Cairns Visit April 2018
Earlier this month, my managers and I were lucky enough to be able to get up to Cairns to visit some of our valued customers and the farms that produce some of our top quality Australian bred stock.
Our first stop was Aquarium World Cairns where we caught up with Paul. His store is meticulously maintained with heaps of planted display tanks and a huge range of driftwood, ornaments, fish caves and plants to decorate your tank. Being in close proximity to two major pet store chains he has successfully developed techniques to differ his business from the rest and provides many alternative products and fish species you will never see in these chains. His exceptional fish knowledge and in-depth advice ensures his loyal customers are successful fish keepers.
Day 2 we stopped to see the finishing touches being done to one of Cairns' newest stores True Blue Aquarium where we met up with the delightful owner Amy. This existing store has just relocated to a brand new and bigger premises and is bound to be successful with heaps of tanks, huge range of fish species and air conditioned shopfront (a must in the tropics). Grand opening was last weekend so if you are in the area please visit Amy.
We then made the short drive to one of our cichlid breeders farm who successfully breeds a myriad of malawi cichlids. Having a really good eye for fish and by selecting only the best broodstock ensures this breeder is on top in this game. Grown and raised in outdoor ponds these fish get to graze on huge amounts of natural algae and therefore have stunning natural colours that are so much brighter than tank raised fish.
Cairns Aquarium was our next stop. Having just recently been completed I was keen to see this modern day public aquarium and what the latest Australia had to offer in this scene having recently seen several public aquariums overseas. Firstly I was quite impressed with amount of displays devoted to showcasing our native Australian freshwater fish. About half of the exhibits showed many of the native species that we offer for sale. No where else in Australia have I seen such a good range of natives and the exhibits themselves were highly realistic and reflected closely their natural riverine and estuarine habitats. Highlights for me were seeing a heap of freshwater moray eels and fully grown jungle perch over 40cm in size (see pics).
Day 3 saw us visiting one of our suppliers of Australian bred tetras, angels, barbs and gouramis. This farm is truly unique and is one of the largest ornamental farms in Australia. As with most of the farms up here water is plentiful and as such they run on bore water and using flow through systems that negates the need for filtration (how lucky!).
During our stay we managed to get time to visit fellow fisho Andrew from Innisfail Aquarium and Bird Centre. Having a great store that supplies the local region with a huge selection of healthy well looked after fish, many people drive hundreds of kms to visit this shop. Both Andrew and Sue are very knowlegeable with animals and between them can provide solutions for everything they stock from fish, birds, cats and dogs etc. We were lucky enough to get out on the water with Andrew on his boat and did some fishing along the inshore reefs and islands (see pics). Too bad for us that we arrived just after they had huge flooding which had dumped that much rain on the region that the coastal waters were still brown and there were no fish to be caught.
I would like to thank the hospitality of all the people we visited on this trip. It is a pleasure to do business with such honourable people who have the best interests of this industry at heart.
Julian Wong B.Sc. Hons
JMW International Pty. Ltd. t/as Aquatic Solutions