From streams to Balaton

Dear Guest,

One of the biggest natural wonders of Hungary is Lake Balaton. In terms of historical geology, Balaton is considered as a young lake, since the formation of the first areas filled with water in its basin only began 12 000 – 15 000 years ago. The area has constantly changed as a result of the changes in the climate and its current shape has only been formed at the beginning of the 20th century, which provides natural habitat to the flora and fauna of this area.

The wildlife of Balaton and its strams is incredibly rich. If you visit Balatonfüred, you should come and see this magical wildlife in our visit centre. In our aquariums, you should have a look at all kinds of fishes living in Balaton from the small common bleak to the largest fish os Central Europe, the catfish.

In addition, we show a little selection of the Adriatic Sea’s flora and fauna thanks to our twin town, Opatija.

Take care of Balaton if you want our grandchildren to see this beautiful natural area!

In the history of Balaton, 47 fish species were found. According to science, nowadays only 24 species live in the lake, however the fishermen and anglers only met 15 species.

In our visitor centre you can see circa 30 species. Furthermore, amphibians and reptiles of this area can be found here. The most famous resident of the aquarium is Béla, The European pond turtle. Did you know that the European pond turtle is the only indigenous turtle species of Hungary?

The exhibition shows not only the lake’s aquatic fauna, but you can see the direct catchment area’s fauna as well, which is 6000 m2 wide.

In the aquariums, we try to create an atmosphere which represents where and in what kind of enviroment our andangered and rare fish species live. Most of the fishes came ti our aquarium from the lake and from fish farms.

The visitor centre has 17 aquariums, 2 terrariums and a garden pond. Our aquariums contain 30m3 freshwater and 5 m3 seawater, partly from the Adriatic Sea. We provide the proper living conditions for the species with thermal controlling system and with special equipment which ensures the natural water flow.

Our information system with touchscreen panels gives you further details about the lake and draws attention to the importance of the flora and fauna in Lake Balaton and its surrounding areas. Sustainable development is one of the most prominent objectives of Hungary and the European Union.

The largest aquarium of Lake Balaton

Let me introduce you the common roach (in Hungarian: Bodorka).
The aquarium wears the name of tjis unique fish.

The common roach (Rutilus Rutilus) is a fish with green back, orange tail and orange fins. That’s why it is similar to the common rudd which appears in the folk song of Balaton, however they cannot be mixed up. The roach can often be recognized by the big orange spot in its eyes.

The common roach likes the calm parts of the lake. The fish is very faithful since it never leaves its group and its natural habitat. The spawning season of the fish lasts from April to May when the water temperature is constantly between 10C and 17C, however their spawning can be interrupted due to sudden changes in the water temperature.

The fish, whose eating habits were examined in details, eats plankton, snails, mussels and sometimes even small fish. However the roach is an important nutrition to a lot of predators such as the pike, the zander and the catfish. The common roach grows slowly. It is rare if a fish weighs over 1kg, however an angler hace fished a roach whose weight was 1,9kg.

Source: „Magyarország halai” by Károly Pintér