HK Fish and Geckos

There are two places in Hong Kong that fish hobbyists congregate.

• Kowloon side: Mongkok's Goldfish Street (金魚街)
  There are a few blocks worth of fish stores (saltwater and freshwater), where you'll find fish cheaper than you ever imagined (vs. US). The stores are usually packed with hobbyists.
• Hong Kong side: Tai Koo place's Hong Kong Aquarium Plaza
  This is an enclosed building, where you can shop in a quieter and cleaner environment than Mongkok. The prices are pretty much the same, perhaps a tad higher for equipment. The pictures you see below are from this plaza, not Mongkok.

So how cheap is cheap? Just look at the floating styrofoam price of HK$ 15 (US$ 1.92) for the Pearlscale or Auriga Butterfly. You'd pay about 25-35 in a fish store (online it's cheaper by a bit). You see full grown dog-face puffer fish for ~$3-4. As you can also see, they pack the fish in tight, and allow you to catch your fish yourself (so you can choose the one you want). Unfortunately equipment is oftentimes more than the US, for the same brands. However, if you feel like gambling, you can go with the China products.

Here you see how they see those sad Goldfish. Just like clothing on a rack, but they're fish in bags. They also sell 'em this way outdoors in Mongkok. On the bottom right you see the cheap freshwater guppies.

Because the fish are so cheap, I rushed my tank setup which probably resulted in several premature deaths. This is a Heniochus butterfly fish which was doing well in my tank for 2 weeks but then caught ick (I guess it was in its body, since there were no fish in the tank before) and died a nasty death. White dots lead to not eating for 2 days, and then he lost balance and died. His body at the TOD was splotched with red marks, which I'm not sure what disease that is.

I came back to my apt at 2AM one evening and went into the bathroom. I was startled by the sight of a swiftly moving gecko (or whatever it is) on my shower wall. It's apparently normal for this to happen in HK. Anyways, I caught it in a box and kept it overnight. I planned to release it into the park, but due to time constraints I ended up "releasing" him into the elevator. I know it sounds cruel, but I didn't spot a cadaver later that day, so he should be fine.