Easiest to breed?

[Beholder]

Hi all,

 

Long time no post, but back again.

 

I've had a long meeting with my financial analyst / advisor - my wife - and I have limited budget to purchase live stock for my tank. So, my idea is that I get something easy to breed, then breed them up, selling to LFS, either swapping for credit, or cash sales. I've spoken to them, and they're happy with the idea.

 

So, question is, what's the easiest to breed? I am leaning towards Cleaning Shrimp, as two would fit within the budget, and also they're hemaphrodite. Also, I like the shrimp. Fish are OK, but the inverts are better.

 

Any ideas / comments / suggestions?

 

Thanks

 

Evan

Cape Town.

[Korbin]

I've never heard of anyone breeding them in their home tanks. They're so hard to "not kill" when they're babies.

 

Go with coral. Get yourself some xenia, anthelia, green star polyps, zoanthids, mushrooms. Those things grow like gangbusters.

[CrocoDillon]

Raising the shrimp larves isn't quite easy...

 

You might try to culture mushrooms, or maybe rare/expensive ricordeas/yumas... just slice them up, let them recover and slice them up again.

[tinyreef]

there are a growing number of shrimp hatcheries in florida but they usually have access to nsw as a cheap source of raw materials (medium, maintenance, and partial food source). i don't think it would be a viable operation or 'easier' livestock source from your home tho unless you were next to a warm ocean source.

 

a type of shrimp that is in high demand and has a long history of information (scientific research & farming) is the volcanic red shrimp, halocaridna rubra. oceanrider.com currently supplies these as feed for seahorses but biosphere-type companies also use them in their sealed desktop eco-spheres. researchers also use this shrimp in their studies for one reason or another.

 

with the info out there already it may not be too much of a stretch. if you could raise these on the mainland you could maybe earn a living or break-even. X) hth