Breeding suggestions

[TheSwissAquarist]

Has anyone got any fun fish species to breed?

I've done the livebearers and all, but my LFS wants something interesting which will fly off the shelves (or tanks!).

Any ideas?

[Tihshho]

If you have the patience, go with Hypancistrus or other L numbers. Everyone and their neighbor comes to LFS's with regular, albino, lemon blue eyes, super red and calico Ancistrus so going with Hypancistrus would benefit you and the LFS. The other option would be something colorful with personality, so cichlids are hard to beat, both dwarf varieties and some of the larger peaceful types as Geophagus. 

[James V.]

I’ve always wanted to try killifish. My LFS can’t keep them in stock and I’ve heard they are easy to breed

[Guppysnail]

Corydora. Pandas are relatively common but Pygmy are so crazy fun and tank bred are harder to find. Very peaceful can do room temp or upper 70s use the entire tank top to bottom and did I mention crazy fun 😁 They fit in anything 10g and up so easy to sell. Here are mine though I don’t sell.

 

[Ken Burke]

On 5/5/2022 at 12:48 PM, Guppysnail said:

Corydora. Pandas are relatively common but Pygmy are so crazy fun and tank bred are harder to find. Very peaceful can do room temp or upper 70s use the entire tank top to bottom and did I mention crazy fun 😁 They fit in anything 10g and up so easy to sell. Here are mine though I don’t sell.

 

Hard to argue with that

 

[anewbie]

A few interesting but not nec easy to breed:

angel fishes - easy to breed - and if you play with genetics you can get some intereseting results. platinum+platinum=platinum; platinum+black=gold or black;.... but when you start getting into koi and some of the other patterns you can get more random output.

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eques cory and orange laser cory - not hard to breed but high margin

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every breed bn pleco - hard to keep them from breeding but try some of the more interesting pleco

L204; blue phantom; starlight; L397; ...

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There is a fellow that breed zebra pleco and makes $$$$$$$$ BUT zebra pleco don't make great pets - they always hide. L204 is not as high margin as zebra but you can get this:

 

L397 are pretty nice also but a bit shier and much higher margin.... 

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Anyways there are 1000's of species of fishes you could breed depending on skill level - some other options include:

super red (bn) 

oscars (need 800 gallon tank)
betta 

various species of dwarf cichlid including nijjensi, panduro (closely related to nijjensi); borelli (pretty easy in most tap water); various species of nannacara, ..... 1000's of options pick your favorite.....

 

[Patrick_G]

Cory recommends breeding fish that pass the “grandma” test. That means that even your non aquarist grandma can appreciate them. When I go into the Co-op shop I see a few rare fish, but mostly tanks full of brightly colored low or mid priced fish. 

[Colu]

Hypancistrus are always in high demand 

[Ken Burke]

Lots of good suggestions! But every market is different.  If you live in a large market you might get away with some of the more exotic and pricey plecos, but if you are looking for fish to fly off the shelf, er tank, you probably want fish that sell for $5 - $20. Any cheaper than that, and it will cost you too much to get them to size.  Any more expensive, and the market for them narrows.

You also want fish the store has trouble getting in stock.  When I bred by plecos last year, the store couldn’t get them from their supplier.  I would take in 10-15 fish on Monday afternoon, by Tuesday they were sold out.

panda Corys are tricky to get in right now, as are the pigmy’s @Guppysnail suggested.  

another consideration: tank size. Most people aren’t keeping anything over a 29 gal.  If the fish can thrive in a 10 gallon tank, then most people have a tank for the fish. But if you breed fish that need say a 75 gallon tank or larger, the pool of potential customers shrinks.

german blue rams, apistos, are another great option that can easily breed in this size tank.  

@Patrick_G has the right of it by remembering the gramma test.  

[nabokovfan87]

On 5/5/2022 at 9:20 AM, TheSwissAquarist said:

Has anyone got any fun fish species to breed?

I've done the livebearers and all, but my LFS wants something interesting which will fly off the shelves (or tanks!).

Any ideas?

clown pleco, blue phantoms, etc.

I'd probably suggest corydoras.  They are easy to have, fun, they go into a LOT of tanks, and it's a pretty fun breeding project to help supply a store.
-Panda
-Salt and pepper
-Albino
-False Jullii

All of those are pretty common / affordable for a store to purchase. So anything else should be pretty good targets.  I would avoid anything crazy expensive unless you have a lot of confidence in the people around your store to purchase those fish.  There's some cool looking corys that aren't too pricey for the day-to-day traffic to appreciate.

 

[sumplkrum]

If I had the space, I'd try Otocinclus.

I had a terrible time finding any to buy last year.

[anewbie]

On 5/5/2022 at 6:24 PM, Patrick_G said:

Cory recommends breeding fish that pass the “grandma” test. That means that even your non aquarist grandma can appreciate them. When I go into the Co-op shop I see a few rare fish, but mostly tanks full of brightly colored low or mid priced fish. 

I've been thinking about this - but the only fish my grandma appreciates is salmon; of course she would be quite appreciative if you could raise a bunch of salmon for her so i guess there is that to consider.

[Cinnebuns]

I have enjoyed breeding panda cories and cories tend to sell well. I collect eggs and grow them out in the same tank as guppies but I also randomly will get one pop up in my main tank without intervention. 

Some others I've considered are killifish, rainbow fish, and white cloud minnows. All are reasonably easy to breed, can be fun, and would sell nicely. 

[EPAquatics]

My advice, and what I am doing, is to speak directly with your target sales locations. Ask them specifically what they want/need/would be interested in. Try to stick with species that are ordinarily difficult to breed in your area. For example, I live in SoCal, where the water is generally bad for breeding South American species. I go the extra mile (and expense) to make RODI water to breed Apistos/Angels/Cories/Plecos. Because most people won't do the necessary steps to successfully breed any of my target species, I all but guarantee I will have low competition. For people with soft water, the inverse could be possible. Maybe African Cichlids are in high demand in your area, but nobody wants to make the jump to changing up water chemistry to viably breed them.

And a word of advice that I learned the hard way, make sure that what you are breeding isn't a highly common farmed species. My mistake, was allowing a pair of Silver Angelfish to spawn 3 times in a row. Now I have ~700 nearly worthless (I can't hope to compete with huge fish farm prices) baby Angels, that I will spend months trying to sell. Breed uncommon species, and only let one clutch grow out at a time until you understand how many you can reliably sell per rate of breeding. Even if the species you are breeding is in high demand, if you allow the parents to spawn 100 fish per week, you'll very quickly saturate the market.

Hope this helps, and good luck!
@TheSwissAquarist