Hong Kong's Goldfish Street
 

Hey Vancouver/Lower mainland reefers,

I'm off to Hong Kong & Thailand for a about 4 weeks.

Anybody want anything from Goldfish Street whilst I'm there?

I'll happily try to fulfill a small shopping list of items for a few of you guys.

I can't bring salt or live stock but, can bring small items such as refractometers, mags, siphons etc.

My suitcase space is limited so 1st come 1st served ;)

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If posible a refractometer please:biggrin: and thank you.

Take some pictures while you're there and post them up if possible. I've always wanted to go but no one else ever seems interested and we end up not going :cry:

while in thailand visit the The Chatuchak Weekend Market in Bangkok....... the aquarium section is pretty cool.

Hmmm
 

I have a refractometer, and I am not sure what else I would need but would like to talk to you about it. Maybe you could give me a few suggestions as to what is over there. I am still new to reefing so I am still learning as well. I live out in the "Wack" as well so payment and pick up would not be a problem. Pm me and I will Give you my number> Thanks..:biggrin:

should be good times have fun out there man!

Goldfish street
 

My wife is going there in March. Let me know if there is anything neat you see there that we don't have here! Thanks. Have fun.

Last time i was there i picked up a "Easy Clean" gravel/sand vacuum for dirt cheep. Mostly just tried to see as much as i could as fast i could (other people i was with weren't really into it). But i recall right the best deals were on Fish. I never looked into bringing some back or shipping them, it seemed like it might be a big hastle and they might die enroute.

I'm going to be in Bangkok for a few days next week, but i won't be there for the weekend so i'll miss the Chatuchak market. Then off to Indonesia for a few weeks!
Weehoo!
I love Hong Kong, Enjoy your trip!

I wont have time to make it to Bangkok :(

But it's going to be a snorkeling/diving/beach-y type deal in Phuket :)

I'll try to take some pics if I manage to pick up a water-proof case for my camera (or else buy a cheapo water-proof camera & hope for the best).

Last time I was in Goldfish St. I managed to pick up some gravel cleaners, a decent refractometer, some Mag-floats & some Japanese Koi food, but they're all back in the UK so I have to buy them again...

I definitely recommend that any reefer visiting Hong Kong should owe it to themselves to spend an hour or so there! It's close to the Ladies market so you could pick up some quality (and some not so quality) designer fakes along the way ;)

Anyway, I'll pm those interested & make up a list.

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I was there for new years, and all i am asking for is to take PICTURES!

The livestock there (though cramped) all look pretty healthy (i didint have a lot of time so i only went to the salt water ones)

Price wise, the stuff is pretty good compared to local..but it's the livestock that they have for 1/8 of our price!

I'll try my best to take some pics.

I was shocked when I 1st stumbled upon it & saw amazingly beautiful Emperor Angels, CBB's, foot long Oscars etc. all hanging up in bags in doorways!

Like you say, they looked healthy enough!

Prices? I remember see Percula's for $30 each.

That's $30 Hong Kong Dollars each! (about $4 CAD!)

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I love Goldfish Street. You can get T5 lights + a ballast and everything for only $350 hk which is like $50 here. I remember I got like a 16w 10k HO trio of T5's. :( But they melted. At least one of them did.

Yeah, bargains galore!

$50 for T5's with ballast... that's a steal, so long as they work that is!!!

HK 220v @ 50Hz - Canada 110v @ 60Hz so I probably wont trust anything electrical that my tank has to rely on from HK.

Not with out a decent step down.

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:( I had to use all sorts of adaptors when I got the T5's back here though. But they were BRILLIANTLY bright :D It was worth it. & Turkey basters were like a dollar. Not that it's such a bigbigbig deal its just that if that was here it would've only been like 10 cents :p

Talk to RonD, he was there a couple months ago, brought back some wicked corals etc....We jumped through the hoops on what is and isn't allowed. He know's his stuff on bringing stuff back.

Thanks for that Cameron, I'll give him a pm.

I wish I had a tank set up... I'd bring back as much as I could!

I'm sure properly packed they'll survive the 10 hr flight back & the 1 hr 45 drive from YVR to the 'wack.

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:( I really want some Kent supplement whatever you call it stuff for my tank & like Iodine and stuff but I have noooooooooo idea how I'm gonna pick it up because I can't drive

hmm hopefully a fellow aquarist or even a LFS will keep the livestock for you temporary when you return as you set up(even if they charge anything..it'd be cheaper than what you pay locally!)

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And o yeah .. for items like skimmers ... if might be worth getting it from HK (if you are going to upgrade the pump anyways like on certain models)

I bought a Deltec recently which I'll use whilst I have a lower initial bioload & until I can afford a BK Mini. Would be interesting to see if BK's are cheaper or not over there.

I don't know when I'll be set up enough to keep livestock (haven't even bought my tank yet) as I'm just picking up bits & bits as I go along.

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Which ones in particular do you need?

No harm in seeing the price comparisons.

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G3a34ubyvnU I just found this thread while looking up goldfish street on youtube...do they really keep the fish in sealed bags on racks like that?? don't they have a lot of losses??? (I don't know if this is actually the right goldfish street)

cool
 

Nice link Keri...I wonder what their loss rate is too. :biggrin:

cya when you get back VFX. Have a great trip and keep us posted.

(hope I was allowed to post that)

Have fun on your trip, it looks like a pretty crazy place!

Yup
 

Yes you can post that..great stuff!!!:biggrin:

Wow Keri, thanks for the link! Yep, that's Goldfish Street alright!

Some things out there just don't seem ethical!

I saw one store sell 2 sea horses to a young kid (about 12 yrs old I'd guess) & his mother. They sold him the seahorses, a small plastic tank (maybe 3 or 4 gallons?), a sachet of sea salt mix & a few bags of live mysis. I'd be surprised if they lasted more than a few days :(

I asked about the fish-in-bags thing and apparently they sell their livestock so fast that most don't hang around (excuse the pun!) for more than a day or so.

They only seem to keep the really expensive stuff in the display tanks. Thing like speciality goldfish, arowana's & some SW stuff.

I think there was only 2 or 3 SW places last time I was there.

I can still picture that Emperor Angel about 7 or 8 inches long stuffed into a bag barely 10 inches wide... I wanted to take him home there & then!

Anyways, I'll keep you posted!

See you when I get back Darryl.

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crazy, crazy, well I'm glad to hear they don't stick around for long at least. I saw another video with a flower market, I think it may be in the same area, such beautiful plants and flowers, I don't know if I could go and not take anything back either!!

There's a crazy flower market near to Goldfish street around Chinese New Year.

Some amazing sights for sure!

If you ever get the chance to go out there during Chinese New Year do it! (normally end of Jan/beginning Feb).

It's bigger than Christmas & New Years put together into a week long party :)

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Hi Everyone,

Here are some pics from when I visited there in 2004. Hopefully these links work... if not i'll repost them.

From what I saw when I was there, the Marine fish were kept in tanks and many of the freshwater/tropicals were kept in bags.

http://i253.photobucket.com/albums/h...4-08-11067.jpg

http://i253.photobucket.com/albums/h...4-08-11066.jpg

http://i253.photobucket.com/albums/h...4-08-11065.jpg

Pretty cool... They must have lots of losses though although I suppose if you start thinking about how many sea creatures die in the procurement process the ethics of our hobby might start to be questioned. If you could bring me back a clown trigger though VFX I'd be happy to hold onto some livestock for you until your tank is ready!

When I visited HK this past summer, I'd go there at around 10 in the morning because I could never sleep in HK for some reason. & There'd be TRUCKLOADS of fish and people would be bagging them here and there and I see people taking the dead ones, and throwing them into piranha tanks or what not or flushing them down the sewer.

There's about 8-10 SW aquarium (and some FW/SW mix as well) last time i checked. I also don't recall any salt water fish kept in bags (maybe last time someone wanted an emperor and then backed out... ? ).

I mean ..if u actually head to the pier and see the amount of fish CRAMMED in the seafood display..then you know these guys have it relatively good :)

anyways ...
Near the end of the street (either north or south) there is a SW shop specializing in rarer end fish iirc... cuz all i saw was a large emperor and a bandit angel.

I meant only 2 or 3 stores seem to be specialising in SW. Other's I saw had SW but were mainly FW or Fancy Goldfish biased.

The SW stuff I saw in bags were mainly clowns & damsels.

The SW place you're talking about, is that the one with the large reef display in the window towards the end of the 'fish' strip? They had some nice high end stuff like Deltec, Tunze, Aquamedic etc.

Hey, those restaurant tanks in HK are just like T&T when they get Tilapia deliveries in! :)

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