What does a home-maker from Kerala and an insurance banker from Bangalore have in common with Hyderabad? Bringing fishes to households. Childhood friends Maya Shaji and Santosh Unni have come together to turn their passion for fishes and aquariums into something that they can share with everyone.Ocean World, the 5000 sq ft aquarium shop, has on display a collection of 4000 fishes to choose from besides fish tanks of different shapes and sizes, tank accessories like tank vegetation, artificial lighting, background décor, pebbles and gravel and so on. Besides this, tank equipments like water purifiers and filters, water heaters, aerators and air pumps, thermometer, aquatic vegetation, automatic food feeders are also available. They also have fish care products like fish food and medicine.“I’ve always enjoyed aquariums right from my childhood. The unique feature of Ocean World is our counseling session. We talk to our customers to see what they want. Aquariums are increasingly becoming a style statement, so not many people really know what kind of an aquarium they want. We show them around and help them decide,” says Maya Shaji, managing director, Ocean World. “The availability of pet fishes is plenty. You have people by the road with packets of fishes hanging from a pole, selling you pet fishes. But what many are unaware of is that there is a science to setting up and maintaining an aquarium. We give our customers that education,” explains Santosh Unni, the general manager adding, “There are different kinds of fishes which have different temperaments and have different requirements. One can’t buy any two fishes and put them together in an aquarium. They have to be matched and then an appropriately sized fish tank has to be arranged.” “There might have been times that one would have bought two random fishes and one of them died. The buyer might have replaced the fish but to the same result. Naturally one would lose interest. But the fact is that those fishes might not have been compatible or the tank not the right dimensions. Most sellers don’t know this themselves,” he adds.Investment for a fish tank may vary from as little as Rs 150 to, well, to as much as one would want to invest, with upper limits hitting lakhs of rupees. There are various options for customising aquariums, starting with the kind of fish tank.Fishes from around the worldOcean world can fashion aquariums as coffee tables, wall partitions, garden tables or reception desks, furniture and even a photo frame hanging on the wall. Out of 800 varieties of freshwater ornamental fishes, 200 varieties including 100 indigenous fishes are available in India. Kolkata, Mumbai and Chennai are the major breeding centres and export points. Besides that, Ocean World sources its fishes from around the world including Malaysia, Singapore, Canada, Indonesia, Pakistan, Central Europe and Thailand. This places give a mixed haul of marine fishes and freshwater fishes, the kind of fish depending on the aquatic conditions of the area.Their current collection includes Butterfly fish (sourced from Pakistan), Fighter fish ‘Betta’ (sourced from Canada), Red parrot, Sword tail, Dragon fish, Blue Damsel (sourced from Indonesia) and Sea anemone (sourced from Rameshwaram, Tamil Nadu). It also includes the Silver Arowana and Flowerhorn which are popular as luck harbingers. These cost between Rs 3,200 to Rs 5,500. Ocean World has broken into a market in Hyderabad where there is relatively little to no competition, but the market is eager and growing. Ask the people behind Ocean World what their ultimate target is, and the unanimous reply is, “We would like to see every household in this country with an aquarium.” A ball park figure would be about a billion aquariums. “Well yes, it would take about a billion days. But we’re getting there,” says the passionate aquarium hobbyist Unni, smilingly.
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