Matt Pedersen: Tips for turning your hobby aquaculture into a business, successfully. | MACNA 2019

And watching....

Aquaculture is easy to turn into a business. Near impossible to turn it into a profitable business. Why sell to a finicky, cash strapped LFS at a low wholesale price when you can sell direct to the consumer on Craigslist and hobby forums at a much higher profit? The only profitable aspect of our hobby is doing custom installs and maintenance service for the wealthy.

Well, I have been selling excess zoas (utter chaos, gobstoppers) and other misc corals to a local wholesaler for a decent price of $5 per polyp for the zoas and variable (but acceptable) prices on the other stuff. Sure, I could dribble these out for $15+/polyp on Craigslist or local forums, but he buys everything at once. No hassle, just drop them off and use the money to buy fish that I would never pay cash for due to the cost. This is hardly a profitable venture, but I appreciate the instant gratification, cleaning up my frag rack and feeling like I am getting something back for my efforts.

Very interesting topic. I watch the video and then give my opinion

When my tank gets to the point of fragging most of my corals will be going to my lfs if he wants them that is. People today are all about money. Now don't get me wrong this is an expensive hobby and selling frags is a great way to offset the cost. But people need to keep in mind that lfs's are so essential to this hobby. Any way you can help support them is key to the longevity of the hobby. With out them you are stuck with online stores which is ok but I personally like seeing stuff in person. My lfs has also saved my tank more then once with heater failure and other issues he would bring the parts right to my house and just say when I get it figured out bring it back and that to me is invaluable.

bblumberg said:

Sure, I could dribble these out for $15+/polyp on Craigslist or local forums, but he buys everything at once. No hassle,

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that in a nut shell. I dont want to deal with strangers and craigslist pirates scammers and chatterboxes

I grow collector SPS that I've been collecting for some time now. I have BigR WD, RR Orange Passion, JF Foxflame, and numerous more. I'm into the sustainable hobby. I don't necessarily need more frags. Thus, I've struck up a deal with the LFS to provide frags every other week for $$$. I provide them 10 frags with a few collector pieces and the rest regular pieces like red dragon or torts. They give me cash. I know that they sell my pieces for a good profit but, that's the way it needs to be. Win - Win!!!

Typically the store will give you 50% of their retail value, but many hobbyist I know locally hardly buy any frags from the store since you can go direct for half or less, especially with the indo ban.

I've sold some plating monti chunks and a few misc things in my time, certainly not even a dent in my over-all investment. It really depends on what your local market looks like, but I can never see turning my hobby into anything more than a few bucks at random times of the year.

That said, I have had interest locally in printed stuff (dosing line and controller mount brackets) in the past, and copepods since no one seems to bother culturing. That may be an item I try and turn into something more since I'm back into both, especially pods. Retail costs on what I see are ... sparsely populated bottles is rather high.

Interesting topic , can't wait for the next video from MACNA to be release.

This year I've just gotten into making and selling frags. Been alot of fun, but slow moving for sure. I've only sold to other hobbyists, and for very reasonable prices for frags that are several times bigger than I ever find at my LFSs. I do love seeing and hearing other hobbyists get excited that they can afford to get several nice coral for their tank for a fraction of the cost of going to their LFS, but it is a hassle trying to locate customers, and moving my schedule around either for someone to come buy to buy some frags, or to make sure I'm available to pack up and ship an order on a particular evening for not alot of profit. I still enjoy doing it, but for now is surely purely hobbyist level as I can maybe pay for the running cost of my tank, if that, from my frag sales.

I have recently decided to add a couple of designer coral to my tank to start to grow out with the intent on being able to make a bit more money from frags, and to make shipping more worth while for both me and my customers. There is for sure a reason to stock up on higher end coral if the intent is to sell frags later. The main risk being a system crash will be more devastating in terms of livestock loss. I guess to me it seems like if you're trying to use your existing aquarium as a side hussel to pay the running cost of your tank and have some extra spending cash it almost only makes sense to sell direct to customer. Unless you are setting up specifically to grow large quantities with the intent on selling wholesale for profit.

After watching the video, I think it's easy to see why there seems to be so many hobbyists selling to eachother and why frag swaps are so popular. It's the only way for hobbyist level people to make any profit, and the most affordable way for buyers to get frags as well.

randyBRS said:

MACNA Speakers 2019 is back! Today we hear from Matt Pedersen, Sr. Editor & Associate Publisher with Reef To Rainforest Media LLC, and his take on turning your aquaculture hobby into a business.

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Thanks, comrade