Breeding as a business?????????????

[matt morgan]

Hi i was just wanting to see how many people breed raise and sell discus etc as their only source of income? and also how much they generally make per year if at all
cheers Matt

[BIGFOOT]

Good Topic cant wait to see how many people answer this one.lol

[April]

none really..and if you count on it to survive..then thats when you get problems..cause your quality control tends to go down when you NEED to sell fish..to pay the rent and feed the kids. there was one..who did it fulltime..but hes no longer.
also bear in mind..one virus or disease can wipe out half your hatchery. there were also a few breeders who ended up losing 50 k in fish.anytime your dealing with animals..it can never be as lucrative as you think..with calculations. a glitch..or a water problem..( for an instance..a water main breaks..and the city adds stuff to keep the bacteria at bay. deadly to fish. you do a large wc..and dead fish. )
or..hurricanes..or power outage..
theres all kinds of scenarios. of course north america..theres hydro expenses etc.. that the warm coutries dont have as much of. but still a bit costly. and water..if your on a meter.
you'd be better to have a few strains of fish. alot sell angelfish to supplement or pay the discus' expenses. or cories..a bread and butter fish. also..most need to import to sell strains they arent breeding. as if someone wants to get an order..and they want spotted..blue..red..white..yellow..etc etc..its very hard to supply all strains. im sure most import to supplement. even the big guys like wattley.
now that ive posted my bit..and not a breeder..but watched as alot have come and gone..let the ones who are breeding reply.

[ShinShin]

In my observations in this area over the years that I have kept discus is this: it is next to impossible to raise discus as a sole income business in the USA, Canada, Europe, and Australia. Many have tried. Many have failed. Even those attempting do do this as a part time business fail on a regular basis.

Why? The biggest reason is Asian competition. Asian farms produce huge numbers of discus yearly at an expense other areas of the world cannot compete. Temperate climate regions of the world have huge overhead deficit to the Asian breeders. Asians have the advantage in cheap labor, electricity, water as well as a favorable climate. Northern climes have to charge larger dollars per fish if they breed, forcing many "breeders" to become importers, buying from the competion. Or, (maybe and) trying to compensate for overhead costs, the "breeder" businessman soon compromise his standards, because soon breeding becomes a job and most jobs are about dollars and cents into the pocketbook, and the noble reason for becoming a breeder soon forces an adoption of a new strategy, and invention of a new class of discus: the pet store grade or lfs grade of discus. This discus is a discus that the breeder will not keep for himself or sell to a friend. But, make no mistake about it, someone will end up with these crap discus in their tanks, usually, an unsuspecting, faceless beginner. Why? Because it now has become about dollars and cents, not improving discus quality.

Even sideline business attempts often fail. It's just a hard business.

Mat

[Rod]

I bred discus for a full time living for about 3 years, not a big income but ok, better than working for the man if you know what i mean!!. It had been many years since i had brought in any new stock, basically i bred my own stock and went from there.

I started importing new stock to get new strains and also to bring in extra for discus friends as a side line. Since that time my income has dropped because of the problems i imported as well, better to have stayed with my original fish. So now i work part time to make a bit extra. I think soon i can give up my part time work and just breed but it has been a long hard road.

In my case i can raise a discus quite cheaply, prob not as cheap as asia but not far off. I live in a semi tropical climate and don't have huge heating bills compared to most. Actually for 3 months i don't heat at all...i've got acceptable tapwater, very easy and cheap to process for discus culture. Thats an important point to consider when breeding professionally, costs can quickly mount and you will be uncompetitive. Foods are my biggest costs, it quickly adds up when you feed 500 grams of bloodworms for just one meal around the fish room. When you need to feed 3 to 5 times a day you can see what i mean. Make sure you can get quality food at great prices or grow some of your own foods, buy in bulk etc.

Man, i hope you love fish....but its a great life.

[brewmaster15]

Not profitable in the USA., IMO. Almost every major seller I know of imports to sell, even those known as breeders. Most local hobbyists don't breed and sell enough to cover their costs, and can't compete with the imported fish and the massive hatcheries they come from.

I think the best case scenario...you break even some of the time , lose money most of the time, and write off all the lost time and money to it being a very expensive hobby that we Love.

hth

[ronman]

Not profitable in NZ too. The market is not big enough being a country with only 4 million population. People here don't care much about quality, most of them anyway. If it's cheap, they'll buy it (even sick and stunted ones) cos' they don't know much about discus. Alot of them still thinks that discus are very hard to keep and expensive to replace when they die. Medications are hard to get hold of too and very expensive.

Furthermore when you tell them that they need alot of waterchange and if possible BB tank it put them off.LOL

Sooo word of advice, Don't give up your day job .

Ron

[pcsb23]

Not a goer in the UK either. I know a number of the top discus sellers in the UK and yes they do breed discus to sell, but they also import discus, some from Asia some from Germany. The imports are probably their main source of income from discus. Some have other aspects to their businessess too, like a pet shop or similar. Its a shame as it would be really nice to say UK bred, high quality discus. Truth is you wont make money. Reasons are simple, overheads! just costs too much to run and setup. :(

[MiamiDan]

Thank you guys for your honest opinions. Maybe you saved me a buck...more than once I thought about going at it as a business. As a hobbyst I can still breed to help pay their own maintenance though :D All this thread seems to mean that breeding Discus in the USA is not profitable, but importing is :confused: sad, but true.

[brewmaster15]

dan,


All this thread seems to mean that breeding Discus in the USA is not profitable, but importing is :confused: sad, but true. I would not go that far either... Theres a very large turn-over rate of would be discus importers.....Its a tough business even with Imports...


hth,
al

[snooze]

Importing fish is not cheap either. You have custom and wildlife inspection fees and maybe broker fees, plus you need an import license. Then you have the high costs of freight. Freight has gotten very expensive recently since oil costs have gone up so dramatically. If you don't live near a point of entry for wildlife, you'll probably have to drive several hundred miles to pick up your fish at an airport that is one. So you have more costs with gas and your time.

Some of the fish you import might arrive DOA. It's tough reselling dead fish. :) Other fish might be sick and die later, after you spend money and time trying to medicate them to get them back to health. So you have more costs. Then you might receive some fish you just can't sell. You were sold culls, so either you take the loss by culling the culls or you try to sell them and ruin your reputation as a seller(that's very costly, especially in the internet age). You also have the costs of quarantining. You shouldn't sell imports for at least 3 weeks, 4 weeks would be better. Unfortunately, most importers don't even bother with quarantining. They try to hustle the fish as soon as they get them. So they possibly wind up selling sick fish and then spend lots of time dealing with angry customers on the phone or answering emails and replacing fish or money.

As an importer, sooner or later you will get a shipment that will have major problems with disease. The reason is that most discus exporters are brokers as well as breeders. Most Asian breeders only breed a few strains. So they have to purchase other strains from different breeders to fill orders. So the fish you import are usually from several different sources. That can be recipe for disaster. Most importers wind up going out of business when they get a "plague" shipment. Watching several thousand dollars of "cheap imports" die slowly over a few days is not a lot of fun. Spending money on medications and lab reports only to see your imports die, despite your best efforts to save them, can really be demoralizing. It can be even worse if the imports not only die, but then infect your own stock and breeders killing them as well. I remember a few importers that lost almost everything when they imported diseased fish. They lost big bucks and went out of business. And finally, the airlines can screw up and kill your shipments because of delay. So basically breeding discus can wind up costing you some money, but importing discus can cause you to lose lots of money very quickly. That's why you see so many importers go out of business every year. Many get into the importing business and just don't understand all the costs and risks that are involved until it is too late and the damage is done to their bank account.

[BIGFOOT]

Lots of food for thought!!!!

[Greg Richardson]

For you US people...............Do it as a hobby business taking the tax write off.

This to be done AFTER hours from your main source of income.

Last time I read the IRS business publications you only needed your business to make a profit once in five years. Best way is to take your heaviest tax deductions in first three years. Position your business to make a profit in year four. If you miss that year you have one more year to position it.

What does position mean?

There is no law that requires you to take deductions.

If you find out in order to squeeze out a profit in that five year time period you need to lay off some deductions so be it.

The deductions are great though and can help you in the big picture of your income tax return.

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Those of you in the States stubborn enough to still try this as a business for main income I wouldn't even attempt with out an automatic generator built into your system. I also wouldn't without a well and have it solar powered to cut down cost. Water, water, water, is the key. If you aren't able to get it free from a well and pump it free you are setting yourself up to just get by after you see your bills. When that attitude starts problems around the corner.

I would try to come up with the expense cost to try to run your fish room on solar power.

Yes, it's going to take some years to pay off.

But in the long run if you have water and power not eating you alive you have much better chance to compete and remain a viable business.

From what I have seen you need to eliminate some of the main costs so when you do get ripped off by importers, shippers, customers lying, etc. the hit you take will not knock you out.

Problems have a way of snowballing businesses. The owner decides to take a short cut here and there and order to try to catch up from last bad situation. The short cut comes back to bite him and the hole has now just become bigger. So now being even more desperate more short cuts are made.

It's now become a business death spiral.

Do what you can to fix the %'s as much as you can in your favor and you have a chance.

Be a business of integrity.

Shortcuts only hurt yourself and your long term business.

[BIGFOOT]

Water, water, water, is the key written by Greg Richardson



I have only one tank butt I take of it like was gold. I have notice a 12 dollar jump just in water alone per month per 75 gallon tank.

[goldengatediscus]

Just do it as a hobby, or to generate some extra income on the side to pay for the food, water and energy bills. The "hobby business" idea in interesting too.

Don't think that you can make money by importing either. Look how many importers have come and gone. A lot of them big talkers too!
Snooze says it right on!
Brigitte

[MiamiDan]

Well, on the bright side, not everything is doom's theory. I can attest to Wattley's Discus being a successful operation. Gabe uses well water and in order to save on RO membranes, etc, he uses a water softener first. He had half-a pallet worth of rock salt just for the water softener. Being a in Florida, we actually have to heat aquariums or fishrooms maybe 4 months a year. :D Of course they have to prepare their own Beefheart,etc.

[sam_y]

I hope this isn't too far off topic, but it was suggested that angelfish might be more profitable than discus. I hear this all the time. But the shops here pay anywhere from $0.85 CAD (silvers) to $2 CAD (quality koi) for quarter-sized fish. I don't think that covers my hydro, water and food costs, let alone time. Do people actually make money from angels or is it just losing less money?? If the former, what's the secret?! (I doubt that prices here are that much different from other places in North America, but I could be wrong).

[Bainbridge Mike]

I bred discus for a full time living for about 3 years, not a big income but ok, better than working for the man if you know what i mean!!. It had been many years since i had brought in any new stock, basically i bred my own stock and went from there.

I started importing new stock to get new strains and also to bring in extra for discus friends as a side line. Since that time my income has dropped because of the problems i imported as well, better to have stayed with my original fish. So now i work part time to make a bit extra. I think soon i can give up my part time work and just breed but it has been a long hard road.

In my case i can raise a discus quite cheaply, prob not as cheap as asia but not far off. I live in a semi tropical climate and don't have huge heating bills compared to most. Actually for 3 months i don't heat at all...i've got acceptable tapwater, very easy and cheap to process for discus culture. Thats an important point to consider when breeding professionally, costs can quickly mount and you will be uncompetitive. Foods are my biggest costs, it quickly adds up when you feed 500 grams of bloodworms for just one meal around the fish room. When you need to feed 3 to 5 times a day you can see what i mean. Make sure you can get quality food at great prices or grow some of your own foods, buy in bulk etc.

Man, i hope you love fish....but its a great life.

Hey Rod:

Good for you for refusing to work for the man! You are an inspiration to the rest of us.

Best wishes,
Mike

[yeomans]

Very interesting thread, I've always wondered what perecentage of people breed as their sole source of income. When I was attednding school for small business, I played around with the idea of a breeding / importing business. I sat down and broke all of the costs down in order to develop some type of business plan. A single person in my situation could stand to make some money but not much in terms of a profit, let alone to support myself financially. I think the best option to hobbists out there is to breed your fish to supplement your hobby, not so much your income. Having fish supplement the bills is great for the hobby aspect.
Hey if you do wind up being able to make a couple bucks every year off breeding maybe you could register as a business, the write offs alone could be worth it in someones case. There is no problem selling your fry to help pay the way for your hobby, but if your doing this QUALITY should be main concern, to many people are interested in making a quick buck, and usually the novice hobbists take the pain and purchase culls.You have to put quality over money or you'l never make any profit small or big no mater who you are.

[Willie]

Forget breeding. How many people depend on selling tropical fish as their sole source of income? Other than working for a tropical fish company, who do you know.

I can think of Steve Ribycki at AngelsPlus, Ray Lucas of Kingfish, John Farrell Kuhns for his own company, Oliver Lucanus at BelowWater. Discus Hans is an agent for Stendker, technically not an employee. Not too many. Anyone else?

Most people who go into breeding as a business forget that it's all about the business, not about the breeding. So if you start thinking about how many discus you can produce, you're going the wrong way. You start with how many discus you can sell, who you are going to sell to and how are you going to compete with every other breeder. If that doesn't pencil out, don't worry about the water changes! ;)

Willie