Do You Have a Blue Thumb?

Dell H Grecia

Raising fishes for aquarium and pet shops can be a profitable backyard business.

One noteworthy backyard endeavor would be to raise fishes for aquariums - especially now when there is a great demand for these from different pet shops in Metro Manila. Because these aquarium shops are doing brisk business, you can benefit from the windfall. Golden Oscar aquarium fish
My friend Abe V. Rotor shares his report of pet fishes. He calls the raiser Carlito G. Victoriano a “blue thumb-er- (green thumb is for gardeners, blue thumb for aquarium enthusiasts). Toto (meaning favorite) Carlito’s backyard project is located in Lagro Quezon City, where Abe also lives.

In his shop, you can buy rare kinds of goldfish, as well as the current favorite among celebrities, the giant aruana.

And if you already have an aquarium, you can order your regular feed ration and pick it up, drive thru-style. If you have questions about taking care of fish, Toto Carlito will be glad to answer them with a lecture-demonstration, free of charge.

As a result, his shop is always bustling with people and activity. School kids make it a point to drop by his place- during recess and after classes.

A. Becoming a Blue Thumb-er

Five years ago, Toto Carlito started his business in a modest way. He used to sell aquarium fishes in oxygen- filled plastic bags from his parked tricycle in front of the local church.

As soon as mass ended, children swarmed to his tricycle, their parents in tow, to buy the fishes in plastic bags.
 
Abe relates that on his part he asks his students in UST and St. Paul College to make an aquarium as part of their practicum-workshop.

It’s not an easy task, Abe cautions. “It’s like playing God- building a microcosm. It’s more than just science and art. Having a blue thumb is a natural gift- much in the same way that having a great thumb is.”

If you want to find out if you are a blue thumb-er, try to start an aquarium- minus an aerator and pump. If your fishes thrive, even without those gadgets, then you have that special gift.

B. Kataba Business

From an ambulant fish peddler, Toto Carlito put up his first aquarium shop in Lagro in 1997. A second shop has since opened in Muzon subdivision in Caloocan City.

When he learned that there is a big demand for Kataba (the small fish used as food for aruana, paco, ciclids and oscar), he ventured into the fishing for kataba or poeciliids which inhabit the whole length of San Jose del Monte River up to Sta. Maria and San Miguel, Bulacan.

Poeciliids have other names. In Marilao, it is called tora-tora; in Sta. Maria, bubundat; and in Bocaue and San Miguel, talundi. The fish is also abundant in the Pasig River and its tributaries up to Laguna Bay. Because they can also be found in polluted esteros and canals, they have dubbed “canal fish”. They serve as valuable biological agents in keeping malaria-and dengue- causing mosquitoes in check. The kataba is the no. 1 nemesis of the kiti-kiti or mosquito wrigglers.

Toto Carlito employs boats and nets to catch kataba. Daily catch averages 10 bags. A bag contains 30 tabos, equivalent to a liter; each tabo is repacked into 10 small bags. Pickup retail price per bag is P10. This means that the value of a day’s catch is worth P3, 000. With the two jeeps he bought from the earnings of his business, he is now doubling his daily output and supplying aquarium shops in Quezon City and Caloocan City.
 
C. Big Business or Bust

Raising juvenile aquarium fishes until they reach maturity is the major source of income for Toto Carlito’s shop. For example, an aruana, three to four inches long, cost P200. After thirty days and with proper care, it grows twice its size and would fetch P500. Growing juvenile species on a larger scale is Toto Carlito’s goal. If he fulfills this dream, he will be needing not only tanks but whole fishponds. He believes it would be very lucrative to go into breeding and exportation.

Abe shares another tip: He reports that there is an ongoing tropical fish sale in barangay Holy Spirit beside Don Antonio Heights 2, Commonwealth Avenue, Quezon City. Occupying more than an hectare, the sale site offers aquarium fishes, wholesale and retail. Holding pans are large, each accommodating hundreds of juveniles and ready-to- disperse stocks. Tropical fishes proliferate in Pampanga, where its stocks are bred and multiplied.

Toto Carlito dreams of going big- in the hope of strengthening our local capability to breed and export aquarium fishes. “If other countries are doing it, why can’t we?”

D. Family Business

Toto Carlito, a Negrense from Bacolod City, doesn’t hog all the credit for the success of his business.

“My family is my inspiration,” he proudly says. Corazon, his wife, manages the Lagro shop with the help of their young daughters: Grace, Flora May and Gladys. “We are training our children early. They are a great help after school,” Toto Carlito stresses.
 
He has a sister who also manages as aquarium shop, and four brothers who reside in the family’s home province and are successful in their own right.

Toto Carlito’s lives by this motto: “Be industrious, honest and friendly.”