Hong Kong, October 2008
The Tung Choi Street in Hong Kong (Kowloon side) has for decades – already during the Commonwealth period (which ended actually 1997 see Hong Kong Discus Competition 1995) – being the ornamental fish street. There are hundreds of ornamental fish and accessory shops, almost everyone specialized in certain fish groups like goldfish, Nishikigoi (koi), South- and Central American fishes, Malawi-Tanganyika fishes, Asian fishes or just arowanas – the highly priced dragon fish from Asia, Australia, Africa and South America. There are also shops specialized in aquatic plants (something unknown a decade or so ago) and exclusive marine stores. One can find pure accessory or supply stores and totally mixed shops, which have everything for the hobby.
I was amazed to see many nicely decorated Amano-type aquariums. And one even made the first prize in this year 2008 International Nature Aquarium Competition (see below). Have a look and browse through the photos below and read at the end some interesting aspects of today’s Hong Kong.
Hong Kong’s ornamental fish street with it’s unchanged name Tung Choi Street…
…there is one aquarium shop next to the other, hundreds…
…like this exclusive marine aquarium shop with each fish in its own tray ready to be sold…
…or a specialized koi centre…
…a pure goldfish shop…
…or another salt water fish shop, the “Ocean World Aquarium”, selling…
…rare marine species where one can catch his desired fish
One shop is specialized in ADA, Takashi Amano’s nature aquarium designs and has some nice decorated tanks:
…such as this very long fantastically planted aquarium (hardly for fishes). It made the 1st prize, at this year’s International Aquatic Plant Layout Contest 2008 (lower 2 photos). The shop owner is the winner, Mr. Cheng Siu Wai from Hong Kong and he named it “Danxia”. But there were quite a few other shops with aquatic plants, which is a trend in Hong Kong now – something unthinkable a decade ago…
…and there are shops becoming specialized in biotopes…
…which demonstrate how to decorate the aquarium, before and after – and how nice it can look. This is actually a pure…
…aquarium-plant and biotope-aquarium store. Many plants are sold rooted on driftwood or rocks and also in plastic bags ready to go…
…although most fishes and aquatic items are still sold in plastic bags pre-packed in the morning as they have done it for decade, like here (from top): angelfishes, albino Oscar, neon tetra, parrot cichlids, Malawi cichlids, coloured gravel, discus fishes, and even shrimps.
But the worst of all are the genetically modified and colour injected fishes like…
…these luminous danios, or…
…koi with a complete or an abbreviated name, or…
…a “painted” gourami with an imaginary design. Such fishes are banned in most European countries and in America, hopefully soon also in Asia
The buyer’s come to the Tung Choi Street in their latest Mercedes model. Hong Kong…
…grows continuously (into the sky), has a lot of (incredible) wealth and one of the finest hotels in the world, the Peninsula (above), can be found here. And now, just as in Hollywood, it…
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