Everywhere you look there are stunning aquatic ecosystems, contained in glass and housed in living rooms, dental offices and businesses throughout Winnipeg.

You may not be aware that behind nearly every single one, there exists a dedicated fish fanatic, like 40-year-old David Kozak, able to carefully manipulate these complex slices of life.

“I’ve always been interested in fish,” said Kozak, a local sound technician, adding that he jumped into the “lifestyle” of aquariums in 1998 with a 40-gallon freshwater tank and a hand-full of basic fish. 

A pattern of fanaticism emerges with a close examination of the fish hobby, however, and what began for Kozak as a benign interest eventually ballooned into a full-blown obsession in 2004.

“I would eat, sleep and breath fish,” he said, explaining that at “the height of (his) madness” he was maintaining 50 aquariums ranging from 10 gallons to 360 gallons each.

After a fruitless search for other aquarium addicts during the summer of 2004, Kozak created the Winnipeg fish forum; a place for hobbyists to swap stories, trade fish and sell equipment over the Internet. The forum now has nearly 1,500 members.

Twelve years into the hobby, Kozak has significantly cut back on the 50 tanks that once overwhelmed his house and now has a more “manageable” six freshwater aquariums.

“I just found that at that time (in 2004) I had way too many fish,” he said.

Derek Worthington is a 31-year-old automotive technician. Like Kozak, his interest in fish started innocently enough when, at 23, he purchased of a modest freshwater aquarium.

In the ensuing years, that aquarium became a 40-gallon saltwater tank, before finally evolving into a massive 120 gallon seascape in his upstairs bedroom.

“There’s more room for intensity in saltwater tanks,” he said, explaining that a saltwater system requires costly investments in lighting and filtration in order to maintain the unique species of coral and fish, not to mention the wide array of live rock (the beneficial calcium of coral skeletons).

“I was totally obsessed,” he said, adding that he was caring for expensive and difficult fish like the large and majestic Moorish Idol while preparing for a possible expansion of his tank.

At some point in 2007, Worthington had accumulated a $12,000 running tab at Saltwater Connection, a Henderson Highway aquarium store. Money from a student loan was also being funneled into the hobby, he said.

“It all become very elaborate,” he added, explaining that malfunctions in this elaborate system caused his tank to leak profusely on three occasions, each time resulting in roughly $4,000 in damage to his mother’s home.

With the final leak, in 2007, Worthington was forced to call it quits.

“I took all my live stuff (coral and fish), went to the store and got what I could,” he said, adding that he was forced to pay off a $2,000 debt at Saltwater Connection with a line of credit from his bank.

Although Worthington and his girlfriend now maintain a mild 40-gallon saltwater aquarium in their Wolseley home, he is forthright about his on-going relationship with local pet stores:

“It’s kind of a drug dealer-like relationship,” he said, with a smirk.

“ There’s a lot of people into fish tanks. Some people have 40 or 50 tanks in their home. They’ll spend up to $1,000 to $2,000 on a single fish.

Yew Wing Lam, owner, Fish Gallery

The fish dealers

Along a five block stretch of Main Street, there are two unlikely but thriving aquatic hotspots, J.W. Bird Shop & Aquariums, each catering to a dedicated community of Winnipeg fish lovers.

“With this place ... we try not to just make a sale but to give sound advice and help out our customers,” said fish expert Roger Karel, sitting on a bucket and surrounded by row upon row of the over 200 aquariums found within the local J.W. Bird Shop & Aquariums. 

“It’s constant maintenance here,” Karel said of the shop, which keeps 4,000 gallons worth of saltwater and 8,000 gallons worth of freshwater fish.

Karel has worked at J.W., which was started by his uncle and grandfather in 1988, for over 15 years.

The business survives by attracting regular clientele, buying from local breeders and contracting out Karel’s expertise to local businesses.

“It’s better than being stuck in the shop all day,” he said of the regular maintenance he does for aquariums at local dental offices, like Children’s Dental World, along with the massive salt water tank found at the Courts of St. James shopping mall.

During a brief stint working at Saltwater Connection, Worthington did the same kind of maintenance.

“Your main (constituent) is wealthy and doesn’t have time to sustain the hobby,” he said.

Yew Wing Lam, 38, is the owner of Main Street’s Fish Gallery.

Lam no longer does maintenance work after finding what he views as a concrete niche in the market.

“We like to collect very exotic fish to keep our selection different than other people,” he said, adding that his 200 aquariums house rare varieties of fish, like Arowana, a species with a life-span of up to 60 years. 

“There’s a lot of people into fish tanks,” said Lam. “Some people have 40 or 50 tanks in their home ... they’ll spend up to $1,000 to $2,000 on a single fish.”

Published in Volume 65, Number 10 of The Uniter (November 4, 2010)