Wanting to start breeding and selling

[DMelbourne52]

Hi, I am David, I live in the UK and I'm fairly new to fish keeping, I have had community tanks in the past but I have recently bought swordtails which are my first livebearers, they have been producing fry and I am enjoying this experience rather than just having a community tank with no breeding. My question is how do I go about breeding fish to sell so I can eventually get more tanks and breed different species to sell as it will allow me to really live out my passion to keep different fish and learn about them and enjoy them while making a little money from them.

I do apologise if this question was long winded but I'd really appreciate some help.

Many thanks. 

[Fish Folk]

Congratulations to you on successfully breeding swordtails!

Writing from the USA here, so there may be some differing laws about aquaculture across the pond here. Where we live, it is  possible to sell fish to local fish stores, to sell at local Fish Club Auctions, and to sell online (e.g. AquaBid, GetGills, etc). You will learn that there is a severe labor and expense curve between selling in person versus shipping with live arrival guaranteed.

- For miscellaneous notes on selling fish to local fish stores, here are several links on this forum: [1] [2] [3] [4]

- For experienced seller advice on selling / buying fish at a local Fish Club auction, here are some other links: [5] [6] [7]

- For notes on shipping fish and selling abroad, you can study these pages: [8] [9] [10]

Now, if you will pardon me, I may curb your enthusiasm a bit by speaking from my personal experience. It is virtually impossible to consistently earn much money past your aquaculture costs unless you are breeding and selling successfully at a very, very large volume. Additionally, you will find that there is less of a return on certain species than on others. Consider this: Adult Swordtails may retail for between $5 - $15 (USD) Retail establishments rarely purchase fish for more than 50% of their retail ceiling. A breeder cannot expect to sell Swordtails to a Local Fish Store for any more than $2.50 - $7.50 / ea. (depending on affluence of location). If you were able to sell 100x Adult Swordtails for $5 / ea.  (i.e. $500), your actual _profit_ requires a subtraction of costs you have incurred raising the fish. Those costs include: (a) Food (b) Water Bill (c) Electricity Costs (d) Your time (e) Transportation costs (f) Equipment Costs (g) MISC Aquaculture expenses (h) Shipping expenses. Considering that you would require ca. 9-12 months of work to raise fish to this size . . . you can see how difficult it is to earn much of anything. Even if you make an actual profit of . . . say . . . $100 after expenses, you will inevitably deal with the twin realities that in relatively short order, either your market will become super-saturated (i.e. your buyers will stop purchasing) or your stock will become depleted (i.e. you will not be able to keep up with demand).

Personally, I am breeding some US native species called "Rainbow Shiners" (Notropis chrosomus) Here is what they look like as adults:

I raise them for the first month or so in floating flow-through fry containers in the brooder tank. Afterwards, I move them outside to 40 gallon tubs to grow out until they reach a sellable size. Because I do not have a large enough area to do aquaculture, I am forced to sell them very young. As a result, these fish -- which as adults might retail at $12 -- must be sold cheap in large quantities. Even after all that, I really do not make money. I just enjoy breeding.

In the end, for me, it is a fine hobby to enjoy. To really make money, I would need to multiply my project 20x, and devote 50% of my working life to it. 

[DMelbourne52]

Thank you, this has actually been a really helpful message and it was exactly the kind of information I was looking for to give me a real insight of what it's like to breed and sell fish. Sounds like a tough journey but I love this hobby so much I'm willing to give it a try at selling and experience raising other species, I love those fish you have there very beautiful colours I've not seen these in the UK.

[kammaroon]

Shipping fish is expensive in the UK, £28 is often the quoted price. Legally, you can only use APC or DX as they are the only licensed carriers in the UK. You are not supposed to mail fish by Royal Mail but people do. You can send shrimp, snails and plants though.

eBay and an app called Band are popular sites for selling. Selling abroad will be problematic as you need a vet certificate to get through customs at the destination country.

I sell purely through club auctions. The prices you get are very low. I normally auction bags of 6 medaka ricefish or 6 clown killifish and would get around £12 a bag on a good day. I only put in a couple of bags of each so as not to flood the market. I also do well with guppy grass and moss, and some grindal worms. I get enough to cover my train ticket and a bit extra. It pays for the day out.

You do see rainbow shiners occasionally. Saw some at my local Maidenhead Aquatics a couple of weeks ago.

 

 

[DMelbourne52]

Do you have to start paying tax if you start selling fish in high amounts? Like let's say I had a fish room full of breeding tanks? 

[tolstoy21]

Pretty much what @Fish Folk said.

I will add this from my personal experience: try to find that one species that is always in demand, isn't typically available in local fish stores, and returns a decent profit margin. Breed the heck out of those (if you can find a market to sell them in) and then use the money they generate to subsidize the rest of the fish you want to breed. Your 'hot ticket' item might not be something you want to breed, but it's the bread-n-butter fish. Keep your eyes on the horizon for the next species like this just in case your original species isn't the 'fish of the moment' anymore.

On 8/5/2024 at 2:16 PM, DMelbourne52 said:

Do you have to start paying tax if you start selling fish in high amounts? Like let's say I had a fish room full of breeding tanks? 

Depends on what the laws in the UK are, and if you're selling in a marketplace that reports your sales at the end of the year.

In the US, you didn't have to file taxes until you went over $20k in gross, annual sales.  Recently they reduced that to $600 !! 🤯

You can write off a lot of what your pay for your hobby-side-hustle as 'business expenses', but you still, technically, have to file.

On the other hand, if you're collecting cash at a swap meet or something like that, then --'wink wink' -- no you don't have to track taxes for filing.

If you're invoicing an LFS, then you should probably consider tracking all this for reporting purposes

Edited August 5 by tolstoy21

[kammaroon]

On 8/5/2024 at 7:18 PM, tolstoy21 said:

In the US, you didn't have to file taxes until you went over $20k in gross, annual sales.  Recently they reduced that to $600 !! 🤯

On selling fish, you have an allowance of £1000 ($1275) for “trading income”. That’s money from casual earnings. Over that, you should report it as earnings and you may also need to apply for a license to sell pets https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/animal-activities-licensing-guidance-for-local-authorities/selling-animals-as-pets-licensing-statutory-guidance-for-local-authorities--2.

[tolstoy21]

@Fish Folk Those rainbow shiners look absolutely wonderful!

[Fish Folk]

@tolstoy21 though not as inspiring as colored up adults, here’s several tubs loaded with juvy Rainbow Shiners. They grow out on back porch. I pump cool basement air up, maintaining water temperature under 82°-F in heat of summer (ca. 95°-100° F in full afternoon sun). 
 

https://youtu.be/g3R1J-qcm2E?feature=shared

[tolstoy21]

On 8/6/2024 at 9:30 AM, Fish Folk said:

@tolstoy21 though not as inspiring as colored up adults, here’s several tubs loaded with juvy Rainbow Shiners. They grow out on back porch. I pump cool basement air up, maintaining water temperature under 82°-F in heat of summer (ca. 95°-100° F in full afternoon sun). 
 

https://youtu.be/g3R1J-qcm2E?feature=shared

Sweet! 

I've been wanting experiment with summer-tubbing but have yet to actually get around to it.

[TOtrees]

On 8/5/2024 at 2:18 PM, tolstoy21 said:

I will add this from my personal experience: try to find that one species that is always in demand, isn't typically available in local fish stores, and returns a decent profit margin. Breed the heck out of those (if you can find a market to sell them in) and then use the money they generate to subsidize the rest of the fish you want to breed. Your 'hot ticket' item might not be something you want to breed, but it's the bread-n-butter fish. Keep your eyes on the horizon for the next species like this just in case your original species isn't the 'fish of the moment' anymore.

This is solid solid advice. For me, it's shell dwellers. It's a bonus that they're fun to keep and watch. Keeping and selling shell dwellers, which are almost always in demand, allows me to branch out into less profitable species, that wouldn't be sustainable or worth it on their own. I've done premium guppies, nicer bristlenoses, nicer cherry shrimps, and furcata rainbows. The cherries and furcatas are the only ones I've ever produced in big batches, like 100-200 per sale. That may seem like a lot, but if you're keeping up on water changes, the conventional tank size/stocking recommendations are way way low. 50-100 small furcatas in a 20 gallon high is nothing. 🙂

For me, 95% of my "business" is with fish stores. I'd rather sell 10-20 fish at $6 each, than two or three at a time to the fickle and deal-seeking public. Even if the fish retails for $15, and you ask for $10 privately, they'll want to haggle you down, they'll want to choose their specific fish, they'll want the largest ones, they'll want all females when you have mostly males, and so forth. You make two deals under those conditions and you've grossed $30 if you're lucky, and you hate the world. Or get $60-$120 from the fish store, no haggling, shake hands and done. 

All you need to do is give the fish store a reason to buy your fish over (or in addition to) what they get from their wholesaler. The fish I sell them come in bigger, are healthier and look it, survive better (less loss for the store), and they sell well for them. They don't need to check all those boxes, sometimes just one is enough. 

If you're selling to a store, DO arrange the deal before you bring the fish in. Don't just show up with fish in a bag and expect someone to want them.

Also, if selling to a store, more volume is better. For most species selling just 5-10 individuals is more of a problem for the store than 50-100. If they're going into a species only tank in the store, whether you sell them 5 fish or 100, they need a tank available for them, and they can't put anything else in that tank till the fish are all sold. Of course this has to be tempered by demand. That store might move 200 guppies in a week, but might take a month to move 20 shell dwellers. Swords would fall somewhere between those. 

For taxes, one thing to consider is that the govt doesn't care where your income comes from, but they do want you to report all of it (I'm in Canada, can't say if this is true in US or UK). If you have a job that grosses $50K per year, and you make $1000 in revenue from fish sales, you owe income tax on $51,000. The $1K from fish sales might fly under the govt's radar, but if they review the fish store's books/receipts, and the fish store recorded the purchase from you...  For myself, I don't report the fish sales income (it's never over $2K per year), so I don't/haven't paid tax on it. But I'm prepared to fork it over if they find out/ask for it, and that could be a big 1-time hit. Fair is fair. I love the roads, the health care, the law enforcement, and all that jazz. 

[tolstoy21]

On 8/6/2024 at 12:49 PM, TOtrees said:

I'd rather sell 10-20 fish at $6 each, than two or three at a time to the fickle and deal-seeking public

100% agree. Unfortunately, I can't find a single LFS in my area that buys from hobbyists other than to do trades for store credit. 

On 8/6/2024 at 12:49 PM, TOtrees said:

For taxes, one thing to consider is that the govt doesn't care where your income comes from, but they do want you to report all of it (I'm in Canada, can't say if this is true in US or UK). If you have a job that grosses $50K per year, and you make $1000 in revenue from fish sales, you owe income tax on $51,000. The $1K from fish sales might fly under the govt's radar, but if they review the fish store's books/receipts, and the fish store recorded the purchase from you...  For myself, I don't report the fish sales income (it's never over $2K per year), so I don't/haven't paid tax on it. But I'm prepared to fork it over if they find out/ask for it, and that could be a big 1-time hit. Fair is fair. I love the roads, the health care, the law enforcement, and all that jazz. 

I could be wrong, but I think this all depends on how you register as an entity for taxation purposes in the US -- Sole Proprietor vs. LLC.  Minimally, any money I move from my business account to my personal account needs to be reported as income, if it's not a reimbursement for a legit expense. I spend every dime I make on the hobby, so I usually have nothing to report. 

[Beardedbillygoat1975]

I think it’s good for you ask these questions up front instead of getting buried in tanks and stock you can’t sell. 
 

I’ve tried and succeeded at times with putting several species and genera together to maximize profit. 
 

Example kept tubs of various neocaridina colors and specific guppy and platys strains - that did not eat fry or shrimp - together. Every other month I’d sell from one of three tubs to the shop. They’d get a new color of neos, guppy’s or platys and I’d get credit one month, cash the next and then either or the 3rd month. During my best month on those three 40 g tubs I’d make $150-200. My store credit was such that I was able to get new stock and plants almost at will. Not great for an addictive personality! 
 

Im presently trying something similar hoping to breed Santa Claus guppies, L519 plecos and Bloody Mary shrimp - I sold at my club auction and did well. I have a big group of super red plecos with angelfish I’m growing out to get pairs. And I have Xenotoca iyseni and panda Corys.  Blue calico platys and Bloody Mary shrimp. 
 

With rising cost of energy and water I’d also advise considering things like a linear piston air pump with an air loop, matten or under gravel filtration, LEDs with low consumption of energy. These are the hidden sunk costs spoken of before that can anger partners as your hobby becomes all consuming. 
 

I’ve had fish rooms with nearly 30 tanks and tubs but I’ve found my present bakers dozen running on air and only one tank is presently heated to be my favorite configuration. It’s more sustainable and easier for the Fish Wife to stomach. 
 

Another interesting thing was at our club auction I made double what I made in stock on my plants. Rare crypts, swords, mosses and rhizomatous plants sell very well and aquascapers are just as addicted to plants as we are to fish. I now keep several displays specifically as harvesting tanks. 
 

Have fun and learn from our mistakes.