?'s on frag profit

[barnett8]

Can somebody make sufficient money fraging and selling corals to pay off the frag tank, if so how long would it take. 3 years? 10? 20? Also which would be the most profitable to propagate, how can you tell somebody will buy them?

Thanks.

[skey44]

welcome to the club

[magnoliarichj]

i just gpt 2 180 rr tanks for fragging and 2 75 gallon sumps a geo 6x24 reactor with tank ph controller and electronic regulator. the pump the skimmer etc etc etc. then you have to purchase the live stock...... ho hummmm. good thing i have a day job that paid for all the equipment.

[MSU Fan]

I think that it would be very difficult to make it seem a worthwhile enterprise. To create the value you are probably would be looking for would require very high profit frags. As Magno says, the equipment is very costly, as are the starting frags.

I would think in the 5-15 year range probably would be a good payback for this venture, unless you were driving the trends and banking on certain corals becoming the new fad. So maybe if you had been breeding acans, micros, blastos, etc for the last couple of years, and then sold the lot when the prices went up. Otherwise, it's just going to be a long time coming. The bigger question is whether you are going to out pace the price of the electricity to run the equipment or not. Hope energy is cheap where you live!

[MJAnderson]

I think it depends on how much you spend and what you're selling. I set up 2 40g breeders and a 30g sump with mostly used/left over parts. Maybe cost me $600. Add $50 a month in electricity/food so thats $600 to start and $600 a year. Add $1,000 in corals. After 7 months I have about $600 worth of corals to sell, not including the mother colonies to continue pruning. So I expect to start being profitable in 2 years. As long as my losses are spread across all my corals and aren't just in the high end ones, I expect to make $750-$1,000 a year. I'm not retiring on that, but it pays for itself plus a little extra and I enjoy it.

But I did go a little more high end --- purple moster, several Atlantis frags, Tyree, etc.

[Jeremy Blaze]

It will be tough to be profitable on a small scale.

[rustybucket145]

I did it the opposite way as most people... I sold frags and corals from my main tank to pay for my frag system. It took about a year but come setup time I only had to come out of pocket about $100.

I think for small scale the profit is more of joy of being able to do something you enjoy and having it 'mostly' pay for itself.

[barnett8]

well seeing as I don't have a day job, and I will be leaving for college in four years, I don't think I will be setting up a frag tank for profit any time soon. Thanks for responding, and not letting me stray down the wrong path with my money (seems like a bad investment right now).

[bradford]

As a career it would be hard, but if you are just looking for some extra spending cash per month I think it is do-able. I think if you specialize in a certain species it would make things easier, because you could setup your system around one type of coral.

[samtheman]

I will soon begin construction of a solar green house that will hold about 5000 gallons of water. I have sold corals before and based on my experience, I hope the money from sales will cover my costs of operation. The building ($15,000) plus the tanks and equipment will simply be out of pocket because I like the hoby.

[Wrench]

This is why retailers are more expensive. It's all in the overhead.

[badguitarist]

if you were to do mono culture of 1 fast growth and popular coral you can definately make money. something like star polyps, xenia, anthelia, various leather corals (sarcophyton, lythophyton and sinularia all grow quick) you very well could pay for the eandever and make money.

[samtheman]

Originally posted by badguitarist
if you were to do mono culture of 1 fast growth and popular coral you can definately make money. something like star polyps, xenia, anthelia, various leather corals (sarcophyton, lythophyton and sinularia all grow quick) you very well could pay for the eandever and make money.

LFS don't want fast growth corals. I went to talk to the Owner of Waves in Portland, OR. I hope to sell some of my frags to stores like his. He wants corals of "high color" that are slow growers. Those are the type he can get easily.
I sold xenia for several years, and it didn't pay my light bill.

[badguitarist]

The key here is research, talk to the stores in your area and see what corals they can sell and what sort of prices they will give you. make up a graph, how much will the local market pay for the coral being propogated, and how much is my cost of operation. then you can figure out if its worth it. and beleive me, if done right it is very much worth it.

[samtheman]

Originally posted by badguitarist
The key here is research, talk to the stores in your area and see what corals they can sell and what sort of prices they will give you. make up a graph, how much will the local market pay for the coral being propogated, and how much is my cost of operation. then you can figure out if its worth it. and beleive me, if done right it is very much worth it.

What do you mean, if done right?

[TIMMYE]

Originally posted by badguitarist
The key here is research, talk to the stores in your area and see what corals they can sell and what sort of prices they will give you. make up a graph, how much will the local market pay for the coral being propogated, and how much is my cost of operation. then you can figure out if its worth it. and beleive me, if done right it is very much worth it.

This is a great point. You also need to look at your local reef clubsto see what they are buying. If you can sell something localy without the shiping hassel you will be alot better off.

[Crackerballer]

Where is the guy on here who setup one for less than $100 and said he made over $2000 over 2 years. I believe all it was was one of those rolling rubbermaid storage boxes that you can slide under beds with about 100watts of PC over it. He posted pics and it looked too funny.

[badguitarist]

There are several things i mean by done right, let me start. First research the species of interest to find out its needs (light, feeding regime, etc.) then set up the tank accordingly, remember this is not a display tank and therefore should not be setup as such. shallow tanks are great, where you can get away with standard flourescent lights as opposed to high dollar high maintanence halides, vho, etc.. Again its not a display tank, dont go out and buy tons of high dollar equipment, instead of buying that 300 dollar pump, howabout airlifts, they may need to be tweeked every so often to work well, but they can move a lot of water for a fraction of the cost (start up and eletric/maintanence cost). i guess what i am trying to say is with a little creativity you can set up a cheap frag system for very little cost and maintenence. it just takes some "out of the box" thinking.
A good point to make is it doesnt have to be out in the open, if it looks ugly or is noisy, stick it in a closet. although not a complete answer i hope this gave you an idea of what i meant by "done right", I'd be happy to answer any other questions you may have. thanks

[badguitarist]

There are several things i mean by done right, let me start. First research the species of interest to find out its needs (light, feeding regime, etc.) then set up the tank accordingly, remember this is not a display tank and therefore should not be setup as such. shallow tanks are great, where you can get away with standard flourescent lights as opposed to high dollar high maintanence halides, vho, etc.. Again its not a display tank, dont go out and buy tons of high dollar equipment, instead of buying that 300 dollar pump, howabout airlifts, they may need to be tweeked every so often to work well, but they can move a lot of water for a fraction of the cost (start up and eletric/maintanence cost). i guess what i am trying to say is with a little creativity you can set up a cheap frag system for very little cost and maintenence. it just takes some "out of the box" thinking.
A good point to make is it doesnt have to be out in the open, if it looks ugly or is noisy, stick it in a closet. although not a complete answer i hope this gave you an idea of what i meant by "done right", I'd be happy to answer any other questions you may have. thanks

[samtheman]

I don't care if the equipment is free, I don't see fragging under lights doing much more than paying the cost of electricity, salt, chemicals, and water. How much an hour do you make after that? I have done this very thing and sold coral for several years. Ask your friend in your example if he even kept track of his power costs? Did he do any accounting at all, or just guess at his costs.
I kept all of my costs on Quickbooks. I know what it costs, and that is why I am going with a greenhouse. Power is your primary cost, and if you can eliminate that you can make a profit.

If that were not the case, we would be flooded with low cost, aquacultured coral.

[Crackerballer]

That's not true. He said make a profit, he didn't say make $100,000 a year. You are leaving out opportunity cost.

It can be done, and you can turn a profit. Remember, making 1,000,001 with total cost 1,000,000 is a profit.

Ok besides getting technical, I think the best way to do it would be just decide how big a frag tank you want, buy the equipment, and work on recoupin some of your money. Don't quit your day job, because without opening a retail store (or operating on a similar scale) you mot likely will have trouble turning any profit.

ANYONE who is in this hobby to make money is already fighting a huge uphill battle. Scale would probably be your biggest problem.

[barnett8]

First off, I am 14, so I will probably not be going through with because I'm going to college in 4 years (unless I could make at least a worth-while profit.)

I have done the adding up of my total costs, and it comes to (suprisingly) around 700$.

I would be using a 72"l by 30"w by 12"d plywood tank ( no glass to save money)

(I would use T5's for light) What do you mean by standard flourecent, like T8's? :

shallow tanks are great, where you can get away with standard flourescent lights as opposed to high dollar high maintanence halides, vho, etc..

I would make my own live rock, and go skimmer-less, using a fuge instead (is that possible in a prop tank?)

And finally: what is an airlift pump? :

Again its not a display tank, dont go out and buy tons of high dollar equipment, instead of buying that 300 dollar pump, howabout airlifts, they may need to be tweeked every so often to work well, but they can move a lot of water for a fraction of the cost (start up and eletric/maintanence cost).

Overall, thanks for the input.

[barnett8]

Actually thinking space wise, I'm going to make it 48" long instead of 72"

[eshook]

If you really wanted to do this on the cheap you could use the rubbermaid underbed storage containers

http://www.rubbermaid.com/rubbermaid...d=HPProd100280

They are shallow, cheap, and would provide the most PAR for the $$. For a fuge use the bigger deeper rubbermaid containers. As for light I would use a combination of NO fluorescents with T5/PC.

shallow container ~ $15
fuge ~ $5
NO fluorescent shoplights x 2 ~$20
T5/PC ~ $100

Thats $150 for tank and lighting. It should be much cheaper and easier than your plywood version with T5's.

The airlift pump is a technique of using air to move water. A lot of larger coral prop systems use it. You use a large air pump and put the outlet in a piece of PVC and use the air to pull the water. For small scale you might get away with some cheap used pumps.

Good luck if you go for it!

[badguitarist]

samtheman, im not trying to argue with you im just saying that it has been done, by myself and others, im sorry that your efforts at this were not fovarable but maybe next time around they will be, good luck!
Barnett8, yes T8 or T12s would work, go to your local Bi-mart, Home Depot, etc. and get a 48" shop light fixture. there is a whole array of standard output lights available (some made for aquariums and some are not) that will work.
An airlift is a water moving device, in fact undrgravel filters work off the airlift principle. In an airlift there is an upright tube (pvc works great) with a 90 degree (or two 45 degree) angle at the top. airline tubing is fed to the bottom of the pipe and as the air bubbles rises it brings water up with it, thus creating current.
Good luck.