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Hi, I'm Daan from Belgium


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Hi all,

I'm an aquascaper / small scale hobby breeder / Aquascape lease startup

atm, I have a 5G shrimp tank, 20G community tank low tech and 40G high tech.I hope to learn and share findings about breeding, setup's quality of life hacks,....

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Welcome!

Something I like to ask people outside the US: based on what you've seen in videos, how is the hobby different where you live vs the US?

On 1/15/2024 at 5:23 AM, Daan C said:

Aquascape lease startup

What's an aquascape lease?

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On 1/18/2024 at 6:46 AM, Schuyler said:

Welcome!

Something I like to ask people outside the US: based on what you've seen in videos, how is the hobby different where you live vs the US?

What's an aquascape lease?

I's a company I'm trying to start in my spare time.
I have a test project a ran at a retirement home, I place, maintain, and do all work on a nice aquascaped aquarium. It stays my property bet startup is free this way. I gave them a 3 month free trail and after they signed for the next 4 years. Small monthly fee, zero work of maintenance for them, all troubles are mine to solve.

 

Regarding difference from the US:
Fish are cheap, all the rest is expensive. Some things are crazy expense, like neocaridina can be 5-10 euro a peace in a shop (average net wage here is 2.500). rocks are almost €10 a a kilo from a shop, wood €30-40 a kilo. so a 40G aquascape with lots of hardscape, external filter and CO2 is a full months wage.

Fuel/gas/electricity is very expensive compared to US, houses are very well build and insulated so I focus on +-22° room temperature setups.
Selling animals as a hobbyist is illegal on almost all online platforms, and those were it is legal you can't have a permanent offer for example 3 kinds of shrimp. Occasional and unforeseen sale online is allowed, when there is frequent or structural sale (very vague in the law) it's illegal and you need to have a company.

wild caught is rare, most fish here are bred in eastern Europe where wages and power costs are low, so large breeders are rare in western Europe. Most shops only carry 20-40 spices, some hidden gems (many distributors for shops open for retail also) carry few hundred spices and almost all basic spices can be ordered vie local shops on a week notice. for example killifish, some shops have one species in stock, one distributor has like 5 species, but it's hard to get anything that is rare.

The r/shittyaquariums here seem to be as frequent as in the US, awareness about fish care and planted tank is limited to hobbyists only but many households have there abusive fish tank.

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On 1/18/2024 at 1:27 AM, Daan C said:

Regarding difference from the US:

Thanks for the detailed response!

On 1/18/2024 at 1:27 AM, Daan C said:

rocks are almost €10 a a kilo from a shop

That seems roughly what the prices are here. Seriyu Stone is about $4 / lb which would be roughly €9 / kilo.

On 1/18/2024 at 1:27 AM, Daan C said:

Occasional and unforeseen sale online is allowed, when there is frequent or structural sale

That is super vague. Most platforms here don't allow you to sell live animals (maybe it's one of those things where the EU made a law and companies applied it to the whole platform). There are still people who try to be sneaky about it. A ban makes some sense though, there are a lot of people who try to sell things that are invasive/illegal.

On 1/18/2024 at 1:27 AM, Daan C said:

awareness about fish care and planted tank is limited to hobbyists only but many households have there abusive fish tank.

That seems to be a recurring theme. People just don't understand how to keep fish or just see them as decorations.

On 1/18/2024 at 1:27 AM, Daan C said:

for example killifish, some shops have one species in stock, one distributor has like 5 species, but it's hard to get anything that is rare

This is one thing I'm jealous of. It seems like more varieties of killifish are available in the EU. At least on Aquabid there are a lot more European sellers 

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