• You are viewing the forum as a Guest, please login (you can use your Facebook, Twitter, Google or Microsoft account to login) or register using this link: Log in or Sign Up

Pic Heavy thread - Fish, Shrimps and Aquascaping Thailand

Bandersnatch

Member
Joined
16 May 2013
Messages
27
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.

YFU6zTF.jpg



HmVxMsV.jpg


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

NpDirtL.jpg


Need to buy some substrate?

xiJAT6Q.jpg


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

kldqju2.jpg


yIksDtd.jpg


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.

VMOW1TD.jpg


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....

P9rjIEa.jpg
 
why is everything so dear over here and looks like
most of the stuff is cheap over there
 
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)

nvZndnm.jpg


v7W4NRC.jpg


Notice the staff prepping another aquascape.

0L4mGu0.jpg


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.

22ssEpT.jpg


F6QHzZM.jpg


0eiI3BY.jpg


v4my2JT.jpg


Right I should get back to work more later if you like.
 
heh just saw your reply try and ignore the ADA prices I just posted it will really upset you. :D
 
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...
 
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.

BtABOt2.jpg


DjBUwli.jpg


i34nMDm.jpg


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

SI2ZWlq.jpg


IZb1WFk.jpg


iPIdtHd.jpg
 
va4l2C6.jpg


0lUV5MD.jpg


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.

0ffxFAR.jpg


TGIDLGZ.jpg


O8LEzal.jpg
 
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? :D

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.

ErGbG6c.jpg


All shrimp tanks

R3CYApn.jpg


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.
QnxP2wh.jpg


DUtSifg.jpg


6iaB8dy.jpg


M3Rh1Ml.jpg


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

6CvIRnw.jpg


jBxim74.jpg


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

FY6goFD.jpg


pje1ZWL.jpg


j1lZdqo.jpg


XbVy3sS.jpg




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%+,

8a3jtZA.jpg


yw7lsi7.jpg


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

ASYeos0.jpg


UW4a1L5.jpg


About 40p of Fissidens

q6G2wP5.jpg


J5kCQu9.jpg


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.
 
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 :)
 
@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.
 
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 :sick:

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 :D

Cheerio,
Ady.
 
@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.

V7BVbLo.jpg


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 :)
 
Back
Top