High Tide Aquatics

Starting a business

Enough money to maintain the main tank and buy some equipment to expand would be a good place to start. Providing a maintenance service might be a good idea as well
 
NanoCrazed said:
From personal experience... the market and hobby has gotten super competitive and flooded. Still buyers but the only way to make the economics work out to be a full time operation is to do one of three things: 1) focus on only high end already sought-after pieces and invest enough time and money to create a sustainable brood stock, 2) set up shop and do it in volume online like POTO, AquaSD, etc., or 3) get your CITES, etc and import, and cherry pick promising pieces to cook.

There are risks in all of these in that you have to be willing to lose $$ in the form of unforeseen mishaps and just nature. And you'll definitely need more than 1 tank to make it more than supplemental offset to incidental hobby costs.
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#2 is what I was thinking. I was also thinking about breeding clams but that seems to be extremely difficult/impossible inland.
 
NanoCrazed said:
From personal experience... the market and hobby has gotten super competitive and flooded. Still buyers but the only way to make the economics work out to be a full time operation is to do one of three things: 1) focus on only high end already sought-after pieces and invest enough time and money to create a sustainable brood stock, 2) set up shop and do it in volume online like POTO, AquaSD, etc., or 3) get your CITES, etc and import, and cherry pick promising pieces to cook.

There are risks in all of these in that you have to be willing to lose $$ in the form of unforeseen mishaps and just nature. And you'll definitely need more than 1 tank to make it more than supplemental offset to incidental hobby costs.
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Just curious: What's "POTO", "CITES".
"to cook" does that mean to grow out?
 
dochou said:
Just curious: What's "POTO", "CITES".
"to cook" does that mean to grow out?
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POTO = Pieces of the Ocean (shop in NY that was once an online only biz, now has a storefront)

CITES = Convention on International Trade on Endangered Species, which is a multi-national treaty regulating the trade of wildlife. If you import/export wildlife, you must have a CITES certificate and make sure you understand the terms... otherwise you risk getting all your goods confiscated by US Fish & Wildlife / Customs...

To cook = exactly that... let it grow out and see if it turns into something. I has some killer pieces that started out look pretty bland, too bad, I lost them all over time for one reason or another. :/ . (see my profile pic for example. That's actually a one of a kind bounce I got my hands on... lost it in a 8 hour power outage. sigh.
 
@Eric Johnson -- I realize there's a lot of cautionary feedback to your question giving you the things to watch out for. But, objectively speaking, if you wanted to make this into a full time affair, it is not impossible. When you talk to guys like Rich who own Cornbred, he'll tell you he started out doing the same -- went from small time hobby, to garage, to full warehouse staff getting full day's worth of blue lights and orange glasses. Now, he gets to put crazy mark-ups on his brand of corals and make a decent take...

If you're serious and committed, then with planning, it can happen... but point is you have to put together a solid plan and strategy. And be prepared for some rough patches and risks. Even the most experienced and practiced, wind up losing a whole tank now and then.

I would suggest focusing on a few key pieces that are fast growers or unique pieces you stumble upon but carry value and test it out. You can do that with a single tank. I know a guy that started with one $300 OG, made a tankful of frags, and sold them to BSA for $30K in reasonable of time...so anything OG you buy from BSA probably came from him. (Admittedly, he could've made more on individual sale but time and logistics versus a single transaction came into consideration for him). But moving to full scale, full-time operation requires some capital and appetite.

Gotta spend money to make money, and build relationships along the way.

Personally, I had considered bringing in a shipment of shrooms from a farm abroad with some super pieces for next to nothing. Problem is I need to purchase at minimum quantity, and ship a palette's worth -- the outlay would have been about $5K, with an upside of probably 10X or more, ignoring operating costs. And while this and getting a CITES plus other licenses were all fairly straight forward, the logistical nightmare would begin when the shipment arrives to port at SFO. I would need enough troughs big enough to quickly float and acclimate the shipment and then yet more troughs to be able to support the stock until I unload them all over time. Or in other words....my wife would kill me. :) .

So I settle for other means...

Good luck with the journey!
 
NanoCrazed said:
@Eric Johnson -- I realize there's a lot of cautionary feedback to your question giving you the things to watch out for. But, objectively speaking, if you wanted to make this into a full time affair, it is not impossible. When you talk to guys like Rich who own Cornbred, he'll tell you he started out doing the same -- went from small time hobby, to garage, to full warehouse staff getting full day's worth of blue lights and orange glasses. Now, he gets to put crazy mark-ups on his brand of corals and make a decent take...

If you're serious and committed, then with planning, it can happen... but point is you have to put together a solid plan and strategy. And be prepared for some rough patches and risks. Even the most experienced and practiced, wind up losing a whole tank now and then.

I would suggest focusing on a few key pieces that are fast growers or unique pieces you stumble upon but carry value and test it out. You can do that with a single tank. I know a guy that started with one $300 OG, made a tankful of frags, and sold them to BSA for $30K in reasonable of time...so anything OG you buy from BSA probably came from him. (Admittedly, he could've made more on individual sale but time and logistics versus a single transaction came into consideration for him). But moving to full scale, full-time operation requires some capital and appetite.

Gotta spend money to make money, and build relationships along the way.

Personally, I had considered bringing in a shipment of shrooms from a farm abroad with some super pieces for next to nothing. Problem is I need to purchase at minimum quantity, and ship a palette's worth -- the outlay would have been about $5K, with an upside of probably 10X or more, ignoring operating costs. And while this and getting a CITES plus other licenses were all fairly straight forward, the logistical nightmare would begin when the shipment arrives to port at SFO. I would need enough troughs big enough to quickly float and acclimate the shipment and then yet more troughs to be able to support the stock until I unload them all over time. Or in other words....my wife would kill me. :) .

So I settle for other means...

Good luck with the journey!
Click to expand...
Thanks!
 
Starting an aquarium maintenance business would be more profitable. Time consuming and more labor intense, but much more consistent money in that than selling frags and nems.
 
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