Turkey – Istanbul, April, 2009
The giant Flower Bazaar of Istanbul is located in the centre of the European part of this amazing city and has next to many flower and plant shops also over 40 pet shops with mainly aquariums, plants and fishes from all over the world.
The famous Eminonu Flower Bazaar in Istanbul has been visited recently by Heiko Bleher during his invitation for lectures & seminars by TROPICAL of Poland and his Turkish representative Mustafa Kahraman of Neptun-Fora Dis. Tic. ve Paz. A.S.
Although not all shops have the latest in biotope aquariums or nature-like aquariums, some have an incredible variety of fishes and in many Malawi cichlids are the dominant fish groups. Marine fishes and invertebrates amount to less than 10% of the total displays. Unfortunately some gimmicks to place in the aquariums can also be found…
Below a few photos of this amazing – not to miss – place on the European side of Istanbul
The aquarium shops are next to each other – one can hardly see where one shop ends and the next aquarium shop begins…
Each aquarium cover (in most of the shops) is covered with advertisement of the different manufactures (something not seen anywhere else in the world) and…
…most aquarium decorations are made of plastic gimmicks, plastic plants, corals, and sunken ships or plastic fishes and sharks – nature-like?
TROPICAL brands from Poland are widely found – the entire product line
There are some nice wooden aquarium stands as well in one of the shops, only the discus fishes unfortunately not feed correctly and therefore “torpedo-like” instead of round! And wrong ground (should be sand…)
One can find an immense variety of cichlids – mainly from the Lake Malawi – honey gouramis (over plastic gravel…), platys and swordtails, many “bred and butter” fishes, but also some rarities like the rare fresh and brakish water species from Australia, the Bandet Scat, Selenotoca multifasciata. And if one searches he can also find aquarium plants
All in all it is a must for any aquarists to visit the flower bazaar in Istanbul on the European side.
And thanks to Mustafa and Bekir I was able to visit it. Thank You.
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