Spanish fishkeeping

Visited a Spanish pet shop today in a very large new shopping centre while herself visited the many clothes shops and jewelers. Well fishkeeping doesn't seem to have caught on here , all they had was about 8x 10 gallon tanks housing a few guppies, patties ,noens and angle fish all at more than double the price we pay here, so had a look at the new tanks they had for sale the largest being 120 litres and nearly died when I saw the price 505 euro for the complete ready to set up , the assistant a sure be that was great value as it had a new filter system that had only come on the market last week a Hydra 30 interal filter saying this new filter means you don't have to cycle the tank ,it has two metal plates that emit a very low current into the water . Check out utube to see how it works . If fishing was this expensive in Ireland don't think many of us would be in the hobby

That's a strange one considering there climate they could have tropical fish ponds on vats in greenhouses although I know it does get cooler over there in the winter.

There must not be many breeders or wholesale fish companies over there.

Regards
Craig

Our community swimming pool would make a great koi pond

You may not have been lucky.
check this one pzes.es/ - stunning little shop and i think they just opened a second one. Not cheap but stunning.
also good discus keeping community. But keep in mind they suffered the crisis much worse than Ireland - I spoke to a lad who used to be a breeder and owned 3000 discus. He has to shut down and reconverted to selling the fish and systems for fish pedicure...

Heya

I dont think Fish keeping is a bit thing is Spain. At least when I was growning up I never had friends who were big into fish keeping back in my younger years. Petshops are more into cats and dogs, birds etc than fish.

In regards prices maybe it was just the shop that was expensive as I would assume that prices should be lower if not the same as in Ireland.

don't know about prices but a jack Russell puppy is 700 euro compaired to 80 euro that I paid from a registered breeder in Dublin 4 years ago

Dogs is a different thing. Breeding is a big thing in Spain. It is not uncommon to pay 1500-2000 euro for a pure breed puppy, for instance, a Boxer or a bullmastiff.

Cats are not there yet. For them its mad to pay 300 euro for a cat! Spaniards

millions of feral cats running around the place

Spaniard here

I don't know what town you have visit but the hobby is not uncommon in Spain, obviously small towns have small shops and limited stock variety but you can order what you want on internet., bare in mind Spain is connected with the continent so it is easier to get more variety of whatever you need than here in Ireland which almost everything comes from or through the UK.

My 67 years old father had his first tank an aluminium framed one done by himself when he was young and kept it until I was a child I remember going to the fish shop to choose fish with him. Years later when I did earn my first wage I bought a 180 vision style tank, very fancy with cabinet and everything included for 300€, this was almost 17 years ago.

In my town winters are cold but summers are pure hell, basically there is no spring and temperature keeps between 45 during the day (have seem 50 degress some days) to 24 at night so it is very difficult to keep the right temperature in a tank, unless you spend a lot of money or have tons of ice cubs.

About other pets, some cat breeds are not common in Spain specially long haired ones in the south because of the heat, but others are popular and there are breeders of a lot of breeds like in other countries.

Dogs are kinda the same, there are some breeds more common there and not here, like the dalmatian for example and in Spain is really weird to spot a king charles because is a more british dog. If you like dogs and you know about the breed czechoslovakian wolfdog I have to say I have never seen one of these beauties in Ireland while I have seen it in Spain several times along the years.

Birds, specially parrots are very expensive in Ireland compared to Spain.

Minimum wage is a bit more than 600€ so paying 300€ for a cat is a big deal, but if you have the money then no problems.

Hi , we have an apartment in Jacarilla about 20 min drive inland from Torrievieja and the shop I visited was in the new huge shopping centre called La Zenia Boulevard. Love spain and the people but agree about the temperatures you would certainly need a water cooler rigged up for the tank although I believe this is a common thing in parts of America , would certainly add to the cost of fish keeping . Robert

robert wrote:

Visited a Spanish pet shop today in a very large new shopping centre while herself visited the many clothes shops and jewelers. Well fishkeeping doesn't seem to have caught on here , all they had was about 8x 10 gallon tanks housing a few guppies, patties ,noens and angle fish all at more than double the price we pay here, so had a look at the new tanks they had for sale the largest being 120 litres and nearly died when I saw the price 505 euro for the complete ready to set up , the assistant a sure be that was great value as it had a new filter system that had only come on the market last week a Hydra 30 interal filter saying this new filter means you don't have to cycle the tank ,it has two metal plates that emit a very low current into the water . Check out utube to see how it works . If fishing was this expensive in Ireland don't think many of us would be in the hobby

Have ti Totally agree there is a very poor choice and basic fish