The Tropical Fish Farm: Transitioning from Hobby to Business (2010)

THE TROPICAL FISH FARM Diane Henderson enjoyed animals and shared that enjoyment with her family. Two years ago, she purchased a 30 gallon fish aquarium and some young gold fish, bottom feeders, angelfish, and a few others, for her daughter. Several months later, Diane noticed some small, brownish-colored 'bumps' on one of the aquatic plant leaves. When her husband came home they identified the 200-300 pinhead-sized bumps as fish eggs. Based on their behavior, they determined that the eggs belonged to the angelfish. Within a few hours, however, the eggs were 'gone.' Diane began doing some research on the Internet to learn how to home-raise baby angelfish. Raising angelfish from babies was not a new idea to her. When she and her husband were attending college, one of their neighbors had a whole bedroom of their apartment filled with dozens of aquariums occupied with breeding pairs of angelfish and babies in various stages of growth. They earned enough profit from the sale of the young fish to local pet stores to pay the rent and utilities for their three bedroom apartment. Diane read about the ideal water conditions for raising healthy angelfish from egg to fry (young fish). She learned about the types of food they needed during the early days and weeks after hatching, and other fish care information. Soon the pair of angelfish produced another batch of eggs. Since they were no longer competing with other fish, these eggs didn't 'disappear.' The parents swam over the near-vertical stone slate that held the eggs, 'fanning' them every few minutes to keep them clean. They took turns sucking the eggs into their mouths and spitting them back onto the slate. Later, Diane learned that angelfish have special mucus glands inside their mouths that clean and recoat the eggs to protect them from bacteria and fungus. The sticky mucus also allowed the eggs to stick to the slate and not fall to the bottom of the tank and get lost. After ten day the eggs began to wiggle and the fry were swimming freely three days later. Within six weeks the fish tank was filled with 150 dime-sized and nickel-sized angelfish. During this time the parents had produced two more batches of eggs, but the adults and the baby fish quickly added them to their diets. The fry also began to nibble on their parents' fins. In two more weeks they would be the size of a quarter and would become permanently stunted from over crowding in the tank. The parent fish, not able to escape from their young, would probably not survive. Diane lived in a town of about 78,000 people that had two independent pet stores plus two large discount department stores that sold tropical fish. She called the owners of the independent stores to see if they would be willing to buy the young angelfish and what they would be willing to pay. They were eager to buy the fish and would pay $1.50-2.50 each, depending on their sizes. The large discount stores turned her down, indicating that company policy did not permit them to buy fish from local suppliers. A department manager explained that fish purchased from 'hobbyists' are sometimes not raised in well-managed conditions. Fish raised in these conditions are more prone to disease that can spread to the other fish tanks that share a common water circulation system within the store. Infected fish sold to consumers may contaminate home aquariums as well. The risk, liability, and warranty problems associated with buying from small, local producers prompted the discount stores to adopt policies that allowed them to buy fish only from reputable, bonded wholesalers. Diane asked the owners of the independent pet stores why they would agree to buy from her rather than their established wholesalers. They explained that young fish raised in local water acclimated to local fish tank water better than fish from other locations raised in water with different characteristics. Since the owners had a hands-on orientation, they could inspect and reject deliveries from local producers if problems were suspected, unlike fish shipped to them in boxes from wholesalers. …