Breeding Fish?

[shelaghfishface]

thats cool then.....perfect excuse for a new tank too

 

[deftuch]

you may want to read devotedtodiscus's breeding log before trying your hand at breeding an expensive fish like that!

yeah ive researched it breifly. i know its hard but if you can get them to breed youve got a potential fortune x

 

[mattlee]

you may want to read devotedtodiscus's breeding log before trying your hand at breeding an expensive fish like that!

yeah ive researched it breifly. i know its hard but if you can get them to breed youve got a potential fortune x

not after you have taken the money spent on water, electricity, food, tanks, filters etc etc etc. do you not think everyone would be doing it if it were so easy?
to sell fish especially discus they have to be of a high standard to fetch top money. perfect shape, good colouration, no deformities, and overall good chunky healthy fish. to get high premiums for them its best to grow them as big as you can which will mean more tanks, filters and all the equipment needed to do this not to mention a lot of food and time and dedication and space....

there are breeders that trade as discus breeders selling small fish for £10-£15 each. i have paid a lot more for an L number pleco. if you get to the stage of having hundreds of fry then growing some on it will take months before they are a sellable size and will probably cost you more in care and maintenance than the actual fish sale.

i once bred gold and green stripe corys getting about 20-30 healthy fish from every batch of eggs. i was selling them to the lfs for anything between £3 and £5 per fish. to get them to a decent size took lots of time and about 3 tanks with daily water changes and plenty of food and that was for 1 batch. when the next batch arrives you need a new tanks to keep them seperate from the older ones so they dont get out compete for food etc. the shops sold them on for about £10 a fish and they are the ones making all the money as they doubled or even more than tripled their buying price from me. you do all the hard work they get all the profit if you get back logged with fish then you will have to sell them at a much cheaper price too otherwise even more tanks will be needed.

you must buy good quality stock to breed in the first place which wont be cheap as you will need a group to let them pair off, unless you buy already established breeding pairs which will cost even more. if you can just supply only 1 type of discus then demand will drop as everyone local to you will have them that wants them so you will need more breeding stock etc etc etc etc etc

basically its not cheap or easy and requires much dedication and comitment to get good fish to sell especially discus as serious discus buyers as with serious buyers of any fish species wont buy crap.

 

[The Taffy Apple]

while i agree that watching a female livebearer getting fatter and fatter and watching her give birth and successfully raising fry is a very satisfying goal....i would always suggest that that before you do this you check with LFS or private means to see if these baby fish have homes to go to when they grow enough.... satisfaction starts to take a back seat to panic when your stuck with a 60l tank and over 200 fry

yes i have a good connection with my lfs and they would happily take unwanted fish of me as they have before. i think il just turn my 60l into something else and save up for a good new tank

I believe shelaghfishface was referring more to the livebearers, which are usually a nightmare to return to ANY L.F.S.. unless you're breeding Cobra Guppy (there was a video posted on here a while back, about the Guppy farm?!?!) in their millions then it's pretty pointless.
What size tank would be suitable for breeding Angels though, let alone Discus ?
I can quite easily see the attraction of wanting to breed fish, but unless we have 3/400L tanks then i can also see how easy it could be to get carried away.

Terry.

Terry.

 

[deftuch]

while i agree that watching a female livebearer getting fatter and fatter and watching her give birth and successfully raising fry is a very satisfying goal....i would always suggest that that before you do this you check with LFS or private means to see if these baby fish have homes to go to when they grow enough.... satisfaction starts to take a back seat to panic when your stuck with a 60l tank and over 200 fry

yes i have a good connection with my lfs and they would happily take unwanted fish of me as they have before. i think il just turn my 60l into something else and save up for a good new tank

I believe shelaghfishface was referring more to the livebearers, which are usually a nightmare to return to ANY L.F.S.. unless you're breeding Cobra Guppy (there was a video posted on here a while back, about the Guppy farm?!?!) in their millions then it's pretty pointless.
What size tank would be suitable for breeding Angels though, let alone Discus ?
I can quite easily see the attraction of wanting to breed fish, but unless we have 3/400L tanks then i can also see how easy it could be to get carried away.

Terry.

Terry.

well i presume angels would want a tall tank however i think a 36x18x18 would do it. discucs may not be too far of that mark either, minumum i would say 180. im a long way off discus as yet but one day.....

 

[mattlee]

breeding tanks arent always big as they only contain 2 fish like angels or discus or maybe a group of smaller fish like corys, breeding tank are purely for the breeding fish not a comunity of fish.