i was never good in marine tank brader.i dont even have one at home. the fact is seafood and ornamental marine fishes is two different agenda. the equipments and water quality used is totally differrent. many people think they are the same...but they are not.ornamental marine fishes could be learned from the internet...but how do one learn seafood?...haha, if you are in this line, you are , if not... you sink if you step your foot in it.
when i started out my company over a year ago..i was pretty worried about competition from top kl FS...well, i had worried for nothing, hahaha i soon realise with the kind of hi tech but unsuitable systems they are using for seafood ...hell, they couldnt even touch me with their horses at full whip. no contest actually .one joker even use magnesium for seafood tanks...the joker is east a!#@$#...kenot mention name hor..but he knows who he is...magnesium?..really? champion lar lu

the only experience i have with ornamental marine fishes is a short one...about 4 years, then i stop...when i quit my job. i would like to continue but keeping marine fishes in malaysia is very very very expensive and im not willing to pay for the highly inflated price they charge here...even at dealer's price. man, i could imagine they kinda price you people are paying for. a stinking piece of mushroom cost rm20...hell i was getting that in jarkarta for RP4,000...abt rm1.60, so how does one expects me to continue?
to be honest..i did not have much basic experience with marine setup....i jump start straight away to the hard stuff...no thanks to the indonesian kakis i mix around with. well, indonesian chinese are loaded up to the neck with money kinda folks, they could afford stuffs we could only dream of, ie a 10feet sps coral setup in their living room, a 22feet tank filled with white tip sharks or a 15feet two tier mangrove setup with a similar size slump filled with equipments to create hi and low tides according to the hour of the day.

so when i started out, naturally these loaded sifus gave me all kind of ideas and advice, even giving some equipments they no longer need...thus a 5feet sps setup was my first, filled with high quality montipora and purple acropora...i didnt paid for any of them, its all just.."masok buku"..company account lar..hahaha
its a wonder how they didnt die, lucky to have those busy body loaded sifus coming to the house everyday to check them out. the routine of my work is..i would spend 2 weeks in bangkok then another 2 in jakarta...so when ever i was in bangkok, guess who came around to look after this sps tank..yup you guess rite, and i was begining to have doubts if im actually the owner of this tank.
when i buy common sps or mushroom( i was a beginner la, so how i know what is what) to put in my tank..they scolded me..."eh, apa sih lu, jamur(mushroom) kan buat mainan anak anak...buang deh!

then i was introduce to this guy name kok sidick ( kok means elder brother for chinese indonesian), this guy is a hard core...whatever fish that is diffcult to keep ...he wants it.probably my present attitude of wanting the most diffcult and demanding plants is thru hanging around too much with this dude..."kita piara ikan yang orang laen gak bisa piara, baru jaguh namanya"( we keep fishes that nobody else manage to keep..only then we are known as experts)
i spend my final 2 years in indonesia keeping Moorish Idols....this fish is impossible to keep,but thanks to kok sidick i did manage to keep them alive for over a year, after at least more then 10 attempts..and it was about then, my boss kicked my butt over to china for 6 months, i quit upon returning, i was kissing goodbye to a SGD6,500 pm job, all the girlfriends in jakarta and bangkok, my cichild collection, well, i wasnt too sorry from my marine tank, guess i wasnt really that interested in it, but the cichlid collections simply broke my heart.

thats all the experience i have on marine setups...so i cannot consider myself good coz i do not have the total experience nor the bacis.

yup fs in indoensia and thailand is truly better than here. the thing is they setup fish markets, you dont need to run around like here in malaysia to look for fs, you just need to go the market and all the fs are there. its the same in vietnam, hongkong, guangzhou and shanghai...only malaysia dun have la.
for bangkok...they have plenty of freshwater fishes, good cichilds are not usually found in the markets, you need to go straight to the farms. snails, plants, birds, dogs, cats, snakes is all for sale here. for marine fishes...well not too good, its rather expensive, probably more expensive than malaysia due to total ban and protection of all marine life in thailand...not like here hor, ban liao also got lubang to jalan one.
in jakarta, freshwater fishes are not really good, most of the good ones export liao. for marine fishes,,,they are the cheapest around..i might say dirt cheap. aquatic plants is very good...plenty of rare species. for good arowanas..then must go to kalimantan..aiyo brader...see liao also siau...so cheap ah.

finally...why is not recommend to have planted tank, snail and marine tank at home? who told you this must be joker. this what i tell you...DONT ever let anyone tell you what to keep or not to keep in your house...its your house. if a fengshui master or a part timer who thinks hes an expert fengshui master told you this...then tell him go suck an egg, dont ever believe all these fengshui rubbish..
but if the wife or gf tells you ...then it must be obeyed

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