalars only for my pleasure not to sell.
Selling aquarium fish is a good business and you can earn a lot of money, but you need dedication and a lot of time for this business.

7 years ago

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ballyhara

ballyhara

My cousin had the obsession to have an aquarium about 3 years ago, he got all he needed, went to the store, bought everything, and once he had it, he developed a little business of his own with that. The man was seriously doing his life based on aquarium fishes and tools. He kept doing that for I believe these last years, and for sure is affordable, people just need to learn basic knowledge about it and that's it.

7 years ago

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jemuelterrado

jemuelterrado

Wow that is a great idea. You will earn at the same time having fun with your business. This is a very inspiring story of life. I remembered once when i am fund of drawing some things. My classmate told me to draw for him in change of money and that is how i relate the story of my life to this discussion. Turning your hobby to a profitable way is very interesting and very creative one. This is an idea of a passionate person.

7 years ago

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ColdFlameChris

ColdFlameChris

It will always a good business selling aquarium fish since everyone loves to have one. This is my favorite hobby and pet above everyone else. I did have a flower horn, discus cichlids, black ghost knifefish, hammerhead shark, guppies, and many types of freshwater fish. I also experienced having a saltwater fish like Nemo, starfish, seahorse and lots more. I just stopped it because it's expensive to maintain it and my big aquarium got a cracked on it so I decided to stop petting them. Hope when I got enough money to earn business, I can build my own pet shop that specializes aquarium and fishes. That's one of my dream business.

7 years ago

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edencaga

edencaga

Yeah, I agree with this. It is a good idea to turn your hobbies into business. You are not only earning but you are also having fun and It is great because you won't get bored. Since it is your hobby so if your having fun and enjoying what you do then the more you are willing to do your business.

7 years ago

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jeffreyjose48

jeffreyjose48

Yes! You do what you are good at. You do what love. You can turn your hobby into business. just make sure that you can really live or earn money through that hobby.

6 years ago

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PoisonJay

PoisonJay

You did a great job. I have never thought that selling aquarium fishes can be profitable. Probably, you will be a good vet or a skilled fisher. You will tell everyone your story later on how you started your career when you had only 14 years old. Or you can become really good in sales. I’am not sure if you heard about John King who works in Australian retail pharmacy industry. He started his career in sales when he was a teenager, and now he is one of the most famous and fully licensed estate agent in Australia. Keep up the good work. Good luck!

5 years ago

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