Fish Room Project

What I did over the Summer.
Built a room in the garage to house my growing tropical fish breeding business.
There is more room for tanks (snag them from craigslist) and the back (plant) room is setup to house even more. Now it's time to sell some fish. www.SolAquatics.com

Category:

Pets & Animals

Tags:

• remodel
• tropical fish
• building

[solwebdude]

Latest update: Completely redoing the tank layout. Stopped trying to breed anything (still happens but I don't save the eggs). Now I'm going more for a recreational showcase room. On a tight budget (other bills and stuff) but making do with what I can get by with. Will post another video with new layout, probably this fall.

[213mariog]

who do you sell the fishes to if you dont mnd me asking?

[solwebdude]

@213mariog Was selling to a local pet store. Chains don't usually buy from locals.

[lazycat5000]

hey bro. wanna purchase fish but ur website has no link. what gives?

[solwebdude]

@lazycat5000 Not currently breeding. Found it took more time than money could cover. Mainly sold wholesale anyway.

[solwebdude]

Just an update. I'm currently scaling back the number of tanks as financials have forced the issue. I plan to just have a few tanks and toy around with breeding different fish for now. Someday I have plans to expand the room even further, but that may be a year or 2 down the road. Just wish the economy would do something..

[solwebdude]

@taedom Easier to change, add on, or move around if needed. And most fires are caused when people nail or screw into wiring in the wall. Cosmetically it's just a fish room.

[callofdutykings1004]

Im guessing you like angel fish

[andrewdangerhill]

wish i had the money to do something like this! looks great!

[gregjonesonline]

@solwebdude it looks like you did the insulation, electrical, and stands the right way to turn a profit - the filtration, heating, and water changes look like a little bit of a pain, unless i missed something -- what did you in? lack of time? electric bills? i'd love to do something similar some day, but i want it to turn a profit! thanks,

[Okiimiru]

@Okiimiru If you want, I could help you go over your numbers to make your own setup more profitable. I bet the biggest unnecessary costs are all those filters (central fluidized bed would fix that), the heaters, and not earning enough profit from selling each individual low cost fish. It would also help if you grew plants. They earn a lot.

[Okiimiru]

The plants alone pay for all of the maintenance and upkeep costs and make everything profitable.

[Okiimiru]

@Okiimiru I am currently profitable with my current setup. My fish are Elassoma gilberti and a solid gold platinum strain of guppies and my plants are about a dozen species, mostly red and rare plants. I use kitty litter ($4 at Walmart) for the substrate for the plants and $30 four foot long T8 lights from Home Depot. I grow grindal worms to feed the fish; they eat one bag of Kibble 'N Bits a year. I also grow microworms for the fry; they eat one container of oatmeal ($2) every half year.

[Okiimiru]

You did a great job, so this is not criticism. These are just helpful suggestions.

Things I would have done differently:

Instead of one waterfall filter for each tank, centralized fluidized bed filters for multiple tanks.

Grow live plants in each tank, sell plants on aquabid

Breed expensive strains of fish.  More money per fish means a higher ROI.

Focused on fish that don't need heaters. Tropical fish are inherently expensive. Native and coldwater fish skip the cost of heaters.

[FishtanksFTW]

Absolutely amazing. Only thing missing is a bed and kitchen so you can live out there

[mrdaveone1]

awsome braddah.... like what you did for your fishes.....

hope to see more one day....

[SilverBowAquariums]

Sorry to hear about your luck selling. Easily accessible or common fish are more for hobby breeding with little chance of ever making any money off of them. Discus, coral, flowerhorns, etc are better bets in creating a sustainable income.

[spearman481]

look at all those little fry! Good for you were those tanks just used for filtration?