Any Tips For Becoming A Breeder?

[shaz-killie]

Well recently I decided to start breeding fish again but was thinking about doing this on a larger scale and was looking for some tips.

At the moment I currently have a pair of angels, collecting some cats which I have been told are spawning and a pair of betas. in the future I'm hoping some of my discus pair off as well but that's long term as they are just small at the moment,

 

[Tolak]

Reverse engineer it. You need buyers first, shops or individuals. You have to breed what you can sell, or at least give away, this varies by location. Be warned that half the people that say they will buy or take your fish will back out when you have hundreds available.

Join a local club, this will give you insight as to what the local fish sales scene is about. You will see what moves & what doesn't, why, and when.

Next you need space, money, and time. What species and what quantity you can produce is dependent on this.

Also, what do you mean by larger scale? Several tanks, dozens of tanks, 100+ tanks, the setup & plans behind them are all different.

 

[HooverOtoCat]

Bettas are very hard to breed. I only was able to succeed once but the female died a few days later of injuries.

 

[Loony Fish]

NEVER GIVE UP
it took me 24 tries to breed and raise some discus and i finaly got it.

 

[theshadowinc]

Well recently I decided to start breeding fish again but was thinking about doing this on a larger scale and was looking for some tips.

At the moment I currently have a pair of angels, collecting some cats which I have been told are spawning and a pair of betas. in the future I'm hoping some of my discus pair off as well but that's long term as they are just small at the moment,

Well its going to cost money and alot of money. I use to breed bettas CT, VT, Deltas etc. But before I really got into it I made stores that promised me they would take my fish to sign contracts on how many they wanted and of what kind! ( it wasn't worth it in the end to do it but i learned alot about breeding that I appreciate from the experience and learned how crooked lfs really are) It was the only way I knew they would take them off of my hands and more to say it cost me lots of money to breed them I think I broke even with the money part at the end, but this is how I did it.

When I did bettas at first the very first time I did them I lost alot due to the males maturing and killing off each other. What I did was setup totes about 12 totes about 25-50l of each. I made deviders from plastic canvas and sowed them together with fishing line. so in each one I could house about 12 males each and the females well they are easy I used my heavy 30g planted tank at the time to house and raise them. But I still ended up losing fish. After I made the deviders I made an area in each of them where water would drain out of them like gravity filtration. Down to a sperate actual real tank where I could filter the water properly and send the water back to each one of them it was an ongoing cycle and never stopped. It took me a month to design and build the system I had to think outside the box! So pretty much I was able to house 144 male bettas with no issues. Its an idea for you if you wanted to go that way. The only problem I ran into was when I decided to try doing 3 breeding tanks at a time and they had about 900 fish survive I was not inpressed at all something I thaught would not be so successful in mass production i ended up taking ltos of money out of the bank cause I needed to make the system i just talked about again 2 times as big I ended up with about 400 Males and about 500 females. The issue I ran into was trying to house them all and get rid of them as my water bill went out of the roof! And not to mention the food that they consumed. >< I guess you can say I learned my lesson the hard way! and at 1 dollar a fish it really ain't worth it. And as far as the females went I had 3 55gal tanks and they where overcrouded! My place ran out of room for them! I also lost a few females due to aggression.

Speaking of food not only do you have to think about where they are going to be housed but the food they will be on. When they are small they don't eat flake or frozen. I recommend getting the food 2 weeks before you think of breeding anything. Look for food like BBS, MicroWorms they work really well but you need to keep the culture up... best part about a Mircro culture you can freeze them and they apperently still live when they are frozen althow i have never tried it just from info read about them. Vinager Eals is another good type of food for them and also look for java moss I use it when i breed it has lots of micro organizims that small fish eat before you feed them BBS or MicroWorms.

My 2 cents don't want to scare ya but telling it how it really is.

 

[pica_nuttalli]

I'd suggest some apistogrammas, all the way. They're super pretty and stay small, so its not difficult for stores to sell them. It's also fairly uncommon for them to be supplied by wholesalers. I learned the hard way to not bother breeding anything common or easy. I frankly don't know how angel breeders manage to offload the thousands of fry they produce each year! (I say this in full admiration, Tolak )

 

[Tolak]

First thing you have to have is quality. This is the first thing that is noticed. You have to beat importers on quality, I have no idea how to consistently beat them on price.

Next up is survivability. Fish bred in local tap water, sent to shops or buyers with the same tap water, and ending up long term in a tank with tap water do very well. Minimal shipping time, almost zero acclimation, adds up to little or no losses.

You also have to talk a good game, salesmanship. I drop off free samples, always give about 10% over for free, and practically beg for feedback not only from shops, but also from the shop's customers. You have to play the customer service game as well, it's probably half marketing.

Never let quality suffer for the sake of production. Any good shop will understand that fish do not spawn like clockwork, things do come up in life when it isn't a full time occupation. They would much rather hear you are out, and should have some fish up to size in a few weeks than have you bring in a shoddy product.

 

[TheConstantGrower]

Here's a few things i learned fish breeding.


1: Contracts.
2: Get a dollar figure in your head... Now quadruple it.
3: Its always 3 trips to home depot (my dad taught me that one ages ago)
4: Where your hands go, your fish goes. Wash them.
5: Contracts.


And as Tolak said

Sell them first.

This is risky because you need to know how to do it well before you can make a promise.
Once you can do this, and do it well, then you can make them make the promise easily.


Ive found a few FLS's that work with me quite well once i befriend them. then we get into talking about what fish they need because of what shortage or what big seller, then sometimes you can even get them to hint that a fish is costing them too much, you make a better deal ect ect. just think good business and you can cover your sales pretty easy.


Everyone else here can now talk about the massively epic engineering aspects youll have to undertake. which im just not ready to delve into in this reply.

Might as well start trying to convince the misses why you need to spend 300 bucks on a R/O unit.

 

[Tolak]

Everyone else here can now talk about the massively epic engineering aspects youll have to undertake. which im just not ready to delve into in this reply.

The whole shebang can get pretty involved. Some day I may take the time to try to explain how commercial printing & martial arts works into breeding for me.

 

[TheConstantGrower]

Everyone else here can now talk about the massively epic engineering aspects youll have to undertake. which im just not ready to delve into in this reply.

The whole shebang can get pretty involved. Some day I may take the time to try to explain how commercial printing & martial arts works into breeding for me.

I got my plumbing licensing.(legitimately)
A hefty course in being an electrician.

And my god does martial arts help. and that's just with the plumbing.

 

[shaz-killie]

thanks for the replies, luckily I know our local shops quite well and last time I had a breeding pair they were willing to but them, at the moment I have only one breeding pair of angels so I won't be hitting the shop with hundreds of fish at one time and to be honest there shop capacity couldn't take 5 tanks of angels. there are 3 shops in a half mile radius that I think would happily take the angel. If they decide they can handle more i'll increase my breeding angel stock

The beta have spawned twice with another owner and raised young so I imagine this is more than possible again, but as you say shops can only take so many males at a time so will probably just stick to the one pair of those.

the catfish, well never bred them before and its a group of 8 i'm getting so going into that with my eyes closed, if it works it works as at the moment it is just a hobby.

however if i end up with a few pairs of angels which once they start breeding they just keep going i'll need to set up a good few tanks for there young as they will spawn again before the first lot are ready to go to the shops.

At the moment I'm enjoying my fish and love the idea of breeding a few pairs, and if I get some cash back all the better. I'm at home all the time anyway with my little girl so time to care for them is available