Massive Business Opportunity

[Bugdozer]

I don't know why someone hasn't thought of this already, or maybe they have and there was some sort of problem implementing it.
My idea: The general consensus is that the best way to cycle a tank is to place mature filter media in the filter. This is usually done by a kindly soul donating a portion of their filter media to a new tank owner, who then allows this small portion to spread germs into the rest of his filter. Great idea.
But... what would be even better would be to have a whole sponge/jar of ceramic bits/etc. full of bacteria and ready to go, rather than a small portion. That would immediately be ready to chow down on the ammonia from a fully stocked tank, right?
So what if you could order, over the internet, a complete set of ready to go filter media? Sponges at any size, any volume of ceramic doodads, etc, for a small fee, and they arrive at your door all wet, germ ridden and ready for you to slot into your filter. BAM! Instant cycled tank, £20 including P&P. Wouldn't that be a handy service?

 

[Cazgar]

Does sound like a good idea, but, what if the media came from an unhealthy/ diseased tank, there would be no way of knowing
Surely it would infect your nice new tank

 

[Bugdozer]

Does sound like a good idea, but, what if the media came from an unhealthy/ diseased tank, there would be no way of knowing
Surely it would infect your nice new tank

Good point. It would be in the interest of the provider to provide a good service though. If the creation of the media is done without fish, then it's hard to see how diseases could enter the chain. You could equally say "what if my mail order fish came from a diseased tank?" which would be a lot more likely. Yet mail order fish sales are commonplace.

 

[Crossfire]

Does sound like a good idea, but, what if the media came from an unhealthy/ diseased tank, there would be no way of knowing
Surely it would infect your nice new tank

They could have a 100% guarantee of disease free...Sort of how like websites offer 100% Alive on Arrival Guarantees. They can just reimburse for any damages.

 

[tonyale]

i sell my sponges with bactirea to the pet store by my house

 

[Smells a bit fishy]

Maidenhead aquatics in certain branches offer filter ceramics for 50p I'm sure I read it right. And there are a couple of online suppliers that do this.

It is out there but its not widely advertised/known about.

 

[sadguppy]

Does sound like a good idea, but, what if the media came from an unhealthy/ diseased tank, there would be no way of knowing
Surely it would infect your nice new tank

You could get round that risk by fishless cycling it.
I had thought about this myself actually. Wonder how much impatient newbies would pay? You'd have a whole market of people who got bad advice, dying fish and would pay anything to stop the deaths... Immoral maybe, but ker-ching. Maybe.

 

[Petie]

I would of payed

Its a good idea

Having the space is the problem, to make any decent profit/living

Wiuld need many large tanks running for fishless cycling

Small ones wouldnt work as full cycle as sticking a 1 gallon filter media in a 100 gallon tank would not be an instant cycle, although would speed it up

 

[Bugdozer]

I would of payed

Its a good idea

Having the space is the problem, to make any decent profit/living

Wiuld need many large tanks running for fishless cycling

Small ones wouldnt work as full cycle as sticking a 1 gallon filter media in a 100 gallon tank would not be an instant cycle, although would speed it up

Yes, you'd need some massive room with lots of tanks and carefully controlled ammonia provision. Setup costs could be high.

 

[Tolak]

Filtration capacity X 10. A used infusion pump to constantly drip what amounts to 10 x the amount of ammonia needed for fishless cycling 1 filter. 100% water changes daily, as in 1 day you will have 10 days worth of nitrate if compared to a normal fishless cycle.

Yes, I have looked into & considered this. I have a 40 gallon tank on the end of the rack that is a bit difficult to deal with fish wise, I could easily fit 10 box filters, load them with whatever media I like. It's also drilled for water changes, as are most of my tanks. 100% water change, around 12 minutes.

There's a commercial angel breeder in New York that offers mature sponge filters out of his tanks, Off the top of my head he's in the 300 tank range, so he can easily supply mature sponge filters.

 

[CezzaXV]

Someone suggested this a while ago - keeping multiple filters in a state of fishless cycling and selling off the media. It was mentioned, however, that ammonia is sometimes used in bombs, and you might end up with a visit from the police if they get wind of how much ammonia you'd be buying!

 

[pablothebetta]

I wish more stores offered cycled media - so many give bad advice, like the rule at a certain large british store (I think most in the UK will know what store I'm talkig about here) where they won't sell you fish unless the tank has sat for a certain number days. Surely there is little point in having a tank sitting empty like that, to then go and add fish that will have to either go through the cycling process or die during it? It'd be nice if media was more widely available, or perhaps even if large chain stores actually encouraged fishless cycles. A lot less painful for both the human and the fish imo.

 

[TropicalJuwel]

I had mentioned this on the forum before and think it probably had already before me but I pretty much got shot down with it being more hassle than its worth, wouldn't make money and if you were a new fish keeper buying a shiney brand new tank would you want to take home a filthy brown sponge and getting your hands dirty. My answer would be yes instead of waiting 4-6 weeks for tank to mature but apparently not.

 

[PERCY]

I'd buy. Thought about this myself and found it strange why no one was doing it. Overheads may be too much. How many filters would you need to have running to cope with the demand......? I suppose they would need hundreds of filters running on fish less cycles constantly

 

[MBOU]

Good idea but as a business, would be difficult, might work on a small scale but wont ever make a huge ammount of money, fishkeepers that use forums like this account for a tiny percentage of fish keepers, most fish keepers dont really care about buying mature media *sigh*.

But you can't sell the media for much, it take time and a lot of work (on any kind of scale) to mature out the media, costs for space to do this, costs for postage, cost for advertising, cost for electricity, costs for whatever business licensing you need and costs costs costs galore...

It would make far more sense for a big aquatics store or aquatics online retailer to be doing this as thy already have the overheads it would take to create mature media etc and already the website to sell it via.

Dont think its viable as a stand alone business though as the whole point of a business is to make money, not a charity.