How to make money breeding clownfish?

[Gerard Alba]

How to make money breeding clownfish?
What do I need.
Not in the US.
(South America where I live, clowns go for 45 or 50 dollars each)

[JHardman]

It will all depend on the local/regional market...

So the first place to start is researching the market. Volume will be a key factor. High prices generally stem from lack of availability, if this is truely the case, then flooding the market could crash the market.

If the market can withstand the volume from a breeder/hatchery in the region, then you could be setting up a very profitable business, if it can not then you are setting up a case for financial ruin.

Make sure you are getting accurate information, just because a LFS says they have a hard time getting clowns doesn't mean it is true, after all they have a financial interest in the prespection of a rare item. Talk to the importers and the regulatory groups that control import, they should give more accurate information.

OK, so lets assume that indeed the market is ripe for CB clownfish do to high costs of importing and/or do to goverment regulations on importation.

Some of the key factors for seeing if you can be profitable are going to be the cost of food for pairs and offspring and the cost of water (and salt). If you have access to sea water, you would save a lot.

Also consider the start up costs versus the time it will take to recover that cost. Remember it takes a lot of time to get ramped up to any kind of volume. You maybe 12 months before you can sell a single CB fish and a 2-3 more years before you can supply thousands a month. So if you can not with stand a 2-4 year "freeze" in income before starting to pay on the startup cost, it may not be viable to try for anything large scale.

Anyway, until you can research the market all of this is mute...

[Gerard Alba]

-Very- well put.

I already make money breeding-selling freshwater fish. (goldfish, koi and livebreeders).
15,000 gallon concrete tanks.

[Gerard Alba]

There is a "hole" in the market.

What do I need in materials.

[Luis A M]

Gerard,where In SA are you?.I sell them at USD 5 a piece here.
May be I should move there

[Gerard Alba]

Ok Venezuela.

[Gerard Alba]

I already make a fortune selling fish. Ok I should not say that, but who cares.

[Gerard Alba]

I love money.

[JHardman]

How many fish per month do you think the market can bare before crashing?

[Gerard Alba]

-200x20$(Us/dollar)= 4000$ a month!



Thats a lot a cash.

[rsman]

it is a lot of cash but you have to consider what your local places are willing to pay AND how many,

assuming everything is on your side you will have 800ish clowns every 2 weeks, can the sum of all of your LFS's handle that, and at what point are they going to drop that, if the demand isnt really high, after the first or 2nd batch they wont pay $20 instead they will for example pay $15 or $10 and will buy less and less, as the fish store becomes unable to sell (there really is a limited demand on all ornimental fish to some point or another) they will no longer want to buy from you. at that point all you have invested will still be invested, you *might* have broken even, probibly not. and you wont be able to sell any! and you will need to sell to other not so local places, adding to your cost and lowering the amount you can make.

those numbers are things you need to know ahead of time if your doing it for profit!

[Baalz]

(South America where I live, clowns go for 45 or 50 dollars each)

Unless you're going to setup shop and sell retail your not gonna get anywhere near that much for them.

[MalawianDude]

Originally posted by rsman
it is a lot of cash but you have to consider what your local places are willing to pay AND how many,

assuming everything is on your side you will have 800ish clowns every 2 weeks, can the sum of all of your LFS's handle that, and at what point are they going to drop that, if the demand isnt really high, after the first or 2nd batch they wont pay $20 instead they will for example pay $15 or $10 and will buy less and less, as the fish store becomes unable to sell (there really is a limited demand on all ornimental fish to some point or another) they will no longer want to buy from you. at that point all you have invested will still be invested, you *might* have broken even, probibly not. and you wont be able to sell any! and you will need to sell to other not so local places, adding to your cost and lowering the amount you can make.

those numbers are things you need to know ahead of time if your doing it for profit!

Geez and i thought breeding african cichlids had lots of fry LOL. 1 FOWLR tank=more work then, 12 FW african tanks, lol.

[Shoestring Reefer]

Originally posted by JHardman
Also consider the start up costs versus the time it will take to recover that cost. Remember it takes a lot of time to get ramped up to any kind of volume. You maybe 12 months before you can sell a single CB fish and a 2-3 more years before you can supply thousands a month. So if you can not with stand a 2-4 year "freeze" in income before starting to pay on the startup cost, it may not be viable to try for anything large scale.

In addition, consider that the clowns may not start breeding for a while. I bought a couple of clowns that paired almost overnight, but it's been 6 months and still no eggs. Of course, they were young. So, you might go two years, not 1, before you can sell any clowns. You can buy pairs (for more money, of course) but I've often read that they can stop spawning for a while after they are moved to a new tank. By the way: In two years, the price for clowns might drop even if you don't get involved.

So, step 1 would be to get a couple of clowns and just wait for them to spawn. As far as what you need to raise the clown fry, you can just search in this forum or buy this book.

[Shoestring Reefer]

Maybe yo can talk to chico_andrade , he's posted in this forum about breeding fish. He's from Brazil, raises FW fish commercially, and also raises clowns. Maybe he would have some insight specific to SA.