Coral Farming

[Mrc8858]

So I was looking for any and all input available from our long time reefers all the way down to our soon to be reefers on the matter. I'm currently in a situation which may allow me to start a small business with a partner and his brother as the majority investor for financing the business. My plan is to rent a local building that's roughly 1000sq.f and set up a system completely dedicated to propogating corals in house selling all aquacultured corals locally and nationally over the internet. My goal is to provide high quality corals at cheap-reasonable prices with the best customer care possible (since we know a lot of places lack some in that area). I've already put a few local surveys out a month ago to get some feedback of frequency of corals purchases as well as estimates of how much they spend per purchase (which I would love your feedback on this as well) to get a feel of my local market which I see as my main source of income in the starting months. Well I could drag on and on with this post so ill end it here and leave it open for more discussion, questions, or advice (much needed haha). Thanks for reading guys, always love hearing from you!

 

[Sniperhank]

Sounds like you have it planned out pretty well brother. What did your surveys say?

 

[Mrc8858]

Locally I'm looking at a huge want for a larger variety of zoas. I was hoping to focus more on acans and favias though (bet you can't guess why lol). The pricing seems to be in the $40-$80 range per purchase. There actually doesn't seem to be much of a market at all for any sps which I hope if I can get a site launched with enough traffic it would allow me to dive into that part of reefing because I love millis and acros and they are very easy to propogate and grow/recover pretty quickly.

 

[Mrc8858]

My main concern is if shipping will even be worth it when I start and at what point it will be worth doing. I know that this gonna be the only way to turn it into a full time salary for myself which is the end goal. I have a lot of math ahead of me over the next few days as I figure out all the expenses, running costs, etc. : / ... Gonna be a lot of work but I can see the end picture and its totally worth it to me which is all that matters haha

Edit* I'm hoping to get together with my buddy (future partner) and pitch the whole plan to his brother in a few weeks to get a final decision and potentially the greenlight to rent the property I have in mind and start renovations to begin and get cycling asap as this will be a huge loss of time and money waiting.

 

[Beengirl]

Wow! That's exciting! I hope it all works out for you! That would be a great job! You're really gonna have to figure out the shipping, though, for all of us who live no where near you! (Ahem) lol. And just to throw in my 2 cents for your survey, anytime I go to the store and buy corals, I'm lucky if I leave with less than $150 of stuff. That's about once every 1-2 weeks.

 

[DanS180]

If this actually happens, you know I'll order off ya dude! Hahaha

 

[Sniperhank]

Well, in dealing with Aquacare as their first shipping order things were murky at first and they had to figure stuff out. What started as 30 buck 2 day shipping is now 30 buck 1 day.

 

[h8z2luze]

Thats like a dream business! Hope it works out for ya! Where will it be located?

 

[Mrc8858]

I hope so to lol one of my previous customers for coral gos to school at WVU right down the road from me and all his roommates are hooked to the hobby to. With their help I can get someone very educated in business law to help out for some free corals and lifetime discounts as well as a web designer. It looks as though I may be able to do this without actually having to "pay" any employees until I hire my first in shop employee. If I get the property I'd like I would located in the heart of wheeling, WV

 

[Sniperhank]

Man, and with me being about a 2.5 hour drive away too...maybe I'll dangle some fire and ice and bam bams infront of you.

 

[Mrc8858]

Got some fire and ice no bam bams though lol. What I'd like to do is take pretty much all my corals at home and move them into the new systems to be the first rotation of broodstock.

 

[furrymurray]

I am interested also once you get your business started. I read a book called " Book of Coral Propagation" by Anthony Calfo that had tons of information about coral farming, shipping, and starting your own business that you might find helpful. Good luck

 

[Sniperhank]

Shipping is easy, especially when it comes to frags. A simple bag filled with water is just common sense...but a piece of styrofoam on the end of the plug so it floats upside down will prevent the coral from ever being out of water. Add one of those little plastic cups you get sauces in at restaurants to stop SPS from poking holes in the bag and you are golden.

 

[Mrc8858]

I am interested also once you get your business started. I read a book called " Book of Coral Propagation" by Anthony Calfo that had tons of information about coral farming, shipping, and starting your own business that you might find helpful. Good luck

That is where I'm getting a lot of my numbers from actually lol. And to hank totally agree but I may be able to ship all my corals in specimen cups due to the fact that my GF can get them for free at the hospital that she works at and even the base in which she does her weekend reserve work. I figure if my shipping methods exceed the competitors then that will be one major step ahead of them cause as many of us know some of the shipping we recieve (even from big names) can be a bit sketchy lol. I would like to keep it as personal as possible and with every shipment send a personalized letter along with tips for acclimating and caring for each species purchased. As I said before my key to success will be to provide the best customer care and relations as humanly possible while starting up my business.

 

[Mrc8858]

And should this work out after I finish my 5-7 year plan I would like to open up a second shop in the bay area to cover the west coast more easily as well which I would leave the east coast shop to my buddy and I would run the west coast shop since that's already where all my family is and where I use to live (i miss it lol)

 

[Mrc8858]

Also I would like your input on an idea I had. I understand that I could possibly flood my market of certain corals and be left stuck with "inventory" costing me money just caring for it. So the plan was to have a trade section on my website for which ever corals I find to be falling below the profit line and costing me money to even keep. Obviously I would wait til my business and I were more credible but the way I see it working is you can browse a list of corals and if you see something you like you can contact me for a straight up swap. Given, I would have to receive your coral first to keep from being scammed which is why I wouldn't even offer it until I was very credible. Also to help I could keep a list of my wanted corals and a point value next to them which you could see how many "points" you have with your corals and purchase off the "trade" section with that amount of points (each coral on the section would obviously have a point value). This would help keep questions down on trades which essentially is my money/time so I would need to streamline it as much as possible cause I can't have someone hired strictly to take trade calls all day lol

 

[Gboy66]

Thats one heck of an idea. I would definitly frag some stuff and make trades if my lfs offered it. Also, you would need to make sure the trades didnt bring harmful disease/algaes into tour tanks.

I really hope your dream becomes a reality matt! That would be so cool to have a small sw business

 

[Sniperhank]

A separate QT frag tank would solve that issue. Just keep it in the back.

 

[Gboy66]

A separate QT frag tank would solve that issue. Just keep it in the back.

Boom now we're gettin' somewhere haha

 

[Mrc8858]

My plan so far is 3 12'x2.5'x16" spillways which will be for softies, lps, and sps. From there I would be building 4 3'x3' frag tanks. These will all be ran on seperate filtration systems consisting of 2 100gallon rubbermaids joined as sump/fuge for the spill ways and single 100 gallon tubs for the frag tanks. I plan on doing the majority of the water movement with one central airpump other then the external pumps running the sumps. This will keep electricity/cost down and be a whole lot less to worry about mechanically and initial purchase wise.lighting I'm still torn on.. the economical value of LEDs is so enticing but from everything I've read there's no beating MH for pure growth which is what this will be almost entirely focused on. It's even crossed my mind to just hook up a kiddy pool with a media block and the basics to start cutting RBTAs even since they can reproduce quickly and fetch top dollar.