Can I make $2000 in my refugium?

[HybridFish]

I want to reply on the post that compared what you are doing to chop shops. I believe what you are doing is great! If you can sell 150 frags a year, you've effectivly saved 150 wild corals. W/ hard work I'm confident that you can meet your goals. I believe 20% at most like to see the mother colony when they buy frags. The other 80% look at something and buy just because it looks "cool". For the guy that said if you get into a hobby, keep it a hobby... If you treat anything like a hobby, then it will stay a hobby. You put hard work into a hobby, then it turns into a profitable business that you like to do. Keep up the good work JPMagyar!

[derrikd]

how is the progess on this? i know it is an older thread... but hows it going?

[levon15]

No Info or pics in over a year??

[Davckowski]

Can we get a progress report?

[JPMagyar]

I was selling about $100 per month to my LFS in exchange for service and supplies. No money changed hands, but I had built an inventory of about $5000 worth of frags including $2000 worth of Oregon Tort that I intended to sell on a new website I had paid to have created when I got hit with two disasters:

1) The collar on my skimmer shutoff valve cracked and leaked a 100 gallons out of my sump exposing all my frag colonies for over 10 hours while I was away on a trip. The display tank was unhurt. I removed the colonies I thought were dead and left some others in hopes they would live. A leather coral died (again while I was away) and this time the pollution hit my display tank. I lost about 30% of my display tank corals. That was about 3 weeks ago. Everything appears to be stabilized now and returning to normal.

2) Red bugs returned this summer and I can not sell in good conscience knowing I have a pest . . . The only creatures I added to my tank since treating for red bugs about a year ago were cleaner shrimp from Drs Foster&Smith so either they hitchhiked on them or I never fully eradicated them in the first place.

The growing and selling was easy - the unexpected disasters were not.

I have not given up and feel strongly I can pull this off. Selling a few frags locally was a piece of cake, but I was selling frags at wholesale prices and paying full retail for my supplies and service with the credit I generated. Creating a big enough supply to open a website was very time consuming, and I was so close . . .I really thought I would blow out my entire $5000 of inventory in December, but it wasn't to be/

Check back next year and hopefully I'll have better news


Joe

[us2000ua]

Good luck JPMagyar!

[g0tmc]

I make a good $200 a month sellin zoo frags, mico frags, and torch(once in a while). Good thing about that is i dont need expensive equipment to keep em alive like SPS xP Id like to see some pics of ur setup though!

[JPMagyar]

I know this is an old thread, but I think there was a lot of interest so I thought I'd offer the "happy ending" update.

Basically I finally got good enough to create really colorful frags, and now I have been selling two "6 frag - frag packs" per month for $150 to $200. It took a long time to get my colonies colorful and my tank stable, but now my Oregon Tort (which is the principle driver of sales) is huge and more than able to provide the 2 or 3 clippings per month.

So there it is - 2 years 9 months later - I did it - my PayPal account hit + $2000.

Beers on me bartender - give everyone a round, LOL!!

Viszlat,

Joe

[bond007069]

awesome, congratulations!!

[RedSonja]

[i]

So there it is - 2 years 9 months later - I did it - my PayPal account hit + $2000.

Beers on me bartender - give everyone a round, LOL!!

Viszlat,

Joe

Thanks for the update, it's good to hear that sticking to it and persevering have paid off for you in the long run. I'm having to learn a lot of patience and self-discipline myself to get my ideas off the ground, I hope that in two years I can also come back and say things are going well.

-Sonja

[zapata41]

hey JP your box is full.

[edmund36]

Is www.garf.org a good place to start out with a new reef tank coral purchase? Are the prices competitive?

Ed

[jake levi]

garf isNOT competitive, do a search here on garf. Lot of other issues also.

To start a new tank off go for a Tropicorium $99 package plus their live sand, also, get the sand/gravel from your package tray, they are gold mines. Check out the Tropicorium site for their 9.99 frags for extra for the box. You'll get what you pay for, and more.

[jake levi]

Hi JP
good to see you sticking with it, and to see you reporting murphys participation in your project, he is an ever present unwanted guest.

Your experience bears out what I have maintained on this site right along, its entirely possible to defray your hobby expenses and make it support itself. That is the goal that most of us should go for, if we make more great, but keep the goals realistic.

Welcome to the wonderful world of farming: buy retail sell wholesale !

[firefish2020]

Good to see you stuck with it!
There are many set backs and pains involved but I agree with a previous post. Try not to ever loose the love of your hobby. Since this post began we have managed to prop and save well over an estimated 5000 corals from being taken from the wild collectively through education and demonstrations in our area alone. Imagine how much of an impact operations such as yours is making on the importation of wild caught coral.

Once again, Congrats on a job well done.

[poknsnok]

have the same goal as you Joe. but realistically Im a year away. you guys dont know how lucky you are to have basements.. the havoc I could wreak !!

[JPMagyar]

LOL . . . I'm sure I would be divorced several times over if not for the safety and privacy of my "fish room" in the basement and the beauty of a wet/dry vac . . .


Joe