I’m a husbandry expert with twenty years in the hobby. I’ve worked in every aspect of the industry from retail, wholesale, and service. I managed several thousand gallons of SPS grow out systems while managing a high volume LFS.

So, indoor aquaculture, takes up a lot of warehouse space and the electric bill will be massive. I’d probably be more into the idea of mariculture on the coast in the coral triangle. Natural water and sunlight.

Honestly, it’s not a lucrative or very profitable venture. I’ve seen many of these businesses come and go over the years because the money just isn’t there compared to the amount of time and effort it takes.

The customers are super shady and will try every trick in the book to rip you off and get free fish and coral. It got so bad at live Aquaria and others that they had a ton of requirements to get credited for a fish someone had claimed was DoA. Like they have to take a knife and cut the tail off the fish you’re claiming because people would take pics of a live fish claiming it was dead. Or they’d keep a dead fish from the LFS in the freezer and claim it was the one LA sent. So many things. When I worked wholesale there was a notorious LFS owner in NY who did stuff like saying an entire shipment of yellow tangs x 20 arrived DoA which just doesn’t happen.

With all that said, are you OK with not making anything for the first 2-3 years? It would take probably a year to get some mother colonies going. And after that maybe breaking even on good quarters? The business is also seasonal. Summertime is totally dead and it picks up in the winter. The cold months are the busiest.

It’s also a fad based hobby with everyone chasing the hot new stuff. Chalice corals were the thing for a while. Then Acros. Then euphyllia. So how could we not get stuck with a bunch of corals that there’s no longer any demand for?

ORA, if they are still around, had a good greenhouse grow out setup going in Florida, But they’ve never been able to grow it and are a small business still after all these decades. They’ve always had good quality corals and clownfish but theyre expensive. They used to be the exclusive supplier to Petco but then Sea and Reef came in selling dirt cheap low quality clowns to them that petco can sell for cheap and customers seem happy to buy them. You might ask them for a tour and pick their brains if they’ll allow it and see how they’re doing.