jobs that work with aquariums

[NoahLikesFish]

i want a job that mixes with a hobby becasue a job thats just a job is just school and school is boring and i dont want to be bored my whole life working 9-5 then being tired then having to go to bed because im so tired not beign able to enjoy my tank or my life.

 

[Gtinnel]

is 22-30$ an hour to be an aquarium contractor a good wage?

How good a salary is depends greatly upon the cost of living where you live. Where I live that range is a livable wage (I don't know that I'd consider it good though), but I'd imagine if I lived in a large city like New York City it would not be. My salary is at the higher end of that range and mine is a job I got with no education. I work a job that is a kind of a hobby for many people and it sounds like it would be fun but it isn't because it's my job.

 

[LiveFreeAndReef]

i want a job that mixes with a hobby becasue a job thats just a job is just school and school is boring and i dont want to be bored my whole life working 9-5 then being tired then having to go to bed because im so tired not beign able to enjoy my tank or my life.

A job that is your hobby is still a job. Do you get paid to go to school? 9-5 is only 8 hours, there are 24 hours in a day. If you can't enjoy your tank or life with the remaining 16 hours then you deserve to be bored lol

 

[Casket_Case]

It’s super hard to be an entrepreneur, you will need another job if you’re going to be an entrepreneur, starting out is super rough. You can have a great and fair business and fail just because of competition, your size, the customer, the economy et cetera.

It is very hard to get stability in marine biology, so many people do it already because they ‘love dolphins or whatever’. There is a lot of competition in the marine biology field.

If you do want to go into the field then I would suggest marine science because your field of knowledge is broader so your work is broader. You could even go to aftergrad and end up working as an educator for Marine Science.

Don’t think I’m being harsh, I wanted to do the same as you. I was just in your position. But after talking to people and learning more I figured out that it just isn’t right for me and my calling is elsewhere. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t for you!

Just make sure you really look into what degree you could get and what you can do with it, and explore every option you have. Talk to people about it! Email your closest Aquarium, fraternize with the coordinators! Find out if there’s any college educators nearby that teach marine science or marine biology and talk to them, set up a date to visit them in their classroom! Most people won’t turn you away… they love talking about what they do. Especially people who are into science. And when these old science people find young interested and eager science people that’s when you get things set

 

[attiland]

Just my two cents: even the most fun job is still work. I'm a scientist and I love marine ecology, but I protect my love of coral reefs from my professional interests because every job....even the jobs you're most passionate about...become a chore.

To echo what others have said, I suggest that you get a decent salary doing something that pays reasonably well and just enjoy your home tank.

I think you are really wrong at this. The most important thing about work is you enjoy it. If you don’t enjoy work you are in the wrong trade and 1/3 of your life is just s*ks

 

[Gtinnel]

Just because a your career doesn't revolve around your hobby doesn't mean you have to work a job that you hate. Find a field that pays well and is something that'll you'll enjoy doing. IME how much you like a job has almost as much to do with the people you work with as much as the job itself. I work a job playing slot machines and online games like blackjack, it sounds cool but it isn't fun because it's what I do everyday. That isn't to say I dislike my job because I don't, but I attribute that to the fact that the people I work with are like a second family to me.

If you were to start your own business, selling coral for instance ( a pretty common business for hobbyists to evolve into) I bet growing corals isn't as fun when if you screw up and kill them you suddenly can't pay your mortgage.

IMO hobby and job shouldn't mix, anything that you are required to do everyday to support yourself/family will make it to where in your free time you won't want to do it. Hobbies are supposed to be a nice distraction from your job.

 

[Dcal]

Just because a your career doesn't revolve around your hobby doesn't mean you have to work a job that you hate. Find a field that pays well and is something that'll you'll enjoy doing. IME how much you like a job has almost as much to do with the people you work with as much as the job itself. I work a job playing slot machines and online games like blackjack, it sounds cool but it isn't fun because it's what I do everyday. That isn't to say I dislike my job because I don't, but I attribute that to the fact that the people I work with are like a second family to me.

If you were to start your own business, selling coral for instance ( a pretty common business for hobbyists to evolve into) I bet growing corals isn't as fun when if you screw up and kill them you suddenly can't pay your mortgage.

IMO hobby and job shouldn't mix, anything that you are required to do everyday to support yourself/family will make it to where in your free time you won't want to do it. Hobbies are supposed to be a nice distraction from your job.

Yup. Marine bio here and was interning in lab that worked with reef stuff and lines got blurred and then I moved to a different field in marine bio. Thing is that there's so much diversity in what people study that you CAN separate reef keeping and career in marine biology

Academia is awesome imo and you can diversify your research enough away from reef keeping but still benefit from knowing the things that apply to both

 

[Chrisv.]

is 22-30$ an hour to be an aquarium contractor a good wage?

I suggest that you do a little homework here, and try not to get too discouraged.

Go to Zillow and find a house in your ideal community/city/state that you want to live in. There is a "monthly expenses" tab. Check out how much that costs.

Next, build a budget based on how much the other things you will want to pay for will cost. Things like electricity, internet service, etc. Talk with your parents about how much these expenses cost for them.

Next think about long term savings, because long term savings and investment is more important when you're young than most people realize until they hit middle aged. Plan to invest 10% into retirement, so that you have a stable long term future.

If you plan to have a kid, think about how much you will need to set aside from each paycheck for college savings.

Now check out how much you will pay for income taxes at various salary ranges.

Play with the numbers and decide how much money you need to make to have the life you envision for yourself and your future family.

This is something every highschool student should do when figuring out what career to go for.

 

[LiveFreeAndReef]

I suggest that you do a little homework here, and try not to get too discouraged.

Go to Zillow and find a house in your ideal community/city/state that you want to live in. There is a "monthly expenses" tab. Check out how much that costs.

Next, build a budget based on how much the other things you will want to pay for will cost. Things like electricity, internet service, etc. Talk with your parents about how much these expenses cost for them.

Next think about long term savings, because long term savings and investment is more important when you're young than most people realize until they hit middle aged. Plan to invest 10% into retirement, so that you have a stable long term future.

If you plan to have a kid, think about how much you will need to set aside from each paycheck for college savings.

Now check out how much you will pay for income taxes at various salary ranges.

Play with the numbers and decide how much money you need to make to have the life you envision for yourself and your future family.

This is something every highschool student should do when figuring out what career to go for.

The things you wish they taught in school! Thank goodness I understand the Dewey Decimal System though

 

[linkedsilas]

Speaking as a zookeeper of 14 years, I got burnt out. I have only 2 pets now. A parrot and a reef tank. I gave all my energy to work and hardly any at home. You make zero money, limited jobs and its competitive as all hell.

 

[terraincognita]

Anything aquarium related would be near minimum wage or on a volunteer basis. LFSs, public aquariums, aquarium service companies, marine research close to the ocean, working for a master tank builder

Not a whole lot of opportunities bc the industry is so small. Only 750,000 ppl in the US that are into saltwater...which is 2% of the population

Pet Industry Market Size, Trends & Ownership Statistics

www.americanpetproducts.org

Apparently it's actually now 2.9 million households.

Ha. and us millennials have taken over there as well .

 

[flashsmith]

A good friend of mines wife is a marine biologist and worked at sea world for awhile. One of her jobs was to help "relieve" the male whales and dolphins a couple of times a week to prevent tank aggression. So there's always that... Her degree paid nothing and she has been out of the field for over a decade.

 

[Tamberav]

i might do marine biology if i dont have to travel alot.

I mean you would probably have to move. Like biota is hiring for those with experience and degrees by you have to move to Hawaii (where it is illegal to keep coral and import things so it limits what you can keep at home).

Keep in mind once you make your hobby into a job that the hobby often becomes just that… less fun and more of a job.

Now there are some jobs out there probably restoring reefs and diving but those are difficult to get to the point of discouragement.

Sometimes the best jobs are about who you know and not about schooling.

I think being a zookeeper who works with cheetahs and the dogs would be awesome but the pay to get there is garbage and probably not easily achievable. The last show I watched they hired the ladies daughter (The who you know part) and cleaning up poop for years for minimum wage and still having to go into college debt just to have a slim chance… eh.

 

[Dcal]

I mean you would probably have to move. Like biota is hiring for those with experience and degrees by you have to move to Hawaii (where it is illegal to keep coral and import things so it limits what you can keep at home).

Keep in mind once you make your hobby into a job that the hobby often becomes just that… less fun and more of a job.

Now there are some jobs out there probably restoring reefs and diving but those are difficult to get to the point of discouragement.

@Tamberav hit it right on the nose

@NoahLikesFish less than 1% of the ocean is reef theres so much more that you can still do in marine biology/ecology/chemistry/pharmacology/geology/engineering/physics that wont make ur reef feel like a job

 

[Dcal]

For example: one of my profs has this going on

Deep Sea Anti-Cancer Drug Discovered by Scripps Scientists Enters Final Phase of Clinical Trials

A promising brain cancer drug discovered from a deep sea ocean microbe by researchers at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at University of California San Diego is making headway toward public use.

scripps.ucsd.edu

still marine related but very much not reef keeping

 

[Biokabe]

i want a job that mixes with a hobby becasue a job thats just a job is just school and school is boring and i dont want to be bored my whole life working 9-5 then being tired then having to go to bed because im so tired not beign able to enjoy my tank or my life.

You should do something you enjoy for your work, but turning your hobbies into your job often leads to burnout, stress, low wages and losing that hobby.

The reason is pretty simple: When you do something professionally, there are certain obligations and realities that simply don't apply when you just do something as a hobby.

For example: Imagine you enjoy playing music, and decide you want to do it professionally. When you just want to play music, all you have to do is... play music. Simple.

But if you want to do it professionally, you have to play music, keep up with industry trends, develop your own abilities, learn how to connect with audiences, interact with fans on social media, put together albums, upload videos to YouTube, go on tour, design merchandise, sell merchandise, sell tickets, and put up with the special joys of interacting with other musicians. Or, if you're a studio or classical musician... well, now you can sub some of those things for socializing with patrons, building up relationships with producers, managing your resume, and teaching other people how to play.

Notice how few of those things are something other than "playing music," the thing that the hypothetical you actually enjoyed. You might end up enjoying some or all of those things, but they are not playing music.

And that's just one of the pitfalls with turning a hobby into a job. Professional requirements don't just go away because you enjoy aspects of the job, and often those professional requirements can absolutely kill your love of the hobby.

 

[attiland]

i want a job that mixes with a hobby becasue a job thats just a job is just school and school is boring and i dont want to be bored my whole life working 9-5 then being tired then having to go to bed because im so tired not beign able to enjoy my tank or my life.

My peace of advice is do what you enjoy doing and not something you do for money. I am working for 25 years now in the same industry full time and always had a challenging job for my level.
The ones I didn’t enjoy didn’t last longer than 6 months.
when I was young my motivation for a new job was money and in the first few years I have double my income on average every 1-1.5 years till the point I had way more coming in than gone out but ended up depressed.
now I have put my priorities right and the motivation is to enjoy what I do and since I am happy and wouldn’t want to change with anyone else. By the way my income somehow still growing faster than the inflation so we are good.
the moral of the story is don’t choose the line of work by the paycheque (if that is still a thing) but by your hart desire the rest will fall in line.
“burnout” is the thing people have doing it otherwise.

Pet Industry Market Size, Trends & Ownership Statistics

www.americanpetproducts.org

Apparently it's actually now 2.9 million households.

Ha. and us millennials have taken over there as well .

Your millennial talk makes me feel old. Oh well good to know there are people born in this century as well

 

[fish farmer]

is 22-30$ an hour to be an aquarium contractor a good wage?

Is that starting wage? Are there benefits or do you pay out of that for medical/dental/retirement?

I know in Vermont the basic starting pay for an aquaculture tech is just over $15, they jump you up quick off probation, yearly step increases. About 30% is taken out in taxes/benefits. I've been at the same level aquaculture tech job for 25 years and the top of my pay scale at 30 years will be around $31. But I do get to feed fish most days.

My hobby was aquariums, fishing and art. I went to school to learn about what I enjoyed and made a career out of it. I still like fishing( I know the inside scoop of stocking locations and fish survey locations) and I still like aquariums. My job isn't exactly like a hobby, I think it is more rewarding. I've got to handle endangered Colorado fishes in Arizona, worked with Atlantic salmon restoration, worked on trout stream habitat restoration and currently witnessing the spawning success of lake trout in Lake Champlain, a fish we have been trying to restore for decades.

I also got to do some art for the hatchery recently as well.

 

[Sshannon]

what about dive welding

Its lucrative, and pays very well. However its boom and bust. You may have 5 jobs in one month, and then go 4 months with no work. Additionally, you have to travel a lot, and be away from home for an extended time.

 

[Sshannon]

is 22-30$ an hour to be an aquarium contractor a good wage?

Depends. In most cities that would be an acceptable wage, even if it is lower class income. In other cities, such as Long beach California, or Portland Oregon, or New york...not so much. Look at the average wage for the particular county you want to work in, and base your requirements off that. I live in Palm Beach County where the average annual wage is about $80,000. I don't make near half that number, even with my B.S. degree.