# Breeding and Selling



## CollegeBettas

Does anyone have experience with breeding and selling fish in stores or online? I am thinking about breeding guppies while I am at school. My current plan is to just start with pet store guppies, but if it goes well, getting breeding pairs of specific types from Aquabid.
My main question is will chain stores (specifically Pet Supplies Plus and PetSmart) buy guppies or only take them? The only non-chain fish store with a reasonable distance is a marine one.


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## lilnaugrim

Guppies take a while to grow, slower than Betta's but they're typically hardy.

Big chain stores won't typically buy them but will take them on donation. Better to advertise through here, facebook, aquabid, or ebay. You may not make much money unless you're breeding a rarer strain that people want. Look around and ask around to see what sells well. If you go by a store and see that one strain is nearly depleted because people are buying them, go for that one. However, livebearer's take roughly 3-4 months to mature with proper care so it may mean that the once popular strain is now no longer as popular.


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## CollegeBettas

Thanks! My current plan is to do just "normal" assorted guppies for the first round and then get one or two other strains that are more popular.


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## MysticSky22301

Guppies typically take about 3 month's to color up, they will still be small but you can see final colors. I sell mine for 50¢ each to pet shops or 1$ privately/ on line maybe a little more depending on color. I've made 100$ in one trip so it can be lucrative with patients


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## CollegeBettas

Do you sell to only Mom and Pop style pet stores?


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## MysticSky22301

Mostly I've had Petco and pet palace take some, I also post them on Facebook and once in a while Craigslist. I haven't shipped any though. I do recommend a thick Mat of floating plants at one end of the tank, with low light plants under it the more places for them to hide the better. Adults gobble up new born fry easily


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## CollegeBettas

My idea was to do a knitting mesh "cage" for the females giving birth so that the babies have the majority of the tank they can hide in.


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## MysticSky22301

That's not a bad idea


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## kellyyoungmoney

I did something similar last year, fyi they always drop fry at the worst time. Mine almost always dropped fry in the morning as I was getting ready to go to class and I had to fish them out and throw them in something real fast before I left. Its not very profitable in general but a few bucks here and there is always nice. I would call around to your local fish stores that aren't big chains and find out if they pay for guppies, some do and some don't. And some only pay like 25-50 cents a fish, but like I said, every bit of money is nice! I've never sold on Craigslist but I feel like you could get a few sold that way, I've seen some on there for as much as a dollar or 2 each, I don't know how well they sold but you could always start high and go lower.


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## MysticSky22301

kellyyoungmoney said:


> I did something similar last year, fyi they always drop fry at the worst time. Mine almost always dropped fry in the morning as I was getting ready to go to class and I had to fish them out and throw them in something real fast before I left. Its not very profitable in general but a few bucks here and there is always nice. I would call around to your local fish stores that aren't big chains and find out if they pay for guppies, some do and some don't. And some only pay like 25-50 cents a fish, but like I said, every bit of money is nice! I've never sold on Craigslist but I feel like you could get a few sold that way, I've seen some on there for as much as a dollar or 2 each, I don't know how well they sold but you could always start high and go lower.


At 50¢ each I sold a huge batch of fry (I had 12+ females at the time) and ended up with 54$ a couple of weeks later I got 25$+ for selling mice to the same shop this paid for all of my supplies for several months and then some. for 4years it's how I paid for around 90% of my pet supplies so if it's not profitable it can sustain itself over time though many people can't get it to completely balance out. Kelly is right though don't expect a huge return especially at first


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## kellyyoungmoney

MysticSky22301 said:


> At 50¢ each I sold a huge batch of fry (I had 12+ females at the time) and ended up with 54$ a couple of weeks later I got 25$+ for selling mice to the same shop this paid for all of my supplies for several months and then some. for 4years it's how I paid for around 90% of my pet supplies so if it's not profitable it can sustain itself over time though many people can't get it to completely balance out. Kelly is right though don't expect a huge return especially at first


wow! that's awesome! I was messing around with different tail types and colors for my own personal little experiment and so I never had a bunch of them. But I'm hoping to breed cories and endlers when I get back to school. Even though I never made much it always makes the hobby seem a little less costly if you're getting even a tiny bit of a return on your investment.


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## MysticSky22301

That's actually why I set up to breed my bettas, my guppies haven't done the best since I moved a 18 months ago and upgraded them to a larger tank ( it seems counter intuitive but they did much better in a 10g than the 35g)


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## kellyyoungmoney

MysticSky22301 said:


> That's actually why I set up to breed my bettas, my guppies haven't done the best since I moved a 18 months ago and upgraded them to a larger tank ( it seems counter intuitive but they did much better in a 10g than the 35g)


lol they must like to be in a cozier, smaller tank when they're making babies! I separated my females out so that they could have all their babies from their unknown pet store lovers so that then I know which crosses I have, and of course they dropped fry every month while I was waiting for them to run out of sperm to use. But then of course when they did run out and when I put them with the males I wanted, no one seemed interested in each other. My guppies love to make a fool out of me!


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