Coral Farming
- Thread starter FreshFish
- Start date
- Location
- The Big City
Actually if FreshFish find someone that has exprecience and helps him in the beginning he should be fine. This happens alot, specially when someone opens a new LFS, one guy has the resources, usally the money, the other person brings the exprecience.
FreshFish should look around at a # of on-line site and see how they run their setup and then determine what best for him.
There is a lot of room for failure but the setup isn't that hard specially if you have the room and resources. If you do it right from the beginning and most important have the time as it's very time consumming then you should be ok.
You also need to plan what your going to do, run a frag farm or bring in corals and sell them, or frag them.
FreshFish should look around at a # of on-line site and see how they run their setup and then determine what best for him.
There is a lot of room for failure but the setup isn't that hard specially if you have the room and resources. If you do it right from the beginning and most important have the time as it's very time consumming then you should be ok.
You also need to plan what your going to do, run a frag farm or bring in corals and sell them, or frag them.
- Location
- Ossining, NY
Jose,
I agree with you, BUT this is a science - some of us just have blind luck (me for instance) and others have the hand of death.
FF - this can be accomplished for under a $1000 I believe (not including livestock).
Best way to do things is to start acquiring rare specimens (costly) and grow them out. Like Purple Monster, or rare Danae's etc. Even some of the powder blue acros, even Acan Lords would be good investments.
You will need to monitor this tank daily, for signs of weakness, and have a back up (read stable here) tank to put frags that seem to not be adjusting.
The other thing that no one seems to have touched here is that the biology of the animals is very important to consider - they will stage warfare against each other and some will live and some will die - so, choices of corals, locations in this tank, etc is critical. keeping in mind that the specimens we keep don't usually gorw next door to each other. What might be better is research on where a specific corals that you want to propogate grows and try to simulate it's environment as close to that as possible - including the other corals from that area.
Oh, yeah, skim the S*** out of this tank.
House
I agree with you, BUT this is a science - some of us just have blind luck (me for instance) and others have the hand of death.
FF - this can be accomplished for under a $1000 I believe (not including livestock).
Best way to do things is to start acquiring rare specimens (costly) and grow them out. Like Purple Monster, or rare Danae's etc. Even some of the powder blue acros, even Acan Lords would be good investments.
You will need to monitor this tank daily, for signs of weakness, and have a back up (read stable here) tank to put frags that seem to not be adjusting.
The other thing that no one seems to have touched here is that the biology of the animals is very important to consider - they will stage warfare against each other and some will live and some will die - so, choices of corals, locations in this tank, etc is critical. keeping in mind that the specimens we keep don't usually gorw next door to each other. What might be better is research on where a specific corals that you want to propogate grows and try to simulate it's environment as close to that as possible - including the other corals from that area.
Oh, yeah, skim the S*** out of this tank.
House
IMO you are venturing into 2 new turfs, first off running a business is no small task, most well thought out and executed business break about even the first year or two. Secondly I understand asking questions is good but some of your question, no offense, seem a bit basic when it comes to husbandry.
I mean in the end its all up to you, but do you want to risk running at deficit and basically lose money out of your pocket to sell a frag? It will almsot be like your giving it away for free.
I suggest you try a 75 as a frag tank and work w/ that, especially if you are thinking rarer specimens, they will add up quicker than you think. You got to learn to crawl before you run. I really think this is one of those situations you can't just throw money at the problem.
Again I'm not trying to be negative like joseny said, I'm just trying to give a shot of reality. It sucks I know, I hate having my own ideas dissected, but sometimes it is a necessary evil.
I've see a bunch of set ups on RC that incorporate some large frag and grow out tanks. they don't seem to be doing it to sell frags but more of a way to grow colonies for their large tanks.
it's not that hard but what is the end result that you want to achieve. to break even with the equipment costs and operating costs, or to make a profit in the long term? I think the local market is tough to sell to, lot's of competition frag wise. and if you get into advertising and shipping then you need the web site with photos, a billing system, and inventory system. that's not cheap to set up. it could cost more then the tank equipment unless you can do it yourself.
one thing to regarding mother earth. i find that most people into reefing are also into the environment and ecology etc, which makes us a huge contradiction. if we truly cared about the environment we would shut down our tanks. ever think of all the waste being produced by our tanks electrical needs? it's quite a lot. I'm going to switch over to a electrical supplier that gets it's power from eco-friendly means. it's a 5 dollar per month surcharge to use them, but at least i won't have to look at my tank and feel guilty any more. I'll post the link if anyone else is interested.
it's not that hard but what is the end result that you want to achieve. to break even with the equipment costs and operating costs, or to make a profit in the long term? I think the local market is tough to sell to, lot's of competition frag wise. and if you get into advertising and shipping then you need the web site with photos, a billing system, and inventory system. that's not cheap to set up. it could cost more then the tank equipment unless you can do it yourself.
one thing to regarding mother earth. i find that most people into reefing are also into the environment and ecology etc, which makes us a huge contradiction. if we truly cared about the environment we would shut down our tanks. ever think of all the waste being produced by our tanks electrical needs? it's quite a lot. I'm going to switch over to a electrical supplier that gets it's power from eco-friendly means. it's a 5 dollar per month surcharge to use them, but at least i won't have to look at my tank and feel guilty any more. I'll post the link if anyone else is interested.
- Location
- North Shore Long lsand, NY
I'd be happy to throw you some frags...Tenuis, samoensis, humillis...not many, but a few. You pick up of course...
d.
d.
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