Hobbyist to farmer

[Gordonious]

Anthony, I wanted to send this to you in a pm, but haven’t been able to figure out how to do it on this site or others. I'm a college student looking for advice on how to move from a hobbyist to a coral farmer.

I am a senior undergrad at the University of Delaware that has fallen in love with marine life. It has taken me many years and several majors to find my calling, but this hobby and the ocean has drawn me in. Besides keeping many aquariums at home, I worked for a summer in the University’s college of marine studies and I am now working for the Genard J. Mangone Center for Marine Policy.

I recently listened to one of your lectures you gave at Toronto last year, on reef videos .com. I am not too far off from graduation and although I thought about moving right into marine biology in grad school my GPA is not the greatest and everyone is advising me to work in the field a little first before doing so. In your lecture you encouraged people to talk with you about raising corals for profit and that is why I am writing to you. I would like to start aquaculturing corals now and expand into a business by the time I graduate.

If I can not culture enough animals to support myself, I would at least like to be able to cover the funds of my hobby. I am on a budget and someone eating PB&J and ramen noodles between classes really has to think twice before upgrading their lighting. lol

I was wondering if you might be able to suggest some organisms you think would be profitable to keep. If you want I can give you a little more info about my background as well as the equipment I currently have and the salt system I am currently keeping.

One big question I would have for you is what to start with? I of course would like to hear what species you would recommend, but also from where? Would it be smart or safe to start with corals I trade for or get from other hobbyist or should I start off with something that I know the exact location it was collected at?

Jon (aka Gordonious)

 

[Gordonious]

I am going to get my brother, who is an architect, to help me design a green house. Then I will show my parents my well thought out plan and ask them if I could build the green house on their property. My dad has always wanted a green house anyways.

 

[Gordonious]

No comments?

 

[Snappy]

All you need besides the obvious equipment, etc. is a place to grow the colonies and a frag grow-out tank. I recommend they be run together in the same system, There really isn't much to it depending on what type of corals you want to propagate. Some are a little tricky and some create new pieces to grow out almost every time you stick your hand in the tank or a fish swims too close.
Oh and to send a PM just click on whoever's name and follow the prompts.

 

[rgeiersbach]

I think anthony talks about that topic in his book

 

[Gordonious]

Try clicking on Anthony's name though. He must have the feature disabled. I think he preferes to talk in the threads where other people can ldearn from his answers.

 

[Gordonious]

learn* ( and supposidly I can't just type the word "learn" because I need to have 10 characters in the post )

 

[Anthony Calfo]

I have a wealth of free informationon this subject (anemone farming, coral propagation and business entries for starters) in the list of "fav links..." stickied atop this forum. Dive in and scroll down to the post that says "discussions" and you will see an alpabetical list with an avalanche of info to get you started my friend.