# giving fry to pet stores?



## bananas

i see that some of you trade fry to pet stores for credits to buy fish supplies

i could really use this considering I change the filter every three days and water every 1 day

i asked petco but they said they dont take fish




Which stores do you take them to?


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## Damon

Jacks Aquarium will give store credit or cash if you go to their distribution center (Beavercreek, ohio)

Other than that, Its best to go to mom/pop stores vs chain stores.


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## cucci67

Yes, you want to go to local stores instead of you big petsmarts and petcos. They are more likely to take them for credit.


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## Mobydock

I've taken fish into Big Als, which is a large chain in Canada. They gave me half of what they could sell them for, in store credit. You might have a harder time selling fry rather than juvies or adults, because they're more sensitive and hard to sell if you can't see coloration. When I had problems with breeding betta Smaragdina, I traded in two males for $8 credit each and they only cost me $10 a pair. I just talked the sales guy up, he didn't know anything about wild or non-splenden bettas.


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## Mr Aquarium

bananas said:


> i see that some of you trade fry to pet stores for credits to buy fish supplies
> 
> i could really use this considering I change the filter every three days and water every 1 day
> 
> i asked petco but they said they dont take fish
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Which stores do you take them to?



I'm lost here, You change the filter evry 3 days? you mean new filter pad? and change water evryday?
I take it it;s a fry tank?
Why not just clean the filter and save the money?
seems kind of a waste changing filters evryday.............

On the other note, I wouldn;t Give a petshop a dead fish let alone a live fish....Unless they will credit you or something like that......
Petco n petsmarts most times won;t buy fish or give credit.....
Our LFS one of the guys said he would buy fry from me If i breed some fish, black cons for one.....so instead of 1 female the g.f told them she wanted two...
for some reason, the over priced place has not ordered fish for 3 weeks.......
They have nothing interesting at all not to mention hardly any fish at all.......
I'm tryng to figure out a way to get ahold of 20 or so 10gs so I can sell fish, 
would like to do it out of the house and show her how your spose to keep fish in a petshop.....


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## fishfreek4life

*stores*

Neighborhood stores, not large chains, are way more in tune to the average fish person. I have numerous I trade at, and a few I breed for. I have sent a few to PetsMart even, but that is a process nobody would ever dream of going through. 
I have found stores that take fry to be slim and far between. If possible, let them grow a little, then trade them in. I know around here it depends on the species as to what is taken.


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## hogan7

hey simpte how far is beavercreek from Oxford?


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## fish_doc

Most chain stores are locked into contracts and are not allowed to buy fish from the locals that in essance support their existance. A kind of ironey isn't it. But most smaller fish stores love buying from locals. Usually because they are use to the local water they are healther and less stressed. This leaves their customers with a better outlook of their store.


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## bananas

too bad i dont have any local fish stores. i live in portsmouth, nh

and all i've seen is petco and petsmart


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## TheOldSalt

Well, there should be plenty of shops within an hour's drive to try.

I don't turn fish in for credit.
I SELL my fish, and the stores buy them.

Think about it...does the shop give store credit to the fish wholesalers? Of course not.

If you make up a professional invoice that the store can really use at tax time, 
and if
your fish are absolutely healthy, sizeable, and colorful, 
and if 
they are already fully accustomed to local tapwater conditions,
then the store should be happy to buy them for a price similar to what they're already paying, which is around 1/3 retail price.

Here is how you sell fish:

1-- Have a bunch of good fish ready to sell. Do NOT, and I mean NEVER, ask the store owner if he's interested in buying some fry or some fish that you might be raising soon. If you are a "hobbyist" instead of a "breeder" then credit is all you'll ever get.
2-- Zip into the store and drop off a business card which says something like "farms" or "hatchery" on it which shall be part of your company name. Do not try to sell any fish at this point. Just drop off the card, along with a price sheet and maybe a picture of some good-looking fish, and get the heck out of there ASAP.
3-- Wait a few days or a couple of weeks.
4-- Bag up about a dozen sample fish and drop them off at the shop. These are FREE gifts to the store. Tell whoever is there that they are free samples for them to sell & enjoy.
5-- Wait 2-3 more weeks. Don't contact the shop in any way unless they first call you. During this time the true value of your fish will be revealed to the shop owner. If they're good, they will look better, sell better, and hold up better than the fish they normally buy from their wholesaler.
6-- After the first week, send a friend in to see if your fish have been sold. It might even help a bit to have your friend buy a few, making some comments about how nice they are & congratulating the shopkeeper on having such nice fish.
7-- After 3 weeks, go back into the store with an order form. Ask the shopkeeper how he liked your fish, which he should have liked very much, and ask if he's ready to order another batch. He usually will, and from then on you're set.

Fishstore managers want four things from their fish:

1- that they are fast sellers
2- that they are healthy & colorful & appealing
3- that they are easy to maintain with minimal hassle or cost
4- that they are cheap & profitable

If your fish meet these requirements, and you can prove it, you should have no trouble selling your fish to petshops for actual money. Even the chainstores will buy them after a great deal of paperwork hassle, but the price has to be very low. I can't stress enough the fact that a shop owner must know he'll be able to sell the fish before he'll even consider buying them. You might have a brood of 300 of the finest Oscars ever seen, but the shop can't use any more than a dozen every month at best. Danios are very cheap & common, but aren't really hot sellers you could ever hope to get more than 15 cents for most of the time. Discus & killies might sell for a very short while initially, but as the shops find them too difficult to sell, they usually won't buy them. 
Guppies, oddly enough, are very easy to sell *IF* they are spectacularly fine. It is very difficult for a petshop to get half-decent guppies at an affordable price, so they're usually very glad to buy local ones IF they are very colorful & healthy and adult sized. Don't expect to get much more than 75 cents apiece for them, though. Your fish might be those purebred wonders which are very expensive, but the shop still has to compete with the other nearby shops selling cheap junk guppies to an audience of hobbyists who don't know one guppy from the next.

Bear in mind that all petshops face the problem of minimum order requirements from their wholesalers, which is a dirty trick wholesalers use to discourage shopkeepers from ordering anywhere else. Because of this, they will sometimes have to refrain from buying your fish occasionally in order to meet the order requirements of their other suppliers.

The law of supply & demand cannot be ignored, either. If you offer fish which are in high demand, you can sell them. If you flood the market, though, you won't sell them for very long.

Oh, one last thing:
Petshops are all in some of the most brutal & cutthroat competiton imaginable with each other. If you dare to sell fish to multiple stores within the same immediate "territory," you'll very likely lose all of those customers. _The shops won't like the possibility that you are selling them the rejects the other stores didn't want._ The very _reason_ they are buying your superior fish is that they want something the other guys don't have. Pick one store in each large area and make certain they know that their territory is protected. Some guys won't mind, but some _will_. Good luck with that one.


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## solar-ton

you do know that theyll probally use them as feeders right?


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## bananas

I don't care much about making money, I just need a good place where I can put my excess fish, My tank isn't very big.


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## Lara

If you can't sell them, give them away, put an ad in the 'want to buy' forum and someone will happily take them off your hands, good luck 

P.S. Great advice The Old Salt!


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## maxpayne_lhp

> I don't care much about making money, I just need a good place where I can put my excess fish, My tank isn't very big.[.quote]
> True... they overreproduce so that could be a concern for aquarists.


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## Georgia Peach

y'know, that is something that you NEVER see around here.. people wanting to give away fry - Im not really sure why - Im sure there are tons of people that have them!


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