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This is a great website, I'm a new member. I have experience with some fish breeding. I was wanting some recommendations for something to breed that might be profitable, interesting and possibly challenging. Any opinions would be appreciated.

I say dwarf gourami's all the way. I am watching them breed at this very moment it is interesting.

The male builds a nest out of bubbles and plant matter. Then, the pregnant female is brought up to the nest where the male wraps around it and fertilizes the eggs. The eggs are at the same time released and the male goes around picking them up in his mouth and placing them inside the nest. Over the time spand of a few hours they spawn many times. when the breeding is over you remove the female. 24-48 hours later the eggs hatch and you can see them when you tap on the nest. the fry fall out when you do that and the male will just put them back. 3 more days later the fry are free swimming and you remove the male.

I recommend dwarf gourami's because the only requirment that I have seen is that they have floating plants to build the nest out of. Also, the behavior is very interesting to watch.

-Vincent

if you want profit, try apistos, or rams.

a little bit more difficcult then some fish but much more profitable.

cherry shrimp are very profitable and very easy to breed also.

Dwarf gouramis won't really get you a profit though. Most stores only take the males leaving you with lots of unwanted females and most stores have plenty of these guys. Unless you get ahold of a rarer dwarf gourami color your better off with some of the less common labyrinth fish. I've bred sparkling gouramis and currently am thinking of getting spiketail paradise. Some wild betta species are desired by fish stores and aquarists. It also depends if you want to do shipping because it's easier to sell some fish on ebay and aquabid than it is in local fish stores depending on your location.

Livebearers aren't worth it unless you get some of the fancy rare colors and sell them online. Most stores will take cichlid fry but the more common easy to breed cichlids won't make you much money. Same with tetras. It's best to look at your local stores for what is available and what isn't and pick something that is not commonly sold in your area. Also pay attention to the local water conditions especially if you aren't doing shipping. While you may be willing to buy RO or distilled water to keep these fish others and stores may not so they won't take them. What may be profitable in one area won't be in another. I managed to produce about 500 paradise fish but noone would take them. There's not much of a market for them here and there's already a breeder supplying most of the stores.

If you want profit, your best bet would be one of the new, small Cyprinids in the hobby. There are plenty of new danios and rasboras available online that aren't in stores yet, so you could make a bit of money selling them.

Additionally, most of these fish are extremely easy to breed, so setting up a breeding tank will be cheap. I bred Tanichthys micagemmae about a week after I got them (off of AquaBid). I didn't sell the babies though, I still have them.

Don't expect to make a lot of money though, you might not even break even by breeding these fish (simply because breeding any fish isn't profitable unless you are doing it as part of a large-scale breeding operation to cut the cost per fish). Still, you probably wouldn't lose as much money as you would if you were breeding some cichlid, for example.

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I'm not your neighbor, you Bakersfield trash.

There are actually many cichlids you could probably make quite a bit of money on but you won't find them in your LFS and you may have to spend a fair bit of cash to get the fish in the first place. Kinda depends what your budget, difficulty level, and amount of work your willing to put into breeding them is. On my species tank thread Calilasseia and I were talking about cyprichromis being fairly easy to breed colorful cichlids that were in high demand and could make you some money but I don't have the money to get the adult fish to start breeding. There are some listed on aquabid and ebay though if your interested in looking them up.

Thank you for the info. Just researching right now. If you have other ideas I am definitely open to opinions. Not really looking to turn a large profit, just thought it might be a fun hobby along with the tanks that I have anyway and if I made a little bit of cash to buy more fish or support my hobby, even better.

I'm thinking cichlids. Many cichlids are rather easy to breed and also heavily popular.

The thing is, any fish that is possibly going to be profitable is probably a little more expensive than the average fish. For example, Cyprichromis cichlids are a beautiful genus of cichlids that spawn in schools, but don't expect each specimen to be cheap, especially at an adult size.

Wow, someone beat me to talking about Cyps. Man, I love them things, but don't have the money for a proper school.

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The aquarist is one who must learn the ways of the biologist, the chemist, and the veterinarian.

For the last year I have been raising Yuctan Sail Fin Mollies (Poecilia Velifera). About every 60 days I take a couple dozen in to the LFS for credit. I don't get a lot for them, but it pays for most of my fish food. As others have mentioned, its all about supply and demand.
My Albino Bristle Nose Plecos (Ancistrus ps.) just had babies. My LFS rarely gets them so they are ready to take them off my hands once the plecos are big enough to sell. I'll get more credit for fewer fish, but not enough to quit my day job. Keep in mind that most LFS will only give you store credit for your fish.
I also trade in hornwort that I grow in my hydroponics tanks. Again, I don't get much, but its better that just throwing it out when it gets to overcrowded. It is important to establish a relationship with the LFS you will be trading with. I've been dealing with the same store for several years. They know me and know I'm only bringing in quality fish or plants so I'm getting a bit more for things now than when I started. I used to just bring in my extra mosquito fish (Gambusia Affinis) and give them away. Then the store started asking me for them and giving me credit. Now I'm focusing on getting my Black Calvus (Altolamprologus Calvus) past the fry stage. If I can do that I will consider it profitable.

Montezuma swords come to mind. Far more in demand than most cichlids and even easier to breed still. As far as profits go, African cichlids, apistogramma, and albino ancistrus tend to be amongst the highest sellers out there.

One fish that would make LOTS of money from the rfy is Benthochromis tricoti, a drop dead gorgeous Tanganyikan Cichlid that looks as if it's a coral reef fish.

Here's a picture of the fish in question.

Only trouble is, to set up a breeding colony of those, you'd need to invest a LOT of money. Last time I checked, they were special order fishes here in the UK, and if you wanted some, they were - wait for it - £250 each. So to set up a tank with 8 of them so you could guarantee getting a breeding pair, you'd have to blow a cool £2,000 to begin the enterprise, then wait about three years for them to become old ebough to breed. Then you'd have to figure out how to breed them, raise the fry, and eventually, who knows, make a tidy profit at the end if they produce enough fry. You'd need to produce around 60 fry to make it worthwhile, factoring in such things as three years' running costs for a scrupulously maintained Tanganyikan species setup, food etc., but if you had the starting capital and the patience, the fry (assuming they sell at 1/4 of retail price to the dealer) would make you around £7,500. If you could persuade a dealer to let you have 1/2 retail price, you'd net a cool £15,000.

Trouble is, you'd need the £2,000 to start with.


Panda Catfish fan and keeper/breeder since Christmas 2002