Some Photographic Impressions of
Aquarium Stores by Howard Norfolk
1. SWAPNACHITRA AQUARIUMS Driving along a rural road heading towards the mountains east of
Kochi in Kerala, South India, I spotted a small sign - "Aquarium Store 1 km.
Ahead". After what seemed like two kilometres I thought it must have been a small
place and I'd missed it.
CLICK ON PHOTOS FOR ENLARGEMENTS...THEN GO "BACK" Swapnachitra is an open-air store in the grounds of a big white house. Also connected with the house is a flower and garden plant nursery. Since the climate is tropical, tropical fish can be kept outside in the store's several rows of tanks year round.
I spotted many species of fish that are popular the World over, such as platies, guppies, plecos, some barbs, tetras, and cichlids, goldfish, koi, angels, discus, and gouramis. On a table there were rows of wine glasses containing male bettas (Siamese fighting fish).
Dry goods were not much in evidence, apart from a tired and dusty offering of plastic aquarium ornaments hanging from a string on one wall.
I couldn't resist buying some of these ornaments (from this and other stores) - not that they will ever see water of course, but I do like them as curiousities on my bookshelves!
A popular fish in India is the giant gourami (Osphronemus goramy), both natural and albino.
Giant gouramis are native to India and are used for food as well as pond fish. In a pond they are said to have individual characters, and can be trained to be hand fed.
2. ZOOLAND In the large city of Bangalore, South India, I met some of the members of the Karnataka Aquarists Society. I have written about my visits to their fishrooms in Aquarticles' "People" section. One of them, Madan Subramanian, kindly spent a morning showing me some of his favourite aquarium stores, and the first one we visited was "Zooland".
Zooland lives up to its name, in that it is a complex dealing with large numbers of all kinds of pets. To find the main fish department I had to enter by the bird section, pass through rooms full of dogs and rabbits and other pets, and then go upstairs where I found several inter-connected rooms filled with fish tanks.
There was a good selection of commonly kept fish, and a few saltwater tanks.
In Bangalore nearly all fish are sold in what are optimistically called "pairs", and priced that way. I made a note of a few prices, in $US: Blue Gouramis - 40c pr., Kissing Gouramis - 80c pr., Tiger Sharks - 60c pr., Scats - $1.20 pr., drab coloured 3" Koi - 50c pr., Mollies, Platies and Swordtails -10c to $1.60 pr., Neon Tetras - 60c pr., Angelfish - 50c pr., Discus - $10 pr. and up, 12" Arowanas $60 pr., 17" Arowanas - $160 pr.
3. GULMARG ENTERPRISES Our next stop was at Gulmarg Enterprises.
Gulmarg's is a pleasant little store, run by members of the same Muslim family that owns Zooland.
On the whole, Indians like to keep the same species of fish as aquarists the world over, with livebearers and goldfish being very popular. One locally caught fish that I did notice all over the place however, was the scat (Scatophagus argus).
4. NALANDA AQUARIUM The neatest and tidiest store I saw anywhere was Nalanda Aquarium !
The young Hindu owner is certainly to be congratulated. He had several nicely planted display tanks in his store, but then nearly all his other tanks were so well maintained that they also looked like display tanks !
From this store, my friend Madan bought four Puntius denisonii at $8 a pair - a native Indian fish that I much admire and wrote about in my article about Madan and his aquariums.
5. REDLIN AQUARIUM My friends in Bangalore recommended that I visit Redlin Aquarium when I reached Madras (Chennai). Madras is the largest city in South India, and is a port on the East coast. Redlin Aquarium occupies the ground floor, driveway, and garage of a large white house tucked away in a residential area of South Madras.
I was kindly shown around Redlin's operations by the managers, Joseph Neethi and Vitalis Fernando, who were most helpful.
Good customer service is the watchword at Redlin, and it has brought the company a long way in a few short years. The Redlin Group started in 1986 as exporters of dried fish. In 1995 the company started importing and exporting spices, and also began to operate a cardboard box factory in the small town of Tuticorin. The owner's aquarium hobby then came to the fore, and two aquarium stores were opened in 1996. In 1997 a fish breeding operation was started at Tuticorin, specialising in African cichlids. The company now sends African cichlids all over India, and has also become the largest aquarium fish wholesaler in South India.
Up some steps and through the front door of the house one comes across several elaborate display aquariums, next to the company offices. Behind this area is a large room lined with more display aquariums, and cabinets containing dry goods such as filtering equipment (Eheim and Fluval), lots of aquarium ornaments, and fish food. At the back of this room is a long counter where very active retail and wholesale business is done. Redlin is happy to deal with both retail and wholesale customers. The retail customers keep regular Indian business hours (9 a.m. to 9 p.m.), but wholesale customers, the owners of pet stores, might show up at any time from 6.30 in the morning until 11.00 at night. They come to Redlin by train from towns all over South India, and the time of their arrival depends on the railway schedules. When I was there the owner of Zooland in Bangalore was there - a 5 !/2 hour trip each way for him. Since the house is still used as a residence there is always someone there to serve early or late-comers. The Madras store is a busy wholesale outlet with a large turnover of fish. Fish come from several sources - the company's own breeding farms, other breeders, and some imports from Malaysia and Singapore. Joseph and Vitalis have visited Singapore, import fish food from Thailand, and hope to visit and get government permission to start importing from Hong Kong soon.
Outside, in what was once the house's garage and driveway, I was shown the fish sales and packaging area, a small but active space where large plastic bags full of fish were scattered everywhere. Fish come and go with great rapidity, and what may be seen one day will be replaced with something else the next. I made notes of what I spotted the day I was there (in no particular order - just as I walked past the tanks): guppies, platies, goldfish, koi, red parrot cichlids (imported from Malaysia), albino tiger sharks, giant gouramis, oscars, marine anemones (locally captured), black mollies, orange mollies, pacus, tetras (rosy, serpae, lemon, and bloodfin), panda and other corys, various gouramis, silver dollars, a good selection of African cichlids, monos, scats, a few saltwater fish, discus, angels, and aquatic plants brought in from the state of Kerala. The forward-looking company of Redlin Aquarium is, of course, in the process of developing a website. It may be seen at www.aquaredlin.com
I visited Colombo, Sri Lanka (Ceylon), in the year 2000. I was lucky enough to chance upon a cab driver who was interested in aquaria, and he took me on a short tour of aquarium stores there. One spot that I found interesting was a small open square which contained a variety of pet stores, including the two aquarium stores shown below. Several of the business operations specialised in making fish tanks - out on the street in the warm tropical air.
7. HYDERABAD Hyderabad, India, also has a small group of aquarium stores on the same street together. These are three that I visited in 1999:
That's about it for Indian Aquarium stores. See my other article about the fish souvenir ornaments I bought there, and also my series of articles in the People section, "The Aquarists of Bangalore." P.S. I've now visited India five times, as a tourist and traveller, and to meet the friends I have made there. Should you be thinking of visiting this fascinating and friendly country I'd be pleased to give you what advice I can (particularly about South India). E-mail me at howardnorfolk@aquarticles.com P.P.S. Indian aquarists, and indeed anyone interested in the Indian aquarium scene, are invited to visit and join Raj Kumar's Yahoo Group "Aquarists of India," at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/a-s-k |
