Is It Possible To Offset Costs By Selling Fish/plants/crustaceans?

[jackrmee]

I have a few tanks ready to set up, as I have so many ideas and different types of fish I'd love to keep which can't be kept together.
It looks like it's going to cost me a lot in electric and equipment.
Is it possible to keep a nice setup (which doesn't look like a commercial "factory" type thing) and make enough money from it to sustain the costs I'll have to outlay?

 

[Akasha72]

in short - No.
 
In general selling fish to the lfs isn't profitable enough to make anything much out of it. Unless of course you are breeding something really desireable and these cases seem to be rare.
My lfs don't give anything for livebearer fry - that'd have gone out of business long ago if they did. They generally give no more that £1 per baby cory and that is only in store credit. I think, if memory serves me right, they also gave me no more than £2 for my cichlid fry - again that was store credit.

 

[eaglesaquarium]

A buddy of mine (a salty guy) has a huge marine tank (300+ gallons) and countless smaller tank.  He has some fairly rare corals that for whatever reason are growing like gangbusters in his tank.  So, every few months (or whatever his time frame is) he frags off a bit of them and gives them to a buddy of his that works full time in the trade (he sets up and maintains tanks all along the East Coast of the US).  This buddy of his and he have some sort of arrangement worked out and he gets supplies in exchange for these coral.  But, it doesn't come close to offsetting his initial outlay of cash, nor even his operating costs.  He needs to still shell out a substantial amount of money for his hobby, even with several hundreds of dollars in stock that he can pass along.

 

[SherLar]

   I'm lucky enough to have 4 LFS in my area. 3 of them will trade certain fry or adult fish for store credit, but none will buy outright. The fish they'll trade for need to be fairly easy to resell. I sometimes trade enough (usually Koi, cichlids, and some types of cory, especially Panda) to be able to purchase all my food for the month, which can get expensive.
   I have friends who breed a couple different African cichlids and sell the fry on Craig's List, and make a bit of cash. But I doubt you could breed enough of anything in a home aquarium to cover all your costs, unless it was a truly spectacular and expensive fish. Try Zebra Plecos if you can afford a breeding pair. They go for about $200.00 each here in the Midwest U S.

 

[jackrmee]

Not even by buying small fish and then selling them when they have grown large?

 

[Alasse]

I breed peppermint bristlenose, these guys pay for all my 20 tanks and fish needs.....tis great

 

[NickAu]

I have 2 BN's a standard male and albino female a LFS gives me store credit equal to $1 per albino fry, they don’t care that they are cross-bred type of thing he still sells them as albino, The non albino end up fish food.

 

[Far_King]

I occasionally supply assassin snails.  Depending on where you go they can be anywhere from £3-£4.50 each.  I don't get any money for them but I get deals on other things I need.  It helps offset my costs somewhat but doesn't go so far as to pay for my hobby.  But then it's my hobby and I don't mind spending out on it.
 
A lot of the more desirable and expensive fish tend to be wild caught as they either won't breed or are very difficult to breed in an aquarium environment.  If you can crack this you'd make a fortune!

 

[Akasha72]

Not even by buying small fish and then selling them when they have grown large?

 
Think of it this way ... if you were looking for a certain fish and found them in a store would you buy the really young looking ones knowing they were young fish and would live a long time or would you buy the fully grown not knowing their age and therefore may only be with you 6 months?
 
I know which I would buy. I never buy fish that are fully grown. They could already be 2 years old and be dead in a few months - it's a waste of my money and my time.
 
Like others have said - fish keeping is my hobby. It gives me much pleasure and I don't mind shelling out the cash it costs. If you do it's not a hobby you want to get into. This isn't a cheap hobby

 

[NickAu]

 
Like others have said - fish keeping is my hobby. It gives me much pleasure and I don't mind shelling out the cash it costs

Exactly. Remember I'm the guy who pays $22.90 for 50 grammes (2 ounces ) jar of New Life Spectrum pellets,  so it is nice to be able to trade a few BN fry for it.
 

 
This isn't a cheap hobby

 
 

 
I know which I would buy. I never buy fish that are fully grown. They could already be 2 years old and be dead in a few months - it's a waste of my money and my time.

+1
 
Unless its a Betta.
 
Betta owners ( My self included ) are renowned for buying mature sickly fish and giving them a good home, I know of a few people, one or two on this site who have blind Bettas, and in most cases got them from LFS like that.
 
My Betta when I first got her.
http/www.fishforums.net/index.php?/topic/438937-my-new-betta-zsa-zsa/?p=3717397

 

[jag51186]

 

 
Like others have said - fish keeping is my hobby. It gives me much pleasure and I don't mind shelling out the cash it costs

Exactly. Remember I'm the guy who pays $22.90 for 50 grammes (2 ounces ) jar of New Life Spectrum pellets,  so it is nice to be able to trade a few BN fry for it.
 

 
This isn't a cheap hobby

 
 

 
I know which I would buy. I never buy fish that are fully grown. They could already be 2 years old and be dead in a few months - it's a waste of my money and my time.

+1
 
Unless its a Betta.
 
Betta owners ( My self included ) are renowned for buying mature sickly fish and giving them a good home, I know of a few people, one or two on this site who have blind Bettas, and in most cases got them from LFS like that.
 
My Betta when I first got her.
http/www.fishforums.net/index.php?/topic/438937-my-new-betta-zsa-zsa/?p=3717397
 


 
This is how I end up with chain store platies lol

 

[OldMan47]

If you want a small profit you can use things like aquabid to sell off breeding surplus fish or do what I and several fellow club members do and sell off the results of your plant growing and breeding at a club sales event, ours is an auction. I will never pay for my equipment but selling fish does pay for the fish food and the new fish species that I end up getting.