New to the forum - question for everyone

msullivan1983

Non-member
Hi Everyone,

My name is Matt Sullivan, and I'm new to the forum and relatively new to the hobby. Although I had freshwater aquariums growing up and in college, I started my first reef tank a little less than a year ago. I'm definitely loving the hobby and as a scientist by training (M.S. in Microbiology), the technical aspects of reef keeping really appeal to my nerd side!

I had a general question for all seasoned hobbyists out there. As my next endeavor, I'm seriously considering fish breeding as a fun side-project. I'll probably start off small and simple trying to raise one or two color-morph varieties of ocellaris clowns (maybe black ice or snowflake). My question is, is there enough of a market in the area (either among the members on this forum or in the greater Boston area in general) for me to be able to sell these fish? I would hate to take on this as a hobby and end up with dozens of juveniles that I can't find a home for!

So if you have any thoughts on the business aspect of fish breeding, I'm all ears! Although any advice is appreciated, I don't need advice at this time on the technical details of clownfish breeding (I'm reading a couple books on the topic at the moment).

Thanks in advance and I look forward to being part of this forum!

-Matt
 
Hi and welcome
To unload the fish I’d try asking some local shops if they’re interested in them for store credit or something. Trying to sell 50 fish isn’t easy to local hobbyists. Might get a couple sold per month at most. I don’t want to discourage you or try to convince you not to do it ,I’d love to try as well but trying to be realistic on the sale part of it. Definitely try to make a write up of your journey so we can live vicariously through you :)
 
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Hi Matt:
Welcome to the club.
Breeding clownfish is fun but needs a lot of work.
A matured pair will have about 300 eggs every 4 weeks, assuming you can get 200 of them survive and grow to salable size, there will be a lot of babies to find home for them. There were many hobbyists breeding clownfish and eventually they got out of the breeding process.
 
Are you open to the idea of aggressively culling fish in the name of selective breeding? I know that many of us already cultivate live foods of one type or another including brine shrimp, white worms, and black worms. I myself breed guppies to supplement the diet of my daughter's snapping turtle. Just thinking that if you had some predatory salt water fish (or mantis shrimp) you could simultaneously alleviate your excess fish problem while providing your other fish with a highly nutritious snack.
 
Hi and welcome
To unload the fish I’d try asking some local shops if they’re interested in them for store credit or something. Trying to sell 50 fish isn’t easy to local hobbyists. Might get a couple sold per month at most. I don’t want to discourage you or try to convince you not to do it ,I’d love to try as well but trying to be realistic on the sale part of it. Definitely try to make a write up of your journey so we can live vicariously through you :)

Thanks, Chris. (I also did a double take about the bi curious autocorrect, lol!)

That's sort of what I was assuming, that it might be difficult to unload the babies. I'll also talk to my local fish store and see what they have to say.
 
Hi Matt:
Welcome to the club.
Breeding clownfish is fun but needs a lot of work.
A matured pair will have about 300 eggs every 4 weeks, assuming you can get 200 of them survive and grow to salable size, there will be a lot of babies to find home for them. There were many hobbyists breeding clownfish and eventually they got out of the breeding process.

Thanks, Dz6t. That makes perfect sense - I kind of got that feeling which is why I wanted to ask folks on the forum. Do you think there is a fish species worth breeding at home? I also thought about H. erectus seahorses, but I imagine there are fewer people interested in seahorses than clowns.
 
Are you open to the idea of aggressively culling fish in the name of selective breeding? I know that many of us already cultivate live foods of one type or another including brine shrimp, white worms, and black worms. I myself breed guppies to supplement the diet of my daughter's snapping turtle. Just thinking that if you had some predatory salt water fish (or mantis shrimp) you could simultaneously alleviate your excess fish problem while providing your other fish with a highly nutritious snack.

Hi Spooky. That's an interesting thought! But no, I don't have any big predators in my tank. Honestly, I'd probably feel bad for the little guys using most of them as food.
 
A breeding pair of clowns is great, ever since mine started laying eggs (non-stop now) I've noticed growth in my wrasse/anthias!

As for actually breeding them, I'm not sure seems like a lot of effort for a small/ no return. To each his own.
 
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