# Is selling plants profitable?



## OVT (Nov 29, 2011)

Depends on what plants and depends on your definition of "profitable".

My short answer would be no.

v3


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## AaronT (Apr 11, 2004)

Yes. It comes out to about $1 / hour and then gets spent on the hobby all over again.


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## cjstl (Mar 4, 2013)

Search the WTB forums and find out what people want. Certain plants that are hard to find at the chain stores and LFS could bring you some money. Flame moss, weeping moss, fissidens, xmas/taiwan moss, the more exotic carpeting plants. Go to some of the big online plant sellers and see what is consistently sold out.

There are some plants I can't get to grow or that grow very slowly in my low tech tanks. Right now I'm wishing I had more marsilea minuta and crypt parva. But I have more DHG, dwarf sag, and crypt wendtii than I need, because they grow so easily. And don't waste your time on plants that grow like weeds such as hornwort and najas. I got a few free clippings of those here and there and my tanks are full of them.


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## ua hua (Oct 30, 2009)

AaronT said:


> Yes. It comes out to about $1 / hour and then gets spent on the hobby all over again.


Yes, but if you can put in around 168 hours a week for 52 weeks a year that's around $8,736 a year. Then the govt will take their cut and you should be left with about $4,000 of pure profit. 

Just about enough to buy the new iPhone:eek5:


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## HybridHerp (May 24, 2012)

ua hua said:


> Yes, but if you can put in around 168 hours a week for 52 weeks a year that's around $8,736 a year. Then the govt will take their cut and you should be left with about $4,000 of pure profit.
> 
> 
> 
> Just about enough to buy the new iPhone:eek5:



Lol, that's a good one.

No, I don't know if you can really make profit. Maybe do emersed setups if you want a lot of easy plant mass to sell, but if selling submerged I think you may want multiple high tech setups that are grow tanks for a variety of species.


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## tbarlow (Jun 23, 2014)

> Certain plants that are hard to find at the chain stores and LFS could bring you some money. Flame moss, weeping moss, fissidens, xmas/taiwan moss, the more exotic carpeting plants. Go to some of the big online plant sellers and see what is consistently sold out.


It's interesting that you said that about the carpeting plants, because I was kayaking and I found some plants that I've never seen before. Grass that never got higher than half an inch and some carpeting plant under 1/4 inch that can't get any higher because it grows by division, not with creeping runners. If I can get those to grow well I might have found the jackpot, two carpeting plants smaller than anything else in the hobby. I'll post a pic later. It would be amazing if I could sell those.


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## HybridHerp (May 24, 2012)

You'd want to flower them and get a positive ID from Cavan


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## Aquatic Delight (Mar 2, 2012)

the only way to really make good money from it, is to find a supplier, purchase plants from them, and then resell. or to have a lot of tanks in your home..... 

trying to make a profit with just a few tanks at home, growing plants emmersed, like a parva, or DHG will take far to long just to recoup the start up cost, most of these plants grow faster emmeresed. so what i would do is start emmersed boxes, grow them until they are large enough for sale and sell them. the start up is a little cheaper.

but honestly i think once you start trying to make money from this hobby it stops being fun, and you don't enjoy it as much.


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## Axelrodi202 (Jul 29, 2008)

At most it'll give you enough money to fund new hobby expenditures. Honestly what I'm trying to do instead of growing for profit is start an emersed collection of many species so I have them available for future tanks instead of having to buy a bunch later when I need to use them.


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