# Pic Heavy thread - Fish, Shrimps and Aquascaping Thailand



## Bandersnatch

Lo all, just joined.

I should be starting a journal soon but at the moment the tanks bare and the stand I am
building is just lumps of wood that need sanding. 

However thought you might find this interesting.
Bit of background I've been back and forth around Thailand for years as I have friends and
family who live there, I haven't been for about 6 years and was curious to see if shrimps and
aquascaping had taken hold, so I went for a wander in Chatuchak market, this place is quite
famous its a huge 35 acre market that sells an amazing amount of that.

But for the fishkeeper if you manage to work your way through its labyrinth (seriously people
I know who live in BKK still get lost), then you can see some amazing fish.

I should add a bit of a disclaimer here, you will see some pics of fish being sold in bags
(even up to koi almost a foot long), and there's often places that sell animals they shouldn't
(although its not as bad as it used to be there's still creatures that shouldn't be sold and
are CITES protected), as well as some things that would be frankly dangerous to own, (venomous
snakes of all varieties).

I don't agree with it and don't want to upset anyone but there's a couple of pics you
may find offensive because of this apologies but I thought they were worth adding for the
interest factor.

Anyway enough ramble here is some pics... BTW sorry taken on camera phone my camera died just
before leaving 

First some shots of Chatachuk.











Its a warren of little paths selling all sorts of fishkeeping stuff.





Need to buy some substrate?





Or tanks? There's places that sell nothing but tanks all shapes all sizes. (10 baht is about 22p btw)









And of course fish.

This area always used to be leery of people taking pics, because of the CITES issues etc.

This shop would not let me take photos inside, but here's something sitting in the window considering what's in there it was a shop you would hope they keep the tanks with really tight lids.





And since we have shown the fish in bags. I should mention not all places do sell them like that and you will see some of the most healthy fish you'll ever see for sale (probably helps a lot of them are coming from commercial breeders outside BKK so there's little travel stress and changes in water chemistry).

This is about £25K of Arrowana, that's not a small amount here in a country where workers might only earn about £3 a day....


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## biffster

why is everything so dear over here and looks like 
most of the stuff is cheap over there


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## Bandersnatch

Now all of that stuff is not any different from what I saw years ago in Thailand.

But now Aquascaping and shrimp have taken a rise in interest, and suddenly you are seeing a lot more professional looking shops turning up in shopping centres. With all sorts of lovely stuff like ADA kit, (at prices that seriously made me wonder what I could fit in my luggage (9L Amazonia = £7.71, 30cm cube garden about 40 quid)



 



 

Notice the staff prepping another aquascape.



 

This was a different shop, this one concentrated on shrimp, but they had these tanks outside to catch the eye.
Below a few close ups.



 



 



 



 

Right I should get back to work more later if you like.


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## Bandersnatch

heh just saw your reply try and ignore the ADA prices I just posted it will really upset you.


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## biffster

is it really cheap


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## mike455555

wow, i want to move there, it seems so much cheaper... no wander most stuff from theres cheap online, the seemingly "little" profit to us they turn over is alot over there...


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## Steve Smith

Great photos and a really interesting place!  Thanks for sharing


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## Bandersnatch

Thanks all

Yes the prices are cheap, you can pic up high quality betta for about 2 pounds, (not just splendens either), low quality splendens are about 30-50p, sakura cherries your looking at around 20p each. I have bought beautiful little picos for about £2. For some things the prices are amazingly cheap a lot of fish are bred near BKK and the surrounding areas so prices are low.

You'll see some plant shop prices later, again real nice quality plants and really cheap.
I found myself trying to work out what to buy and bring back but I was on a month hol and really wanted the money for diving instead, as it was I spent down to the last few pennies before coming back so didn't return with much this time.

Right a few more pics.

As I said shrimp and aquascaping have taken off, and in some of the shops they are really making displays of sales tanks for their fish.













This tank may look bare but it had some beautiful gobies in it.


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## Alastair

£7.71 for 9 litres of amazonia???


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## Bandersnatch

Bad shot of these congos which is a shame because they were incredibly healthy and easily two inches long. All of the fish over there sold are in immaculate condition.


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## Bandersnatch

Yep Alastair I kid you not I even took photos of the price label.


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## Bandersnatch

OK two more posts then I'll save your bandwidth. Hope you guys have enjoyed them, most people who checked my holiday pics were like wtf? Why do you have so many shots of fish, monkeys and lizards, where's the beach? 

Oh btw why so cheap?
One a lot of stuff comes from around this area.
Two its relative a meal on the street two dishes would cost about 60p, wages are low for most people so to us a couple of pound is nothing to the average Thai it may be half a days work.

So some shrimp shots this has definitely taken off, and this shop went in for it in a big way the owner was chuffed to have us wandering and taking shots and he was running a competition, he invited me to attend as they were having people coming from Vietnam, Malaysia and Cambodia to show their shrimp. I would have loved to but I had family to meet and beer to drink.





All shrimp tanks





Bee shrimp about £16
(Unfortunately the cameras wasnt up to shooting the shrimp in enough detail sorry, but there were some lovely ones there).

Blue jellies and Rillis were going for about a pound.
Cherries in different colours (good colour as well) fetched around 22p each.

They did have lots of shrimp accessories as well.














 

Right next post its the plant shots.


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## mike455555

ooo plant shots, cant wait... next time you go over you'll have orders off us lot to bring back stuff >.> :L


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## Bandersnatch

Now at the moment it seems shrimp are just starting to take off, plant shops however have become really big I cannot recall there being shops like this before.



 



 

Yep they sell nothing but plants, and this is not an isolated shop all the surrounding shops sold plants, you were probably looking at easily a dozen shops like this clumped together.

Lots of plants



 



 



 



 



All of the plants like anubias were grown emersed, that piece of wood at the top right was about the length of my forearm, and was 600 baht (but you could have haggled down to about 400 I reckon)
It probably helps growing emersed when as well as having the water dripping constantly on them the temp is about 30-35C and local humidity is about 90%+,



 



 

Note the floating moss balls, all the moss balls I saw were floating.



 



 

About 40p of Fissidens



 



 

Right thats it, hope you enjoyed.

Have some marine shots that I contemplated putting in a separate thread if anyone is interested. The the reef geeks can get a bit more jealous of what's out there.


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## NattyAntlers

Excellent!
Snap, have family and friends there too and going back later this year after a 2 1/2 year absence.
I know JJ market but wont be in BKK on a Saturday, can you tell me were those shops are, doesn't look like MBK.
Shame I hadn't taken up this hobby before been back and forth for the last 12 years, saved a fortune in dentist work though.
Wifey wont be happy when I tell her the suitcase will be full of Amazonia and not mangoes, chillies and long beans on the way back


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## mike455555

im impressed, i'll have to take a trip over there >.> whats the law on importing plants/fish?


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## Bandersnatch

@NattyAntelers

That wasn't on a market day, there probably would have been loads more on sight if there was from past experience but its to much hassle I'm sure you've seen it I can well believe the estimate that the place get like a quarter of a million people visit it that day, but since I was catching up with mates in BKK that would have been to much for my um fragile day time states. 
There's a shopping centre called JJ mall nearby and the train station goes right into it from what I recall, in there top floor near a corner is where you will find the posh shop selling the ADA and high end stuff and that shrimp shop that's shown in the second post.
If you leave the mall by the side entrance directly opposite the market you are straight into the pet area of JJ (Chatuchuk; its called JJ because Chatukchuk is also called JatuJhuk by some for those wondering).

@Mike

I couldn't say I would have looked into it further if I was going to spend some proper money on the plants (which was tempting a fist sized piece of wood with java fern, or anubias worked out about 60-90 baht), unfortunately after being unemployed for a couple of years and this being a first holiday for yonks the money was tight and really I was over there for a catch up and to do some diving so my cash was allocated for other things, and the baht has risen against the pound by about 70p since my last visit.
Its still worth a look even if you can't, and its worth getting out into the countryside if you are the sort of person who enjoys wading through streams looking at stuff, I really enjoy poking around through the jungle bits and finding things like bettas, barbs and such in their natural environment. For me its pretty cool to look into a pool at the side of the road even and see halfbeaks there.
I might try and dig out some old and new photos of those sort of places but they don't really have any close shots for those who would like them for biotope ideas I'm afraid.


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## mike455555

id love to see  some of them old photos


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## Ady34

Hey Bandersnatch, 
wow, thanks for the insight, some great photos there with some amazing looking shops and some very appealing prices....all things relevant i reckon its still a lump cheaper than here 



Bandersnatch said:


> I really enjoy poking around through the jungle bits and finding things like bettas, barbs and such in their natural environment. For me its pretty cool to look into a pool at the side of the road even and see halfbeaks there.


sound great to me to! Wherever there is water its necessary to have a look 

Cheerio,
Ady.


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## Bandersnatch

@Mike I'll try and dig some out then. 

@Ady

Oh yeah definitely cheaper, I guess there's a lot of factors apart from relative costs as well, for example flora and fauna wise they aren't being airfreighted and to grow a lot of them you don't have to worry about heating etc, from all accounts a lot of the the fish are grown just by digging a pond and dropping them in, even if you were using tanks you still don't have to worry about heating etc (if anything cooling might be a factor - but electricity over there was also pennies I think I used to pay about a fiver a month on utilities gas, electric, and water when I would rent a house over there a few years back).

I guess even things like the water helps BKK tap water isn't drinkable but man its perfect for just pouring into a tank and keeping soft water species, my brother had imbelis breeding in a tub on his balcony just topped up from the tap water. Before that he used to top up a tank that contained rummy noses (which are definitely more fussy) and they were thriving as well.
(you can also pick up Indian almond leaves just by having a wander through the countryside).

15 years ago I can remember walking through out of the way towns and the equivalent of the local cornershop would have a tank outside containing golden arrowana, at the time over here I remember a local lfs having a sign up that went along the lines of "we've managed to import 5, were having an auction, be prepared to spend serious money" it was a bit disconcerting to see them being kept like goldfish.

Manufacturing wise, well labours cheap so things like tanks can be dirt cheap - local glass (again cheap labour to manufacture), tank building (cheap labour again).

This rather sweet little glass pico cost me about £1.50, and its decently made the glass is almost 4mm and the silicone work is really tidy, and that was from a fish shop in a mall that was quite nice and factoring in rental costs for the shop and them making their profit margin etc gives you some idea that it was probably cheap to buy from the manufacturer.





I'll agree with checking the water its in turn driven former gfs to amusement or distraction. 

PS ignore the lack of aquascaping I'd just decided to plonk some spare crypts in and see what happens after reading the emersed stuff on here.

PPS to continue the ramble it also occurs there's lots of kit manufactured over there and then shipped over here or rebranded and shipped over, you have probably noticed theres stuff coming over from companies like BOYU etc thats been getting sold over there years before we saw it, similar used to happen with other stuff ASUS for example a lot of Sonys computer kit was rebranded ASUS kit, likewise white goods like LEC, massive over there years before it broke into European markets as its own brand.

apologies if its TLDR


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## IanD

Thanks Bandersnatch for taking the effort in writing this up. I was in BK for a month in March and wanted to do a write-up on JJ market, unfortunately I left my iphone at the apartment and only took my simple no-camera phone. Looks like you beat me to it!

It really is an amazing place, well over 100+ petshops all right next door to each other ranging from large air-con'd professional stores to tin shacks with fish in buckets. Every time i'm in Thailand I spend a whole day just wandering around the JJ market pet zone and even then not getting to see everything.. I didn't know there were fish shops in the mall as well! will definitely check them out next time I need a break from the heat of the outdoor market.

There is a huge amount of variety in the market and over the years I have been going I have also noticed the increase in plants and aquascaping. You still see a lot of shops focusing on Arrowanas, Discus and Flowerhorn Cichlids but you don't see many shops stocking Rainbowfish, West African Dwarf or great lake Cichlids. I have never seen an Oscar in the market for example. A couple of years ago there was even a shop owned and run by an american 'Farang' but didn't find him on my last visit.

For tourists it's good for picking up small bit's of equipment cheap as you can't really stick some heavy or delicate items in your luggage to take back, at least that's what my wife has told me. I don't know what the law is but i'm pretty sure taking livestock and plants through customs without appropriate documentation is a no no, it's a real shame as i'm always half tempted to buy myself a squirrel wearing a dress (yes, you really can buy a squirrel wearing a dress here). I did once bring back a portion of java moss that cost 20 baht i.e. 50pence. It completely filled one of those plastic take away cartons and when you compare to how much you get for for a couple of quid it's a real shame that bringing plants back isn't really allowed.


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## LondonDragon

Alastair said:


> £7.71 for 9 litres of amazonia???


 
Probably costs £20 postage to ship it to the UK!


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## Alastair

LondonDragon said:


> Probably costs £20 postage to ship it to the UK!



 

Sent from my GT-I9305 using Tapatalk 2


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## George Farmer

Fascinating! Thanks so much for sharing.


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## dean

I've decided this is my next holiday, looking like April 2014 any tips welcome, love to see a betta breeders place


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## Andy Thurston

Transport not the biggest markup. Paying useless goverment is biggest bill. The transport and shop markup is tiny compared to this somebody needs to ram austerity up the pm's nose


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## IanD

dean said:


> I've decided this is my next holiday, looking like April 2014 any tips welcome, love to see a betta breeders place


There are a couple of shops in JJ market that only sell Bettas, i'd guess roughly 100 tanks with removable card dividers so you can see them flare at the neighbour. Lot's of trophies on the walls too so i'm guessing they are top quality. There are definitely betta breeders that you can visit in BK just google them.


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## Yo-han

Thanks for posting. Too bad I didn´t know about this when I was in Thailand in 2007.


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## dean

IanD said:


> There are a couple of shops in JJ market that only sell Bettas, i'd guess roughly 100 tanks with removable card dividers so you can see them flare at the neighbour. Lot's of trophies on the walls too so i'm guessing they are top quality. There are definitely betta breeders that you can visit in BK just google them.


 thanks for that i will a bit nearer the time


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## Simes

Bandersnatch said:


> Lo all, just joined.
> 
> I should be starting a journal soon but at the moment the tanks bare and the stand I am
> building is just lumps of wood that need sanding.
> 
> However thought you might find this interesting.
> Bit of background I've been back and forth around Thailand for years as I have friends and
> family who live there, I haven't been for about 6 years and was curious to see if shrimps and
> aquascaping had taken hold, so I went for a wander in Chatuchak market, this place is quite
> famous its a huge 35 acre market that sells an amazing amount of that.
> 
> But for the fishkeeper if you manage to work your way through its labyrinth (seriously people
> I know who live in BKK still get lost), then you can see some amazing fish.
> 
> I should add a bit of a disclaimer here, you will see some pics of fish being sold in bags
> (even up to koi almost a foot long), and there's often places that sell animals they shouldn't
> (although its not as bad as it used to be there's still creatures that shouldn't be sold and
> are CITES protected), as well as some things that would be frankly dangerous to own, (venomous
> snakes of all varieties).
> 
> I don't agree with it and don't want to upset anyone but there's a couple of pics you
> may find offensive because of this apologies but I thought they were worth adding for the
> interest factor.
> 
> Anyway enough ramble here is some pics... BTW sorry taken on camera phone my camera died just
> before leaving
> 
> First some shots of Chatachuk.
> 
> View attachment 34322
> 
> 
> View attachment 34323
> 
> Its a warren of little paths selling all sorts of fishkeeping stuff.
> 
> View attachment 34324
> 
> Need to buy some substrate?
> 
> View attachment 34325
> 
> Or tanks? There's places that sell nothing but tanks all shapes all sizes. (10 baht is about 22p btw)
> 
> View attachment 34326
> 
> View attachment 34327
> 
> And of course fish.
> 
> This area always used to be leery of people taking pics, because of the CITES issues etc.
> 
> This shop would not let me take photos inside, but here's something sitting in the window considering what's in there it was a shop you would hope they keep the tanks with really tight lids.
> 
> View attachment 34328
> 
> And since we have shown the fish in bags. I should mention not all places do sell them like that and you will see some of the most healthy fish you'll ever see for sale (probably helps a lot of them are coming from commercial breeders outside BKK so there's little travel stress and changes in water chemistry).
> 
> This is about £25K of Arrowana, that's not a small amount here in a country where workers might only earn about £3 a day....
> 
> View attachment 34329



Hi. Sorry to resurrect an old thread but do you know any aquascaping stores near Khon Kaen, Thailand?
Thankyou


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## Arana

I am also in Thailand a few times a year as my company has an office in Bangkok and i normally find time for a spot of fishing while i am there, which is a bonus. Got lost walking around Chatuchak in March, it has to be one of the biggest markets on earth and the hottest!  amazing place though, took me an hour to find my way out 
Definitely a thriving scaping scene in Thailand now which is great to see. Thanks for posting


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## Hanuman

Living in Thailand for now nearly 15 years I have seen how it has evolved. There are well established aquascaping shops in JJ market and a few downtown. Many talented aquascapers as well. Great scene overall.

Here are some tanks from a contest a few months back.


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