4 replies to this topic

[me]

My brother and i are thinking seriously of starting up an aquarium plant farm.
I was just wondering what everyones views are on this, what type of plants, how you think it should be done and if there will be many buyers....
We sort of have soem plans by using hydroponics.
Just wondering if like natrual sunlight is enough ........umm does it need to be in a humid room, or just shaded area etc etc!

[Terry]

Hi Me
Natural sunlight will be enough but you will need to build a hothouse/glasshouse to do it properly.A lot of the plants are grown out of water with auto misting, some like shade and some like it a bit brighter.
There are already a couple of people growing Aquarium plants
comercially in Perth and its unlikley they will share info so it would be wise to do lots of research before you invest $$$
Terry

[shaperau]

Me: I applaud your thinking! it is good for you to be thinking of business ideas. as terry said, research is everything when looking at a business, but i think your idea is something that could be done on the cheap without a lot of overhead.
Start of small doing to quality plants. you are young so its not like you are placing all your hopes for eating for the week on selling lots, so start small, build a good customer base. terry says there are people doing plants already in perth but i have only seen one shop that has really good quality plants and they are imported as far as i am aware.
it is fantastic your are thinking like this, i wish you all the best, but always do your research (but as i said i think you could implement your idea fairly basically, so even if it didnt work you wouldnt lose hardly any money at all)
good luck!

[mtchye]

OK Blake, I have been to several plant farms and this is how they have them set up. A green house with high humidity. Hydroponic tanks where the plants are grown emersed (out of water) with banks and banks of water pipe over them spraying out a constant mist to keep the leaves moist.

Its not difficult to do and if you want plant advice I've kept almost every type available in Perth.. There may be a niche market if you grow harder to get/rarer plants. These are often slower growing or dont grow emersed, so the growers dont bother too much with them..

All you need is a green house, a pump, reticulation pipe, and your hydroponics setup. Sunlight will be fine.

Some easy plants to grow emersed are sword plants. I have a large plant that constantly throw out flower stalks. These stalks have 20-30 nodes on them that if you put them under water will produce 2 to 3 plants per node.

Others that grow much faster emersed include anubias species, java fern species (of which the attractive looking 'windelov' variegated tip variety is not in common production yet), bolbitis... These would all be worth cultivating as they fetch better prices in stores.

Advantages of growing emerse including no algae problems, and no need for expensive CO2 supplementation (as CO2 is much more abundant in air than in water)...

Good luck and as other have said, not difficult to do. May be a fun project and I have heaps of sword plant flower stalks to start you off with..

Vince

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