I have no choice

[LizStreithorst]

What with business being slow due to the Easter holiday the wholesaler doesn't need any fish from me this Thursday.    They promise to buy from me the first Thursday in April.  I have no choice but to drag another of my 190 gallon containers into the fish room.  I haven't bred any more fish for over a month, but the poor darlin's I have growing out now are I have growing out are so cramped in their tanks they will won't grow any more until they get more elbow room. 

Since the wholesaler has an established relationship with another Angelfish breeder I need to find another type of fish to breed for them.  Any suggestions? 

[Tony44]

Easier to find another wholesaler or wholesale on your own.

[Mugwump]

Easier to find another wholesaler or wholesale on your own.

...yup......and what about snots and cories...dots...mystery snails.........tell them to call when they need them, then you'll see what you have......maybe yes, maybe no....that you can't plan on having fish available without some regular commitment from them......the waiting party is over.......he's using you for a holding tank.....

[LizStreithorst]

There is another wholesaler but when he comes by Hattiesburg he stays on the road for three days before he gets back home. 

I think that when I sell most of what I have, which will take months, I'll scale down and think about it for a while before I decide how to proceed.  It will be weird, but I don't want to get myself in the same spot again.  Sterbai's and Snots of some kind sounds appealing. 

It was fun being a breeding factory while it lasted.  I came home to two pairs with a ton of eggs just today.  The fish are in aged tap so the few eggs that manage to hatch will be eaten once they go free swimming.

[Mugwump]

There is another wholesaler but when he comes by Hattiesburg he stays on the road for three days before he gets back home. 

I think that when I sell most of what I have, which will take months, I'll scale down and think about it for a while before I decide how to proceed.  It will be weird, but I don't want to get myself in the same spot again.  Sterbai's and Snots of some kind sounds appealing. 

It was fun being a breeding factory while it lasted.  I came home to two pairs with a ton of eggs just today.  The fish are in aged tap so the few eggs that manage to hatch will be eaten once they go free swimming.

..good plan......get it back on your terms more.....

[Rjb3]

I enjoyed raising Bolivian Rams when we spawned a lot of fish. Together with angels, plecos and cory catfish we had a good looking table at the swaps with lots of variety. My fish raising days are over though.

So, I would pick Bolivian Rams for a new type of fish. They are super easy, but you only get 50-60 eggs per pair. I had three pairs to keep me in fry. All three pairs were in a 46 bow community tank. Naturally, I would pull the spawns. Survival rate is amazing.

[LizStreithorst]

Thank you for the suggestions, Gentlemen.  You seem to have a grasp of the kinds of fish that I would consider breeding.  I've got the huge container in the fish room filling with water.  It will be tomorrow before I can move my growing Angels into it.  It's amazing how well the fish do in those containers.  They're way better than tanks, they're just so damn ugly in the middle of the fish room.

My Captain, I looked up the Bolivian Rams.  I have always adored the German Blues, but they are more picky about water quality than Discus! I see that the Bolivians are tougher.  Toughness is a good thing when selling wholesale.  It will be months before I sell down.  The wholesaler comes but once every two weeks and I'm not his "main man" for Angels.  I'll loose my shirt on them, but anything is better than having to kill them.  (Being soft hearted is a failing of mine)

Jon, it's hard to get things on my terms when there is only one game in town for me.  Having a bit of diversity should help. 

I swear, if I spent as much time working on and thinking about things that make money as I do on things that loose money I would have been living on easy street a long time ago.  What the hell, I've never claimed to be sane...

[Mugwump]

Thank you for the suggestions, Gentlemen.  You seem to have a grasp of the kinds of fish that I would consider breeding.  I've got the huge container in the fish room filling with water.  It will be tomorrow before I can move my growing Angels into it.  It's amazing how well the fish do in those containers.  They're way better than tanks, they're just so damn ugly in the middle of the fish room.

My Captain, I looked up the Bolivian Rams.  I have always adored the German Blues, but they are more picky about water quality than Discus! I see that the Bolivians are tougher.  Toughness is a good thing when selling wholesale.  It will be months before I sell down.  The wholesaler comes but once every two weeks and I'm not his "main man" for Angels.  I'll loose my shirt on them, but anything is better than having to kill them.  (Being soft hearted is a failing of mine)

Jon, it's hard to get things on my terms when there is only one game in town for me.  Having a bit of diversity should help. 

I swear, if I spent as much time working on and thinking about things that make money as I do on things that loose money I would have been living on easy street a long time ago.  What the hell, I've never claimed to be sane...

Alice tried another question. "What sort of people live about here?"
"In THAT direction," the Cat said, waving its right paw round, "lives a Hatter: And in THAT direction," waving the other paw, "lives a March Hare.
Visit either you like: they're both mad."
"But I don't want to go among mad people," Alice remarked.
"Oh, you can't help that," said the Cat: "we're all mad here. I'm mad. You're mad."
"How do you know I'm mad?" said Alice.
"You must be," said the Cat, "or you wouldn't have come here."

[LizStreithorst]

Ain't that the truth   At least here I'm not considered to be any more crazy that the rest of us.  (At least I hope not )

[Mugwump]

Ain't that the truth   At least here I'm not considered to be any more crazy that the rest of us.  (At least I hope not )

....

[wallace]

GBRs aren't that hard if you get good stock. Their rep for being tough to keep comes from the crappy fish that are mostly available. You might be able to get some good ones from Larry Bugg and try them out.

[Mugwump]

GBRs aren't that hard if you get good stock. Their rep for being tough to keep comes from the crappy fish that are mostly available. You might be able to get some good ones from Larry Bugg and try them out.

...yup, he's got the fish cabin going....

[LizStreithorst]

I've had good luck keeping them, Dan.  But I know from experience that good water quality water is more important to them than to Discus.  I have a story about how I know.  It involves me having ordered an expensive huge black dildo from a sex toy company to put in my lightly planted 125 with Discus and GBR's.   The penis blended in color with the driftwood in the tank.  A very savvy woman looked at that tank for about 3 minutes before she saw it and said, "Oh my God!!!".  That tank was my all time best try at weird comedy.  I thought that I had created a work of art.

Alas, the dildo turned out to be toxic.  It was releasing something bad into the water.  The Rams were the first ones to tell me that something weren't right..  I removed the offending penis from the tank but about 4 of the rams died.  Some of the Discus started showing signs of stress but once the toxic thing was gone they bounced right back.

It's bad enough feeling like a fish whore for selling to the wholesaler.  I can't bring myself to sell a fish that will get sick and die two weeks after it gets to it's final home.  I want to stick with ones that can handle conditions that are less than ideal.

[LizStreithorst]

GBRs aren't that hard if you get good stock. Their rep for being tough to keep comes from the crappy fish that are mostly available. You might be able to get some good ones from Larry Bugg and try them out.

...yup, he's got the fish cabin going....

He has the fish room going?  I didn't notice him saying it was going on Simply.  Surely I didn't miss it?  I am so happy for him.  I think that I'm his biggest fan. 

[wallace]

It's bad enough feeling like a fish whore for selling to the wholesaler.  I can't bring myself to sell a fish that will get sick and die two weeks after it gets to it's final home.  I want to stick with ones that can handle conditions that are less than ideal.

I was thinking about that very thing the other day... you're right its a good reason not to breed GBRs for money. They are easier to kill than angels. When I was breeding Rams the water quality didn't seem to matter much, but I suspect there was a genetic problem somewhere that was killing them no matter what I did. That's why I switched to wild ones.