Downtown Aquarium and Terrarium

One of Hungarian first public aquarium, the older one was only in the Budapest zoo and a few tanks in Victoriaház (now part of the ELTE botanical gardens). When Belvárosi aquarium was created, it was the only in the country (aquarium in the zoo was closed since 1973 up to 1984).

In the early 80s, some form of private enterprise became possible in Hungary and so the former employee of aquarium in Zoo Budapest, Béla Kápolnasi decided to build his own public aquarium. The construction began January 2, 1982 in the basement of the four-storey apartment building on Paris Street (Párizsi utca) and lasted almost a year. About 30 tons of cement, 3 km of aluminum foil, 150 m2 of glass, the amount of paints, stones, tree roots etc. was used. All was made in the manner of a cave, artistically created by Ferenc Zilachi (from the Natural History Museum). Equipment of aquariums and terrarium was made ​​by Kapolnasi and his wife. No law on the operation of such public facility existed in Hungary, so it was legally a shop. The inauguration took place on 10th December 1982. There was one terrarium (1500 l), 6 large aquariums (1200 l each), 15 medium sized (750 l each) and 2 small (250 l). The aquarium was very popular (about half million visitors for ca. 5 years of existence). Many important Hungarian personalities, including actors, writers etc. were among the visitors. The most important of them was Endre Nagy (explorer of Africa, who founded the museum and zoo in Balatonederics). The most important foreign guest was director of Duisburg Zoo, dr. Wolfgang Gewalt.

How the popularity of the aquarium was growing (also internationally), also envy and the attempts to harm and liquidation growing up (including theft of a patent on a kind of terrarium equipment for example). The result was really devastating economic troubles and subsequent owner's emigration to former West Germany (January 1988).

More than 60 species of freshwater and marine fish (eg. butterflyfish, bichir, elephantnose fish, arawana, knife fish, metynnis, hatchetfish, copeina, pencilfish, headstander, corydoras, loricaria, catfish, halfbeak, climbing perch, humbug, wrasse, cleaner wrasse, sailfin, surgeonfishes, clownfishes, cichlids, acaras, angelfishes, tetras, danios, rasboras, barbs, piranhas) cartilagious fish (fresh water rays), anemones, lizards...