The Aquarists of Bangalore, Adip Sajjan Raj, by Howard Norfolk

ARTICLE INFORMATION:
Author: Howard Norfolk, Howard
Title: The Aquarists of Bangalore.
Part 3: Adip Sajjan Raj
Summary: Adip is an electrical engineering student who somehow finds time to maintain three large display tanks as well as breed fish in his own fish house.
Contact for editing purposes:
email: howardnorfolk@aquarticles.com
(Note: Photos have been re-sized for easy loading. Better quality photos can be provided if required).
Date first published: February 2002
Publication: Original to Aquarticles

ARTICLE USE:
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1. Credit author and Aquarticles.
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Mail one printed copy to:
Jim Norfolk
4131 Bonavista Crescent
Burlington, Ontario
L7M 4 J3

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MEET AN AQUARIST SERIES: THE AQUARISTS OF BANGALORE

by Howard Norfolk
Aquarticles

PART THREE: ADIP SAJJAN RAJ

When not engaged with his demanding studies as an electronics engineering student, Adip Sajjan Raj is serious about his fishkeeping. On entering his house one sees a six-sided display aquarium nicely filled with plants and goldfish.

04b Adip w. hex.jpg (12648 bytes) Adip with his goldfish aquarium

In an adjoining room is another large display aquarium with plants and a variety of community fish, and Adip maintains a third display tank which I didn't see.

01b Large tank.jpg (17502 bytes) Display aquarium

Adip built these tanks himself, and also some of the accessories. I noticed a light holder that he had made from a length of thick (6" diameter) bamboo. When halved down the middle the hollow bamboo made a perfect natural looking cover for a strip light.

But I was most impressed by Adip's fish room, where he has fourteen tanks in which he breeds and keeps fish, and produces live food for them. The fish room is an outbuilding attached to the side of the house. It is open to the elements in that the windows are covered with wire mesh rather than glass - but this is O.K. in Bangalore's mild climate, where heat is only marginally needed for short periods of the year.

05b Adip in fishroom.jpg (15004 bytes) Adip in his fish house

Adip has kept fish for some time in community aquariums, but the first fish he decided to breed were goldfish. He was inspired to do so after visiting the May 1999 Aquarium Exhibition which was put on by the Aquarists Society of Bangalore. He wrote an article about his experiences in breeding and raising goldfish for the Society newsletter, and has supplied many club members with his fish.
Since then he has bred various other fish species, and currently his two largest tanks are filled with young kribensis cichlids, of which he gets 80 - 90 fry each month. In another large tank are about two hundred tiny baby albino corys, which just hatched and look more like little mosquito larvae than fish at present.

07b Kribs.jpg (6535 bytes) Young kribensis

Adip also has a collection of platies, mollies and swordtails which of course breed for him, and his current project is to breed Betta splendens (Siamese fighting fish), the males of which he has already gathered and keeps in jars on two shelves of his room.

06b Bettas.jpg (7614 bytes) Bettas and utility tanks

Finally, by the front door and by the side of the house, Adip has three "cement rings." In them he keeps plants and livebearers.

10b Concrete ring.jpg (9200 bytes) "Cement ring" next to front door

Adip is a smart young man who has come a long way in two or three years. Let's hope he passes all his future exams and that he is able to make valuable contributions to fishkeeping in India in years to come!

There is an aquarium society in Bangalore. Raj Kumar told me something about it. The Society's headquarters is at The Government Aquarium in Cubbon Park, so I went to take a look…

GO TO PART FOUR: THE AQUARISTS SOCIETY OF KARNATAKA