Faruk Gençöz

Aquarium hobby is at most 50 years old in Turkey. We saw the first monthly Turkish aquarium magazine in December 1967. The magazine lasted only 2 years. The editor of the magazine complained in the last issues about not enough interests of the Turkish aquarists.



From these days on what has changed in the aquarium hobby, trade and industary in Turkey? A modern age has been started in 1999 with the formation of Turkish forums in internet. Turkish aquarists were eager to share their interests in the internet. As they shared their experineces in the virtual environment, real societies apperead in big cities. Istanbul Aquarium Club is a first and a reliable one.

After 37 years from the first magazine, Turkish aquarists begin to read a Turkish aquarium magazine again. Since 2004 we have been reading the new issues bimonthly.



As the most recent step, the aquarists founded first (Turkish) Aquarist Association in May 2005. There hasn't been a plant specific society yet but some traders who sell only the aquatic plants did appear.

Last year an advanced group organized a panel on "Aquarists as natural scientists" and "Aquarists' psychology". As a speaker we had 3 professors and the magazine editor during the panel discussion. This year in December the same type of panel will be organized by Aquarist Association at Middle East Technical University, Cultural and Convention Center. This time the subject of the panel will be "Where is the Turkish aquarium hobby in the world?". We will compare our activity level with the world and try to set some meaningful goals.

Faruk Gençöz

The first aquarium contest was done in 2004 in Turkey. This year's contest was more colorful. Roger Miller and Julian Sprung were in the jury. Please take a look at the aquariums in four categories including the planted tanks.

http://yarisma.akvaryumkulubu.org/juri/

http://yarisma.akvaryumkulubu.org/index_en.htm

Roger Miller

I was pleased to judge the Istanbul Aquarium Society's competition, and pleased to see a large participation. You description above is an interesting testament to the ability of the internet to connect people who share common interests.

The level of competition was higher than I initially expected. Some of the entries included clearly recognizable elements from widely recognized styles. Many of my favorite entries were based on sound principles of design while still projecting a vibrant and energetic appearance.

Cultural influences in the aquascapes add special interest to the Turkish contest, as it does with many other national contests.


Roger Miller

Faruk Gençöz

Roger,
I appreciate your motivating points for the Turkish contestants. I am sure the number of participants and the quality of designs will be much better next year because of encouraging evaluations. I hope many of them also participate in the international contests.

niko

Fgencoz,

Very interesting post about this hobby in Turkey.

Can I translate your first post and put it on the Bulgarian forum?

--Nikolay

Faruk Gençöz

Yes, of course. I also would like to know what we can learn from our neighbor, Bulgaria.

niko

Allright! Thanks a lot! I will translate your post later today.

The hobby in Bulgaria has grown almost in one giant leap - in about 1-1/2 years it has gone from a few hobyists to a web site that has about 100 members and at least 25 chatting very actively.

Outside of that they meet very often and have a lot of information about the hobby in Western Europe. A lot of plants and planted tank goods have been imported in the last year.

Also something interesting - there is company in Bulgaria that manufactures and sells a complete line of aquatic plant fertilizers specifically for this hobby (not for ponds). In some sense these fertilizers seem to be better than what we usually get in the US. Bottles of chelated Fe, Mg, Ca. Also vitamins and 3 groups of plant hormones. A separate bottle of Mo (Molibdenium) specific for sword plants. About 5 or so different combinations of N,P, and K meant for CO2 and non-CO2 tanks or for a different phase of the tank development.

--Nikolay

Faruk Gençöz

These are very good news from Bulgaria. We can have some cooperation between us. I saw some Turkish people here in forums trying to buy fertilizer from Greg Watson. The fertilizers you mentioned would be a good alternative for them. It would also be nice to see Bulgarian tanks in the Turkish contest next year.

Could you give us some web site links?

niko

Fgencoz,

The site:
http://aquariumbg.com

The forum:
http://aquariumbg.com/forum/index.php

It is only in Bulgarian so if you want to post something there and can't do it let me know.

--Nikolay

Faruk Gençöz

Thank you for the links. Internet is really a good power for us to meet and share.

At present we have two reliable societies who meet regularly and have action plan. In US I was able to count 270+ societies (http://fins.actwin.com/dir/). The Turkish societies appeared after the year 2000. On the other hand a federation was formed in 1973 in US. There seems to be a gap between Turkish and US aquarists' habits in the formation of societies although the Turkish culture is said to be more collectivistic than US culture.

Considering that there is also a gap between Turkey and US in terms of economic power, we can expect that the amount of money to spend for the hobbies in Turkey will be much less. The less money we spend the weaker aquarium industry we have. But can we say that the level of aquarium hobby in a country is directly related with its economic power? Czech Republic might be a good example to answer.