Side Hustle: What's the best & worst coral to grow and resell for hobbyists?

[nkyreef]

I've sold a couple frags of zoas to try and offset my spending but there isn't a whole lot of interest in my area lately. I've even tried to give away a free monti cap with purchase and nothing.

 

[Ef4life]

I only sell stuff as a hobby to buy more stuff, I sell everything cheap (typically only $5 a frag) mostly just to cover my cost of frag plugs, glue and containers and have a little left over to buy something new. If I had something fancy or that I paid a lot for it would be more of course.

My best sellers are my run of the mill common mushrooms both red and green I had hundreds of them in my biocube, and zoas with decent colors move pretty quick when I have them fragged. But I don’t frag stuff often - I want all my stuff to grow out and cover my tanks.

 

[Mikeltee]

Well this is an easy one... the best to grow are the expensive ones and the worst to grow are the inexpensive ones. This was my thesis for my masters in business. Are you guys impressed at my intellect?

 

[dball711]

For me colorful sticks are the best to grow and sell to offset the cost of the hobby and buy more colorful sticks!

 

[ZoaAddiction81]

I’ve never shipped them before but I’ll let you know I definitely won’t run out of them

 

[KrisReef]

Grow what you can and what you like. If the market stinks at least your tank will please you. Any frags traded or sold are a bonus.

Longer Branching sps and bright challis corals have the easiest resell possibilities because they are easy to frag.

 

[ZoaAddiction81]

Grow what you can and what you like. If the market stinks at least your tank will please you. Any frags traded or sold are a bonus.

Longer Branching sps and bright challis corals have the easiest resell possibilities because they are easy to frag.

I just picked up a frostbite acro hope I can grow it out looks awesome

 

[TopShelfAquatics]

We have a customer that brings us Bubblegum digi all the time and we appreciate it a ton!
Every time he shows up with some we're like

And he gets some solid store credit out of it Win win

 

[45ZoaGarden]

Best corals to grow out and sell are zoas hands down. Expensive and grow like weeds. Acros are an expensive seller but don’t grow nearly as fast. Zoas in the sub $100 pp category move quickly. More expensive zoas don’t sell quite as much but one sale on a GMK covers 10 sales of a lower end zoa. Worst to sell is gsp, Xenia, Mohawks, clove polyps, and yellow polyps. They’re weeds that aren’t worth much. I bring rocks covered in Mohawks to my lfs for $15-20 every once in awhile. They sell frags in the $5 bin. I don’t have patience to cut them up and sell $5 a piece. Not worth the effort to me.

 

[ZoaAddiction81]

This is when I knew I had way to many ;Woot

 

[45ZoaGarden]

Lol I kinda want to grow a digi. I’ll be up in Orlando next month. I might have to stop by and pick a piece up! I wanna grow an ora birds of paradise. My lfs wants frags badly and I know I can grow a birdsnest....

We have a customer that brings us Bubblegum digi all the time and we appreciate it a ton!
Every time he shows up with some we're like

And he gets some solid store credit out of it Win win

 

[Rick.45cal]

I just can’t bring myself to frag it...

 

[45ZoaGarden]

This is when I knew I had way to many ;Woot

I actually just sold my big RBTA awhile ago. I miss it tho. It was a beautiful focal piece.... just a bit too big for a smaller tank.

 

[45ZoaGarden]

If I come do some free maintenance, can I keep any pieces that get broken off. I would have a blast LOL

I just can’t bring myself to frag it...

 

[ZoaAddiction81]

If I come do some free maintenance, can I keep any pieces that get broken off. I would have a blast LOL

That is amazing!!!!!!

 

[tnyr5]

It depends upon the size of your market. If you are selling to the entire U.S., you are better off growing high-end, high-priced things that few people have. In general, however: fast, bright, easy enough for beginners, and under $40 will sell all day long. Bonus points if it's wavy.

Also, don't forget that the expensive stuff depreciates rapidly, which means you must constantly have a new thing growing out to replace the has-been.

 

[ZoaAddiction81]

New Acro

 

[Rick.45cal]

If I come do some free maintenance, can I keep any pieces that get broken off. I would have a blast LOL

I haven’t done any in display maintenance in several years at least. The only thing that gets done is cleaning the glass with an algae magnet, that being said I’ve got enough WWC Slimeball anacropora to saturate the market for several years LOL.

 

[Blknovass]

I have had several RBT’s that I have sold back to my LFS but definitely not doing it as a business if I have colonies that get to large for my tank I gotta move them along.

 

[McPuff]

I do sell corals but I do not grow corals to sell them. Just sell when I break by accident, cut to make room for other corals, or prune to get a more desirable shape. Then I can either buy more corals, equipment, or supplies. It's just a way my hobby can support itself (or so I tell myself). :0)