Interest in Super High Quality Fish?

[Servillius]

Thank you all. The ongoing input is incredibly valuable and much appreciated! I’d like to address generally a few things that seem to have come up several times.

1. Legalities of running a business. I’m definitely ahead of the game here. I already have a small business that’s incorporated and complies with all the usual legalities as well as having access to a lot of commercial rental space. I also have the benefit of being a lawyer so I can take care of all this stuff myself at very little cost.

2. Quarantine Services. Until I saw it suggested in this thread, the plan was not to provide quarantine services. (I’m now tempted to offer it as a local only sideline though). I would be selling fish like any other fish retailer, but the business would be built around an absolute quality goal rather than a price target.

3. Profits. I don’t need to make a profit to make it work. I hope that means I have some breathing room to experiment and learn without the usual pressures. That doesn’t mean it wouldn’t be nice to make a profit some day, but this is a labor of love.

4. Me. I’ve spent a fair amount of time in industry, both in manufacturing and services. I’ve been fortunate in that I’ve been very good at process development and quality control. Getting the details right is frequently how you make the difference between success and failure and I’m pretty good at that part of the game.

5. What I don’t know. Almost everything. That’s the part I have to learn and learning by doing is the only way I know! Until then, it’s your advice and input that helps me understand what I need to learn.

 

[reefwiser]

Humblefish here on the forums is doing this. He has had quite a learning experience.
By industry do you mean you have worked or ran a LFS? The industry is quite different on the other side of the counter.
Having been in the hobby most of my life I have gotten to know many LFS owners as well as fish distributors thru the years.
What a hobbyist thinks about how the fish business works is quite different from the reality of it.
I would suggest going to MACNA for a few years and meeting the distributors and other LFS owners to actually see if you can do it.

 

[JaimeAdams]

To reiterate what others have already touched upon.

95% of the people in the hobby look at price point. The other 5% are more than willing to pay for convenience. So that 5% of the hobby as your customer base is fine. Granted those are the same people that want rare expensive hard to acclimate/quarantine wrasses and other notoriously difficult fish. That is not the market segment that is looking for clownfish and scopas tangs. Granted I believe that you would have some newer hobbyists who would want more bread and butter fish as well, but only doing it and seeing what the market demand is will show you the truth.

You are speaking of holding these fish for months which is an obvious expense with the feeding/electricity/water/salt. If you are quarantining and treating add the cost of medications and additional water changes.

So after you hold this fish for at least 6 weeks and do everything possible to get that fish perfect someone is going to buy it and take it home put it into their tank that has low density population of ich and the fish is going to get spots and then that person is going to come to the forums flaming your good name. It is going to happen, so make sure that you are ready for that.

 

[mcarroll]

Thanks! I appreciate the advice very much. My primary motivation for doing this nationally rather than locally is I lack experience with shipping livestock. I have a feeling there’s a lot to learn there as well and I’d like to learn it in a manner that’s as painless to the fish as possible!

Don't practice on wild fish is all I can say. AKA live arrival guarantees.

Practice on farmed freshwater stock.

Or just ship temperature and humidity sensors instead and learn from the data collected.

 

[Servillius]

Don't practice on wild fish is all I can say. AKA live arrival guarantees.

Practice on farmed freshwater stock.

Or just ship temperature and humidity sensors instead and learn from the data collected.

I like the temp and humidity sensor idea. Thanks!

 

[Servillius]

To reiterate what others have already touched upon.

95% of the people in the hobby look at price point. The other 5% are more than willing to pay for convenience. So that 5% of the hobby as your customer base is fine. Granted those are the same people that want rare expensive hard to acclimate/quarantine wrasses and other notoriously difficult fish. That is not the market segment that is looking for clownfish and scopas tangs. Granted I believe that you would have some newer hobbyists who would want more bread and butter fish as well, but only doing it and seeing what the market demand is will show you the truth.

You are speaking of holding these fish for months which is an obvious expense with the feeding/electricity/water/salt. If you are quarantining and treating add the cost of medications and additional water changes.

So after you hold this fish for at least 6 weeks and do everything possible to get that fish perfect someone is going to buy it and take it home put it into their tank that has low density population of ich and the fish is going to get spots and then that person is going to come to the forums flaming your good name. It is going to happen, so make sure that you are ready for that.

Yeah, I totally believe you. I have a few ideas to help mitigate this sort of problem, but this is undoubtedly one of the major challenges.