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I noticed the sheer quantities of eggs that they sell on aquarank. For $10 I can get 100 eggs! But my question is, how many of them actually hatch?
Now, on live aquaria, they have individual fish going for $50! If I could buy a huge amount of eggs, hatch them, and sell them to some local stores (obviously not for $40, but still...) I could get some $$$ couldn't I?

If they're packed well, taken care of and shipped correctly and hatched correctly, you could get a quite high hatch rate.

The ones you can get cheaply are the ones that breed easily and are well established in the aquarium hobby. These, if you hatch out and sell probably aren't going to get you much scratch. If you do it well, will most likely break even, and MAYBE get a few bucks. It might be better to barter them for food, supplies etc. Fish are extremely cheap if you're a shop buying wholesale.

I'd do it just for the fun and experience of it though It's always fun to raise fish!

I'd do it just for the fun and experience of it though It's always fun to raise fish!

Don't get me wrong. I have a 2.5-5 gallon tank I'm setting up in my room and I figured a pair or trio of gardneri would fit nicely. They don't sell any by me and I don't want to pay $40 to ship live ones. So I looked at eggs and realized "what am I gona do with 97 extra killi eggs?". Then I noticed that 1 of those 97 killis is worth over $40. After wiping the drool of the keyboard I realized I could hatch and sell the remainder, perhaps to trade in for a larger tank and use that tank to start breeding my own and sell those...

Good point though, I'd probably not get much money, especially since the store would only tank a couple of fish.

I wonder if I could sell to hobbiests? Are there any other peer to peer fish selling sites like aquarank out there?
EDIT:
I noticed the american killi association is selling killies for $7 each

Last edited by djtj at 30-Dec-2005 02:47

Gardneri are a basic beginner fish in the hobby. You will probably be able to make $7-10 a pair to the public. A hobbyist would probably have or had these fishes before and are looking for other types such as myself. I have around 30 different species.

You can expect maybe $5-6 a pair to the LFS. They will probably overcharge and sell them for $18-20 a pair since they are rare in fish stores because they can not be mass produced. Killifishes are sold in pairs. If they are single, you will only get a buck or two... that is if you're lucky. Liveaquaria way overcharges for these critters.

If you were to get 100 eggs. I would expect ~30 will grow to adult hood. That is if you take good care of them. I've hatched out 300+ Nothobranchius Guentheri, only 80-90 survived to become adults. I fed them 3 times a day and changed the water every 3-4 days. Some grew faster and ate the smaller ones... and some were probably to weak to survive. Although I have hatched out 20 eggs of A. Australe and other species and got 16 to survive so I guess it really depends on the species and the number of fry that you raise together.

Another factor would be a ratio of male to females. You will not likely get a perfect ratio. It depends on the fish, pH, temp and maybe other things. I raised 50 fry of S. Liberiense and got 1 male. Yeah, that sucks, what am I going to do with 48 extra females... Now I'm just finding a way to make males.

I'm just rambling because I'm bored... this is just from my experience.

Henry