CNNMoney.com
Companies Economy International Corrections Pre-market Trading After-hours Trading Winners/Losers/Actives Bonds Currencies Commodities World Markets Money Magazine Real Estate Taxes Jobs Ask the Expert Money 101 Autos Mutual Funds The Help Desk Loan Center Best Places to Live Ask the Expert Ultimate Guide to Retirement Retirement Calculators Best Funds Best Places to Retire Fortune Brainstorm Tech Apple 2.0 Blog Big Tech Blog Sectors and Stocks Tech Talk Resource Guide Small Business Makeovers Questions & Answers Small Business Video 100 Best Places to Launch FSB 100 Fortune Small Business Fortune 500 Brainstorm Tech Investing Management C-Suite Rankings Main Create Portfolio Edit Portfolio Create Alerts Edit Alerts

Frozen-shrimp-eating seahorses

A small business in Hawaii brings in a healthy profit by breeding and shipping more than 5,000 of these creatures a year.

By Diana Rosenthal, FSB Contributor

(FSB Magazine) -- The owners of Ocean Rider call this variety of seahorse "Sunburst," but its proper name is hippocampus erectus - one of 20 species that Carol Cozzi-Schmarr, 45, and her husband, Craig Schmarr, 44, breed on their ranch in Kailua-Kona, Hawaii.

Ocean Rider (seahorse.com) ships more than 5,000 seahorses a year. Seven varieties are marketed as pets to discerning sea-life enthusiasts, who pay as much as $1,000 to place a colorful 12-inch seahorse in their saltwater tanks. The nine-inch Sunburst sells for $185.

Ocean Rider seahorses are bred to eat frozen shrimp, which makes them easier to keep than those taken wild from the ocean, which need fresh food.

To increase revenue, Ocean Rider has opened up to tourists, who are invited to take turns wrapping seahorses around their fingers. Top of page

To write a note to the editor about this article, click here.

Sponsors
© 2009 Cable News Network. A Time Warner Company. All Rights Reserved. Terms under which this service is provided to you. Privacy Policy
Copyright © 2009 BigCharts.com Inc. All rights reserved. Please see our Terms of Use.
MarketWatch, the MarketWatch logo, and BigCharts are registered trademarks of MarketWatch, Inc.
Intraday data provided by Interactive Data Real-Time Services and subject to the Terms of Use.
Intraday data is at least 20-minutes delayed. All times are ET.
Historical, current end-of-day data, and splits data provided by Interactive Data Pricing and Reference Data.
Fundamental data provided by Morningstar, Inc..
SEC Filings data provided by Edgar Online Inc..
Earnings data provided by FactSet CallStreet, LLC.