tawidtayo

Fishes and Feet Do Mix: Tibiao Fish Spa, Iloilo City

All the way from Iloilo City at Panay Island, Tawidtayo can’t help but crossover and see what everyone is buzzing about in the City of Love. There was something fishy over at SM City – Manduriao, literally. It was the Tibiao Fish Spa, and have we ever mentioned that we LOVE spas?

The Tibiao Fish Spa is a business venture of three alumni of the University of the Philippines – Miag-ao. Currently, they have three tanks filled with fishes grouped according to sizes – the Beginner Tank, Medium Tank and the Advanced Tank. It costs only P100 to stay for 30 minutes in whichever tank you would prefer. The staff is accommodating, providing a numbered basket for the footwear and ushering customers to the washing area before and after the soak.


We tried the advanced one first, thinking that the sign saying “Big Fish, Big Tickles” was a warning for kids who visited. We were wrong. The fishes in the tank were similar to the size of an average person’s fingers. It was unbearably tickly! But then for other people who weren’t as ticklish as we were, the tank’s great.

So we moved over to the small fishes, which mean small tickles, hoping for a lesser torture from the fishes. Over at the Beginner Tank, the fishes were babies so their tiny mouths weren’t bothering at all. We even dipped our fingers to get a real feel of the fishes’ bites. Pillows, magazines and laptops can be used to make the experience more pleasurably relaxing for everyone. After 30 minutes, we washed our clean feet with water to rinse off and we were provided with alcohol and towels to finish off.


There’s no age requirement to try out this great innovation in health science. The fishes are after the upper layer of dead skin cells, so there’s no possibility of anyone getting injured. During weekdays, bring the whole barkada along and avail of the 5 + 1 promo – get one person free if you go in a group of 6.