Captive Breeding

Bangaii Cardinals, Clowns, pseudochromis maybe, and seahorses are all captive bread I believe.
I think of all of those Bangaiis would be the easiest, but I think a seahorse species tank would be awesome.

 

I saw a post on RC where someone bred yellow watchman gobies. Not sure how tough it was compared to clowns.

 

neon gobies, cleaner/pepermint shrimp,

How about one of these angelfish at $1k a peice:
http://www.liveaquaria.com/product/prod_display.cfm?pcatid=2047&N=3

 

I think your question would be best asked here:

http://www.marinebreeder.org/

Matt Pedersen (sp?) and the others there have put together very nice writeups on individual species/genus, including how difficult they are to breed and why. Just go through their forums, I'm sure they've got everything there you'd want to know.

 

When you say you like a challege you really mean it, i think you should do something fun like sea horses, not to many people do it, they seems to do most of the work, there cool, they sell good, and there pretty. Also if you can't find your copy of clownfish let me know, your more than welcome to borrow mine

 

Bangaii, Seahorses, Clownfish, other cardinals, shrimp Pretty much anything on ORA's website can be bred in a home setup. Having had messed with most of them I would say only pick one thing and do it right. I spread myself too thin and it became less fun... Clowns are fun and not too hard. Bangaiis are so easy they get boring. Seahorses are hard to find healthy and keep, but the fry are easier to raise. Everything else is much harder and should only be attempted if you really are locked into breaking into a species. Mandarins and shrimp get hard because of their long growouts as an example.

 

If you are planning on attempting to sell to any LFS (to make some $$ back, probably will still be losing $$) - the first thing you should start with are false perc's. If you're just looking for a challenge and you're not worried about making money from the offspring - I say pick something that not everyone is doing and see if you can be successful.

Remember tho you've got to do something with all the surviving offspring - so I'd at least find a LFS that would be willing to at least take the fish from you and try to sell them if they're not interested in buying them. Travis may have more suggestions on this since he's bred in the past.

I would second Ryan's suggestion of checking out that breeding site. LOTS of great info there from how to setup your broodstock/fry/growout system to tips/logs of breeding and raising specific species.

 

gold stripe maroon clowns or blue stripe clarki

 

Your break even or bread and butter fish is the orange ocellaris. They pay the bills. The black clowns Chris got in were from ORA before Katrina. He had to buy so many dollars worth of clowns to be allowed to purchase their frag packs. I plan to breed clowns again soon, but will try to keep it to a smaller scale. It gets addicting!!! I would get 2-3 pairs of orange ocellaris and then one or two other pairs of anything that I really wanted to work with. The reason for 2-3 pairs is you never know which pair will spawn and which won't. If you can find previously spawned clowns get them. Unspawned pairs typically take 1-2 years to spawn. Previously spawned pairs take a few months if you work them right. As for Skunks, I am not a fan and they are one of the more difficult to get spawning. Not to mention they are not great sellers. Clarkiis are fun clowns that spawn the fastest typically and are easy to growout. Maroons have small fry that can be difficult to growout and the babies must be sold in small numbers and kept seperate.

 

As for making money, make sure you are comfortable with this being a hobby and not an investment. Things happen and broodstock or whole clutches of fry can be lost over night. I lost 35 nearly all black clowns (no stripes) that I had been working 3 years to get overnight because an airpump that had been on a shelf over their tank for years had a diaphram crack and vibrated off the shelf into their tank... That was when i decided to cash out and sell all of my broodstock before we moved. Thank god I did!!!

 

Found some mated Percs for a decent price if someone wanted them. I do not know the person or anything... just passing it along.

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1305566

 

If they are the ones in the frogspawn picture they are very nice. Mated only means they tolerate each other though. It can still cut a few months off your prep time to get them spawning.