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The Jellyfish Entrepreneur

blog.priceonomics.com

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Re: The Jellyfish Entrepreneur

#11

Post by kapsel »

I bought one of these, their latest ones, from a German company about a half year ago. It arrived, I followed the instructions and got it up and running within a couple of hours.

It takes at least a couple of weeks to settle, with the added reef salt and everything. Then I was going to purchase jellyfish - and found out that they actually cost more than 50$ a piece, because of overnight shipping (from Germany, I live in Denmark).

So I started doing some research on the tank, and read about 5 horror stories about how they always died within 3 days, even after following instructions very accurately.

I later emptied the tank, and now it's sitting in the attic.

Build quality is decent, but not perfect. After sitting still for about 3 months, the top lid started bending/skewing quite a lot, now it almost doesn't fit anymore. It's also quite noisy, not something that you'd like to sleep in the same room as.

If anyone wants a jellyfish tank where the jellyfish apparently dies within a couple of days, I have a cheap one for pickup here in Copenhagen.

Re: The Jellyfish Entrepreneur

#13

Post by josscrowcroft »

jrabone wrote: post #5

Hmmm. I don't know where they are in terms of sentience, but I kinda feel sorry for the jellyfish. It's the main reason I don't keep pets of any sort, but particularly fish. I love aquaria, but even the truly huge ones don't seem large enough - take the Lisbon Oceanário for example - hard not to feel sorry for that one Sunfish (maybe a metre across) just swimming in circles around a huge cylindrical tank. Keeping cep…

On the contrary – having them in close proximity might lead you to spend more time watching these puzzling and hauntingly beautiful creatures manifesting the same primordial intelligence out of which we evolved...

I think it's also important not to project our human minds onto jellyfish – it's very possible they are completely enlightened and are supposed to teach us something

Re: The Jellyfish Entrepreneur

#14

Post by carsongross »

"Then they can lower their prices grow again."

That would be deflationary and, as we all know, deflation is the worst possible thing that could happen, ever.

(Great story on true entrepreneurship in action and, in particular, the focus on lowering, lowering, lowering costs and bringing more to more people.)

Re: The Jellyfish Entrepreneur

#15

Post by aandon »

ph0rque wrote: post #3

Great article, Mr. Andon. We at AutoMicroFarm are in a very similar boat, as you know. It's fascinating that the barrier to further growth is breeding jellyfish to fill the demand of a cheaper aquarium, once it's released to market. Is Jelly Fish Art (the company) focused on researching the science of scaling the process? Have you looked into selling other exotic aquatic animals that fit the aquarium you've developed…

Hey guys, I'm a big fan of AutoMicroFarm. I hope it's going well. Indeed it's a small business, but all our development effort is going towards breeding jellies in a scalable manner. Unfortunately there are inherent lead times because we're dealing with a living animal, but we're patient. Yes, we looked into other exotic animals, but it would be as off-brand and out of our expertise as trying to build a database for dog and cat buyers, so we haven't pursued anything else.

Re: The Jellyfish Entrepreneur

#16

Post by aandon »

jrabone wrote: post #5

Hmmm. I don't know where they are in terms of sentience, but I kinda feel sorry for the jellyfish. It's the main reason I don't keep pets of any sort, but particularly fish. I love aquaria, but even the truly huge ones don't seem large enough - take the Lisbon Oceanário for example - hard not to feel sorry for that one Sunfish (maybe a metre across) just swimming in circles around a huge cylindrical tank. Keeping cep…

I'm a big environmentalist and supporter of animal rights. I originally wanted to be a marine biologist when I graduated college.

But I don't think keeping jellyfish in captivity is unethical. They're somewhere between a goldfish and a houseplant in terms of sentience. They have no central nervous system; just a loosely connected net of nerves that control their muscle contractions and very simple senses, like swimming towards light and migrating up in the water column at night and down during the day.

I would argue that it definitely is unethical to keep cephalapods in captivity unless they have a big tank and some sort of stimulation.

Re: The Jellyfish Entrepreneur

#18

Post by aandon »

kapsel wrote: post #11

I bought one of these, their latest ones, from a German company about a half year ago. It arrived, I followed the instructions and got it up and running within a couple of hours. It takes at least a couple of weeks to settle, with the added reef salt and everything. Then I was going to purchase jellyfish - and found out that they actually cost more than 50$ a piece, because of overnight shipping (from Germany, I live…

I'm really sorry to hear about your disappointing experience with the tank. We can set you up with some suppliers in Europe that you might not have tried yet. The jellies definitely should not die within a few days! If you want to email us I'll make sure you get taken care of.

Re: The Jellyfish Entrepreneur

#19

Post by MartinCron »

jrabone wrote: post #5

Hmmm. I don't know where they are in terms of sentience, but I kinda feel sorry for the jellyfish. It's the main reason I don't keep pets of any sort, but particularly fish. I love aquaria, but even the truly huge ones don't seem large enough - take the Lisbon Oceanário for example - hard not to feel sorry for that one Sunfish (maybe a metre across) just swimming in circles around a huge cylindrical tank. Keeping cep…

It's relatively common for people to keep small reef aquaria without any fish at all. Just corals and other invertebrates like shrimp, snails, urchins, etc.

I keep some very small fish in my reef tank, but I find my non-fish livestock generally more compelling.

Re: The Jellyfish Entrepreneur

#20

Post by MartinCron »

aandon wrote: post #16
jrabone wrote: post #5

Hmmm. I don't know where they are in terms of sentience, but I kinda feel sorry for the jellyfish. It's the main reason I don't keep pets of any sort, but particularly fish. I love aquaria, but even the truly huge ones don't seem large enough - take the Lisbon Oceanário for example - hard not to feel sorry for that one Sunfish (maybe a metre across) just swimming in circles around a huge cylindrical tank. Keeping cep…

I'm a big environmentalist and supporter of animal rights. I originally wanted to be a marine biologist when I graduated college. But I don't think keeping jellyfish in captivity is unethical. They're somewhere between a goldfish and a houseplant in terms of sentience. They have no central nervous system; just a loosely connected net of nerves that control their muscle contractions and very simple senses, like swimmi…

It's not only unethical for most people to keep cephalapods, but it's just a bad idea. They tend to escape from their habitats, some of them are extremely toxic, and almost all of them are very short-lived.
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