Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

A foot long Fish.. unless you have a market in your area where you are not contending with the imports from Japan..
Are a costly thing to mail out to customer's..
Anything bigger than say 8" is a pain to mail..

Plus all you need is one incident where the fish don't get to the customer in a safe Live matter you can expect to get a bad reputation..
- there are 1 or 2 people from Koiphen who have gotten fish shipments where they have not survived and the condition of the one that have has not been Good. You don't want to burn your own reputation.. and no I will not name, names..

so unless you have people in the area that are will to buy your fish, it is not an easy game..

Also being on the west coast there are quite a few Japanese imports that come in..

Koi are not a fish to deal with litely..

Definitely need a QT to isolate new fish.. know how to introduce new fish to the other's..
they are not a fish that could live and grow to any standards that aren't pleasing to the eye..

- they need a stable pH so you need to constant deal with kH/gH of the pond..[constant Calcium source is optimum..]

Look I would not recommend Koi as a Fish to grow own for a profit..


Actually read/watched a few Video's that said to make money from AP, you are better of relying on the food production side and the fish are just the cream.. you can harvest the plants every 4-6weeks compared to fish which are on a 6-8mth period..

Sorry Koi are not an ideal fish to deal with..


Look in the long run most breeders from 1 breeding pair, if they get 1 fish out of 1million that is worth the money they are doing good..
- My contact in CO that breed Chogi is Lucky as he can keep the fish comfortable all year round,, But at a Cost..
- food is bought by the pallet Load..
- the fish are feed 3-5 times daily and they get from 1-2kg of food at a session.. Not cheap..

So What I'm trying to say is Koi are not a get rich scheme fish..
- Need to be able to sell locally with the people coming to you..
- Need to have a Good QT policy..
- Need to have Stable Water..
- Need good food/light to get those nice colour's..
- Need to have what people want..

Juergen

So let me be clear as I indicated in my post. I am not looking to get rich or make a living selling koi. What I am talking most about is when they get so big it may over whelm my system. So selling them once they get big I thought would be a little profit. I don't plan on selling the produce unless I get over whelmed by the amounts. I was thinking of breeding the koi as for tank replenishment only should I sell one. To be honest I may just give them away or sell them for low price. Maybe one day I might consider selling for a profit but right now it's just what if I get to much lbs in the tank. I'd hate for them to die because of ignorance. Also I may talk to the guy that sells them to maybe get some leads unless he himself does business for larger size koi. But from what I can tell he only sells fry. I also talked to a koi dealer in fresno (nearest kinda large city) and spoke of the same issues you have. I may see if he'd be willing to do business with me as I can stock his shelves occasionally. He mentioned he has a lot of clients and heck who knows maybe a profitable side job depending on what a few say.


Sorry for typos I'm typing on my iPhone.

Markymark, when I was buying koi to stock my pond I searched the local papers etc to try and save a bit of money and for every 10 phone calls I made, 9 had already sold that morning.

I would assume the USA is similar to Aus. in that there are always people wanting to stock ponds with mature koi. I don't think you will have any problems selling them if you price them reasonably as you said. Maybe sticking with more popular gosanke type koi would help?

Good luck and make sure you post some pics of your koi.

I will for sure, I haven't even got the plumbing for my tank yet. I presume the cycling will start near end of this month. But hopefully ready for aquatic life mid April, if you wanna see my misplaced thread here ya go: viewtopic.php?t=11728




Sorry for typos I'm typing on my iPhone.

I have about 4kg of cuttlefish "calcium carbonate" in the system. Easy for me one trip to the beach after a storm gets enough for a year min.

My system/pond which has a constant source of Calcium in it consumes about 3-4kg every few month's..
The pH is extremely stable.. and I want it to stay that way..


Juergen