Advice? 20 gallon Coral frag tank

I personally have a lot of high end sps and frag them all the time. I mostly sell them far below retail to help others get a good price on expensive sps and also fund new equipment for my tank. It's not a huge money maker by any means.

 

I use my frag tanks for all types of corals that I have trimmed from my display and trade or sell cheap to other reefers. I also use one of my frag tanks as a type of quarantine/acclimation tank for new or corals I am having problems with. It's easier to take them out of there than my display for dipping or whatever. And for new corals so they can get used to my lighting which is same as my display. I use to on one frag tank and halide-t5 on my other and t5 on my display.

 

Good luck with the profits, figuring in everything it will take to raise, maintain, and then grow out the corals (even soft corals, double or triple the time frame for sps) most people are lucky to break even on what theyve spent in water, power, salt, additives and general upkeep costs. Sorry to seem so blunt, its just the reality of the hobby.

 

i use my frag tank for 3 things.
1. To get corals that I trim out of the display and keep them alive for others to enjoy.
2. Extra space to keep livestock until I find a way to fit it into my display.
3. A place to put corals that my semi-reef safe fish decide to try to eat.

As far as setting up a for profit system, as others have stated typically high end frags that retail for hundreds of dollars are sold for 10-20% of their retail cost. When you have a mature tank you can make $$ because those colonies are big and you can sell multiple frags, but that takes significant time and investment. When I say make $$ I am not referring to profit, just a little cash coming in, I doubt it would really be a profit if you accounted for the costs.

Some zoas however, if they are still popular may be profitable. I remember I bought 2 heads of a fancy zoa for $10 a head. It grew fast in my tank and at $1-2 per head I've probably made $500 on it over the past 4 years and still have a healthy colony in my tank.