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Title feature 05 How did you discover aquarium care for yourself, and when did you open your store? I come from a family of fishermen and always lived in Beaulieu sur Mer close to the Mediterranean Sea. At the age of 10, I set up an aquarium and learned to maintain it. I began breeding various species after a few years. I discovered marine aquariums when I was 18. I set up and kept a 500 liter (132 US gal.) aquarium with live corals, and a 1,500 liter (396 US gal.) aquarium with bigger fish shortly afterwards. My hobby became a profession when I was 28 years old. I bought an aquarium store that was specialized on selling exotic fish. What makes aquarium care fascinating for you and your customers? An aquarium is an intellectual, optical and aesthetical attraction. Everybody can live up to their imagination when designing an aquarium according to their ideas, their desires and even according to their interior design. It is a window into another world, a world of calmness and colors, that reduces stress and inspires the mind. What is your view of the development of aquarium care in the past and future? Aquarium care will continue to be omnipresent in our societies, but it will be subject to constant change. New animal and species protection guidelines will lead to further developments in breeding fish and corals. Aquarium care will remain attractive, because the French love animals, and having an aquarium at home or at work causes little effort. How do you estimate the interest in aquarium care in France, especially in the Provence/Alps/Côte d’Azur region? Our geographic position near the Maritime Museum of Monaco and the sea itself provides us with a situation favorable for developing the aquarium hobby in the region. This environment creates interest in aquariums all by itself. Which are the characteristics of the aquarium hobby in France? Are there major differences compared to other countries in the world? Specialized retail stores are rather unusual in France. During my visits in Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Spain and Italy, I still find that what made the French aquarium hobby strong in the Eighties: independent stores, small pet shops in quarters, there were dozens of B y the cities of Monaco, Saint Tropez, Nice and Cannes, the Côte d’Azur is well known beyond the borders of France, and it provided the setting for numerous successful movies. However, the Côte d’Azur has even more to offer. Hans Dulière allows us interesting insights into the exciting and active local aquarium scene. VIVO them on the Côte d’Azur, as well as numerous aquarium clubs. All these enthusiasts formed a net of useful knowledge for aquarium beginners. At the moment, the market in France aims at small aquariums, including round bowls and other variants for goldfish and Siamese Fighters. We can find aquariums holding a few liters even for marine environments. Keeping small aquariums is currently a strong trend in France. However, a small water volume is a bit more difficult to keep stable. We are aquarium manufacturers ourselves. We even offer self-manufactured ones, but we always recommend aquariums holding several hundred liters.

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