Money

Landing a profit after Finding Nemo

By Wang Ru (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-05-17 08:01

From left: Yu Wei, Hu Haiwei, Wang Yuan and Zhang Chenguang watch their baby clown fish. [Wang Ru / China Daily]

After seven years, four Beijingers successfully tank-breed the clown fish featured in the film

In a 3,300-sq-m courtyard in northern Beijing's Changping district stands two large greenhouses where thousands of clown fish come into existence every day.

It is perhaps the only successful base for tank-bred clown fish on the Chinese mainland and the colorful ocean dwellers, native to the warm waters of the Indian and Pacific oceans, have at last found a home in Beijing.

The success story came about after seven years of unyielding effort and devotion by four men in their 30s who quit their jobs, secured loans against their homes and bore financial losses and the risk of losing everything to finally make their dream come true.

Seven years ago, Wang Yuan, 35, an IT engineer and lover of ornamental fish, made three friends on an online forum that attracted people with the same love of raising fish.

One day, the four drove together to Tianjin to visit a large ornamental fish market there.

"We found we not only had the same hobby, but also shared many similarities in our personalities," said Zhang Chenguang, 38, one of the four partners. "Maybe it was destiny that brought us together. We decided to extend our hobby into a business and start breeding and selling ornamental fish."

It was the same year the Disney animated blockbuster Finding Nemo hit the worldwide box office and the star of the film, a clown fish named Nemo, won millions of hearts in China and opened up a huge potential market.

The four young men in Beijing sensed an opportunity and made up their minds to explore the possible gold mine. But in those early days, they had no idea of the hardships that lay ahead.

Since the beginning of the 1990s, tropical ornamental fish had been popular in China. Such collections were even a sign of fortune for rich businessmen who would spend a lot of money on big aquariums to keep a wide variety of rare fish in their homes of offices.

"Most of them started with great passion, however, they often ended up feeling heartbroken after learning that tropical fish can easily die if they are not kept in the proper environment and fed the right food," said Wang.

At the time, Wang bought several clown fish, but they all died within a few days.

"All the clown fish were captured in the sea near Indonesia and shipped to the booming market in China, but the wild fish often died of disease or the stress from their capture and shipping," said Wang.

Breeding the fish in tanks seemed to be the only way to introduce the species to the wide Chinese market.

"The mass capture of wild fish was upsetting the balance of the oceanic ecosystem and inevitably causing other problems," Wang said.

Back then, Wang had lots of spare time and earned a good salary - he invested both into exploring the field.

He checked overseas websites and online forums to try to find out how to breed clown fish.

His three partners, Zhang, Yu Wei and Hu Haiwei, also got involved, buying instant salt, feed and other necessities from abroad.

Wang was surprised to find there was demand in the United States for 1.5 million clown fish annually. He discovered most of the ornamental clown fish were tank-bred in Europe and the US in facilities that were near the coastline, much like Beijing.

But Wang took the information he found and designed an aquarium with a micro ecosystem that he thought was capable of supporting clown fish. He even made an artificial wave-maker to simulate the movement of the ocean.

After three years, the first pair of clown fish laid about three thousand eggs at Wang's home and all survived like a miracle and the men started to sell the fish for 30 yuan each.

Inspired by their success, the four men made a bold decision - to set up a full-time business selling clown fish and make it their career.

In the meantime, Wang received a dream job offer in his old career from Microsoft, which meant he had the chance to become a senior engineer and earn significant money.

Wang finally made an important decision, to give up his career and the offer from Microsoft and throw himself fully into the world of clown fish.

"Many people could do much better than me as a computer engineer but I felt I could be the best at raising clown fish. I was sure it would be my lifelong career," Wang said.

So, the men secured bank loans against their homes and started renting farm land in a northern suburb of Beijing, where they built a greenhouse that would be used for incubation.

During that first year of what was supposed to be large-scale operations, there was a problem: none the baby clown fish survived in the greenhouse and Wang came to realize that it was a totally different prospect to breed fish on a large scale than at home.

"Temperature, food, water and disease, anything wrong could cause mass deaths among the fish," he said.

Wang moved to the greenhouse. To maintain the temperature, the partners set up a coal-fired heating system and Wang often slept next to the boiler to make sure it did not go out, burning himself awake more than once.

The four partners did everything, from feeding the fish to cleaning the tank and after another three years of painstaking efforts, they finally figured out the perfect formula.

Today, about 30,000 clown fish, including some rare species, are born in the greenhouses each month and the men are confident about the company, Asian Marine Fantastic.

They have developed a range of related products that now carries their logo, including feed and a recent best-seller - a mini aquarium perfectly suited for everyday clown fish lovers that mimics the ecosystem they need, down to coral and plankton.

And while they are making a profit from selling their clown fish, the quartet is not satisfied. Their next dream is to breed hippocampi, a disappearing species that is widely sought after for medical uses.

"Consumers and the market won't trust the popular concept of environmental protection but always chase cheaper and better substitutes," Wang said. "The tank-bred species will both meet the market demands and reduce the pressure on nature."

After their story was widely reported, some entrepreneurs found the men and wanted to get involved, offering investment money and cooperation. To Wang's delight, marine experts also sought them out, wanting to learn from the partners' experiences.

Every weekend, the men now meet at their fish farm and share their love and passion for the marine world, just as they did seven years ago on the Internet.

And the first pair of clown fish that laid those first eggs all those years ago are still involved as well, happily still producing thousands of offspring every month.