Hobby Into Business?

[spank]

I am sure many have pondered this and it may have been addressed previously, but how cool would it be to raise and sell your own livestock from your home.

I am not sure how the online retailers work, but it appears they are importing their stock and then distributing. No one has a really great selection that is reliably in stock. Items are always changing.

What if one took an opposite approach. Setting up a propogation facility to raise your own specimens for sale. I believe someone must be doing this and i have run over a couple websites that appear as though they have taken this approach (although I have lost them). I know ORA is all propogated and must be successful but I don't know their economy of scale.

I don't think this would work for sps, but take for example a zoanthid operation. Set up a system to raise and propagate many different varieties. Let them establish colonies large enough that selling a couple frags off them a week wouldn't affect their numbers significantly. (How big would this be? 1' x 1', 2' x 2'? Or is no size of colony large enough, demand too high, growth too slow, to support this type of operation?)

Is this being done?
If not what are the reasons?
If you are, let me know how it is working for ya.
Is it profitable?

I am sure some of my assumptions above are wrong so let me know what they are.

Looking forward to hearing your opinions.

 

[dnjan]

One of the problems is energy costs. Anthony Calfo was doing this for a while, and he was using natural sunlight for much of his lighting. That reduces at least some of the energy cost.

Scale also becomes a problem. You have to be producing enough "product" to appear as a reliable supplier to retailers. If you wanted to retail yourself, you would need a large enough variety of "product" to get repeat customers (or large enough orders to make shipping reasonable).

The best that many people aspire to is the occaisional sale to offset the cost of the hobby.

 

[Coral Ranch]

Spank I made that leap from hobby to business about 2 years ago.Many of my corals are still purchased from a supplier but all of my frags are able to propigated from mother colonies that I keep.I have a greenhouse to help keep lighting cost down.You mentioned sps, believe it or not sps have proven to be the qiuckest to grow and frag for me.I was knee-deep in setting everything up befor I came across Anthony Calfo's book wich proved to be a great help. You may want to read it before going from hoby to business.

 

[freetareef]

energy cost is definitly the number one ouch for me. i was thinking of a set up like on garf.org with three tanks and only a 48x24 footprint with vho lighting. i know they produce MASSIVE amount of corals both softies and sps, with these systems. but running 1500w of vho... and buying bulbs every 6 months... i would have to polish up the old salesman shoes before i get my hands wet in that system. I also second what coral ranch says about calfos book, i have it, and read it consistantly and have learned a ton from it. Two thumbs up! If we want to continue induldging in and spreading our hobby around then propagation, and later on sexual reproduction, is our future of our hobby.

Does anyone remember what happened in the tropical bird market?? there were so many and they were so cheap that no one thought to breed them, then whamo, import and export got limited and almost cut off then pow!! parrots were suddenly 5000 dollars. (sorta)
so the point is that we should not let this happen to our wonderful hobby and be shure it will due to the ease of restricting collection vs being responsible with our planet and our oceans.
just my .02

 

[Curtswearing]

I am sure many have pondered this and it may have been addressed previously, but how cool would it be to raise and sell your own livestock from your home.

Just so you know, one of my competitors only has a retail location because many wholesalers/suppliers will not even deal with you if you don't have a business address. His store is open strictly to get access to some of those wholesalers/suppliers. Heck, the store is actually very rarely open.

 

[mmkeeper]

You are interested in finding out how to do this, contact John @ Your Reef (yourreef.com). He started by stepping up frag tanks in his garage. Ebay and web business, then opened a bricks and mortar LFS in Roseville California. He has been rather successful.

 

[burning2nd]

never never never mix hobby and business

take it from experience

you will kil your hobby.

 

[Curtswearing]

never never never mix hobby and business

take it from experience

you will kil your hobby.

I suppose it's a matter of scale. I manage over 10,000 gallons and my sole inhabitant at home is a bi-color blenny. Not even any corals and that's my favorite thing. So yes, it can happen.

With that said, I know quite a few people who do things at the hobbyist level and enjoy it immensely. Be careful not to run afoul of the IRS hobby loss rules or you'll be sorry. Google is your friend here.

 

[burning2nd]

my exspenice is not with reef keeping.. but other hobbys...

irs is one thing... money is the 2nd.. you start up.. get in to dept, have trouble.. have a few little mistakes.. and your missabul...

i wouldnt IMHO
let them deal with it... you still have the options of browsing the tanks looking for healthy things to take home,