Breeding fish starting guide

So you’ve been keeping fish for maybe a year, and you’re realizing that this hobby is pretty expensive. You’re thinking of how you could start to find your hobby, and you remember that fish have babies. You think that you could sell these fish fry, and start to find back your own money? Well, there are a few important things to establish first.

Step one
Establish yourself with a good place to give your fish to before you start. People who breed fish without a place to move them to typically ends with overstocked tanks and they need to drop their prices just to clear out space. It’s important that you have a trusted person you have to distribute your fish to. Also, don’t try to be the distributor. Being the distributor means that your production is halted until you have a customer, and having a distributor means that you can return to breeding fish as soon as they’re moved out.

Step two
Go back, and look through all of the fish you have currently. If you have anything along the lines of celestial pearl danios, common Corydoras species, bristlenose plecos, rams, Apistogramma, cherry shrimp, and mystery snails, then you may have a good start. These are relatively easy fish to breed that will give you good experience to start with. A lot of these are commonly sold and bought in the hobby.

Step three
Avoid these fish at all costs. For one reason or another, do not start with these fish. You do not want convicts. Sure, they’re easy to breed, but no one will buy them. If you search for some obscure type of fish that’s easy to breed, for example, rosy loaches, you’re not going to have much luck. Even though rosy loaches are almost the same exact fish as Pygmy Corydoras, and much more expensive, Pygmy Corydoras already do what they do, for much cheaper, and more people know about Pygmy Corydoras, already. Another fish to generally avoid is most common live bearers. They may be easy to breed, but these fish can only be sold for around a max of 30 cents each. Make sure the time and effort you put into your fish is going to net you a good about of money.

Step four
If you don’t have any of the easy fish mentioned above, prepare yourself to make an investment. A lot of solid fish that net a good about of money, will obviously cost a lot of money. I am currently breeding Neolamprologus multifasciatus, which I bought six of, for about 100 dollars. I got them off at a discount, but in maybe a month or two, selling all of their fry for about 5 bucks a piece, they’ll make their money’s worth back in the first couple months. Just confirm with your distributor that they’ll buy the fish that you are ready to breed. It’s also important to invest in multiple tanks, and set ups. Emergencies and mistakes happen all the time, and it’s important to have back ups if needed. All of these tanks need to be fully cycled, and ready to hold fish at a moments notice.

Step five
Deciding what type of breeder you want to be is difficult. By, type of breeder, I do not mean what fish you plan to breed. I mean what kind of source you will be. There are two types of fish breeders. The first is the type that pumps out fish as soon as they’re sellable, with little concern to the exact health of the fish sent. Being this kind of breeder is fine, but then the focus has to be on mass producing and quantity over quality. If you wish to be the kind of breeder who makes more money for their quality fish, then you must be prepared to deal with the culls. Culls, is the term for a fish that was born with some deformity, that by passing onto a distributor, who may send that fish onto another breeder, who then ends up breeding out deformities, the whole economic system of fish breeding is thrown off. Whether a cull is euthanized, or simply not sold doesn’t particularly matter, but it is important to ensure the quality of the fish sold is peak.

Now, here are some simple tips to start you off in breeding.

-Stick to one distributor in your area. If you’re selling to every store in your area, soon, no one will want to buy from you. You’re directly setting local stores against each other in prices, because they’re selling the exact same fish to the exact same people, and thus, forcing all of them to lower their prices in competition, and thus, buying your fish for less.

-Keep breeding tanks and display tanks separate. Breeding tanks are not pretty. No matter what way you look at it, fish do not like breeding in pretty set ups. Whether you have to have tons of shells sprinkled around your tank for shell dwellers, or tons of not so attractive floating plants to encourage clown killifish to breed, just keep them generally separate.

-Don’t start massive, start with inverts. Of the fish I listed above for good fish to start breeding, mystery snails and cherry shrimp are by far the easiest. If you get one massive tank, and throw four cherry shrimp in that tank, and give it a month, you will be rolling in 30 cent cherry shrimp all day.

-Don’t follow what fish is popular at one time. Fish popularity is always shifting by what’s on the market, and by putting yourself on the market, you’re actually lowering the demand for that fish. Stick to fish that will always be popular, and this problem wont present itself.

-Just because a fish is hard to breed, doesn’t mean it is a good fish to breed. Tetras are a very annoying fish to breed, so for a long time, companies used to catch tetras out of the Amazon in the thousands, instead of breeding them. This is still common practice for a lot of tetras today, such as the fan favorite cardinal tetra. Going by that example, stick with what’s easy, and what sells.