Bread & Butter Fish For The Proffessional Breeder.....

[Ludwig Venter]

I am retiring in October and moving to a city where I'll have a better market for the fish I breed..... problem is just.... What fish is not too difficult to breed, but will be profitable enough to at least pay for itself and provide a little income as well??....

I remember that I was once advised (by an lfs owner) to specialise in one species .... he suggested that I get Zebra Danios and breed them in abundance to flood all wholesalers countrywide.... personally... I do not think this is a proposition considering the (giveaway) price of Zebras...

I am currently considering to do Black lace Angels....Bolivian Rams.... Kribensis.... Bristle Nose..... Pearl Gouramies and of course continue with my "No-Nonsense" "low maintenance" guppies to cover general running costs of the operation....

I have around 40 tanks available for the operation, which includes 6 ponds, so Black Moores will also be on the list.

Any other suggestions??.... (I know Discus are quite a proposition, but I'd prefer to hear about "no nonsense" fish with guaranteed results)....

 

[thereverendturtle]

If you're going to do some goldfish black ranchu command a high price, even for the lower grade. Other fish to consider would be cpd's, rainbows, one of the rarer central American cichlids, apistogrammas and some of the other SA dwarf cichlids.

 

[Dazzler666]

LV, hope you post on here when you get your breeding setup, up & running!!

 

[KkAaNnEe]

I think the best thing to do is to go into as many lfs as possible and check which fish are commanding higher prices, then decided whether they would be worth breeding, time cost maintenance and quantity of fry.

Different fish go for different prices all over the world

 

[Alm0stAwesome]

Some types of cory fetch a good price in LFS. Sterbais go for £7-8 each here...

 

[FishFanatic04]

Cories I plan to pay ALOT for a special breed of cory next week, but I even pay $5 for albinos here and gladly. So, even the common ones are worth something.

 

[Dieses Madchen]

Jack dempseys are really easy to breed.

 

[drobbyb]

LV, I'm not sure on your market there in SA, but here in the US there's a decent market for Rainbows. Easy to breed, cheap to raise and they command a decent price. On the average I was getting +-100 a spawning and it cost me $1 (counting the cost of overhead) to raise a fry and I would get a return of $4 or so depending on the auction. %400 profit isn't too bad and that's for a common species. Some species command a higher price than that. And that's only off of 2 spawning mops. They spawn in mops constantly, so if I had enough space to raise fry I could have ballooned out and expanded for a constant income and healthy profit. Plus, I could sell the mops full of eggs when my fry tanks were full for residual income for $14 profit (the cost of mops and power and water subtracted ($15 - $1 for materials and overhead per mop))

 

[OldMan47]

Ludwig, if you go with angels get some of the harder to find ones like the blues or the "blushing" or similar lines. Black lace is just too common to get much of a price benefit from its difference. Around here we have dedicated angel breeders and it is amazing some of the things they are producing. In the area around where Tolak lives there are even more great angel breeders who show up at all of the club auctions and often see premium prices for their fish.
As you noted, there is really no market for zebras. My favorite LFS sells young zebras as live food for carnivores, instead of rosies or guppies.
Anything that is too easy will not result in much profit. I am able to cover the cost of my fish food by breeding goodeids but they are specialist fish and would not sell well in a pet shop since they are rather bland colors. For decent pet shop sales you want something pretty and not so easy to breed that you sell them once and then everyone else has them for sale, as happens with things like guppies. That means something that can demand a good price for its appearance but that is not way too easy to breed. Around here, convict cichlids are bred by one LFS rather than them buying them because they find them that easy to breed right in the store. It even generates interest by casual fish keepers who are fascinated to watch the convicts. No convict breeder could ever make fish food money by breeding them in this area because of that.

 

[Akasha72]

I'd also be tempted to say cories. They are popular and breed fairly easily - it's keeping the fry alive that the slightly harder part.

The cheapest in my area are the bronze, peppered and the sterbai. The rest vary in price but they all go for a higher price. For instance, I can get a peppered cory for £2 and a bronze for £2.50 but if I want panda's I'll have to pay £6 each. My lfs have already offered to pay cash for any cories I breed.

 

[N0body Of The Goat]

A Steatocranus spp. perhaps, Ludwig, coming from a little further north of your vast continent? My S. casuarius pair produced what must have a been a ~50 strong strong brood last Novemeber, after having them for ~18 months (approx. 9/6cm SL male/female).