2 comments about Essential Guide to Keeping Goldfish (Tankmaster (Interpet Publishing)).

1. this book is very good
   lots to know about Goldfish and the care of the tank.
   Gets right to the point.



2. This book is all right if you don't want to try to treat medical conditions yourself. The descriptions of health related conditions were incomplete, and treatment rather limited. Too much space devoted to the nitrogen/ammonia cycle, and did not give a good description or explanation of how to cycle your aquarium. Therefore, that section merely took up space. The photos are the same photos that I have seen in several other goldfish books. If you only buy one book on keeping goldfish, this wouldn't be the one I'd recommend.

1 comments about Aquariums: The Complete Guide to Freshwater and Saltwater Aquariums.

1. My favorite librarian saved this book for me when it first came in! I must say I was a little disappointed. The pictures seem to have a cast over them, as though they are older pictures that were re-integrated into this newish book. I can prove it - on pg. 38 on the bottom left is an aquarium stand with an ANCIENT sound system below it! (Who would put a sound system below their aquarium anyhow?) The sectional furniture is telling too.
   
   In spite of this, the book is fine for an all purpose intro to aquariums. It has basic information and outlines common species with specifications and requirements. The section on breeding would probably be helpful, as it uses some older but tried and tested techniques. (I'm not a breeder, btw.)
   
   The translations are a little strained sometimes, e.g. "Impatience and urgency are two words that are utterly incompatible with the set up of an aquarium!" The book is originally in French. But what I find most jarring are the "An aquarium of..." sections which are these two page spreads...
   
   Basically, they're photomontages of different species over 2D backgrounds. It looks like someone literally "cut" the pictures of the livestock out and "pasted" them onto a background, with a rather incongruous effect. Cardinal tetras next to an Australian blue crayfish in "A Freshwater Invertebrate Aquarium"? I don't think so.
   
   For a list price of $39.95, you can find a better book. My recommendation is "Encyclopedia of Aquarium & Pond Fish" by David Alderton, which lists $5 cheaper. Much better photography (looks like they actually used editing, Photoshop-type software!) and denser information. It is a reference book I have referred to again and again, and it's a pleasure to browse, too.
   
   My personal suggestion, with any of these books, is to either choose a Freshwater or Marine book and go with that. Each deserves its own encyclopedia. But if you must have the best of both worlds, this book is okay...but the book I mentioned is better. How much better? Well...lots!

1 comments about Practical Fishkeeping: The Ultimate Guide to Setting Up and Maintaining Freshwater, Brackish and Marine Fish Tanks.

1. This is a great comprehensive reference tool! Step-by-step with pics and easy to follow instructions for all types of aquaria!

3 comments about Baensch Marine Atlas, Vol. 3 (Baensch Marine Atlas).

1. A good book if you are a diver and collect your own specimens and need to identify them, Pictures are well done and in color and makes for good and enjoyable reading. The chart at the bottom shows a nice table for suggesting watermovement, temperature range, difficulty factor for raising, availability in the trade.

   I give it one star because although nicely done 90% of the speciments pictures are listed as unavailable to the trade or protected species and unavailable. 90% are also recommended for people with at least two years of marine experience. It was written at a college level as to a lot of the terms. To be fair I believe two items were listed as a difficulty level of one (snails) and maybe three or four in the level three catagory. Level 4 being the highest degree of difficulty.

   There is not very much for a beginner or intermediate aquarist looking for things to add to their aquarium since they are listed as unavailable. It would of been much better if it had listed more items readily available and in the easy to moderate range of difficulty. I would not recommend this book to anyone trying to find, identify, or purchase items for an aquarium, especially beginners. For the advanced marine aquarist it has some beautiful pictures and info.

   However this was an atlas and not necessarily intended for aquarium buffs.




2. Well,I own the german original edition of this book,which I got before it was released in english,but it`s the same book. I can still read some german - it`s an easy language to understand.
   Anyway,I prefer to write a review in english.
   When I got the first book about two or three years ago,I thought there was something missing. There was only fishes of the order Perciformes,and the only invertebrates included were crustaceans and some anemones. I thought that was very strange. As there was some trouble when making this massive seven-book series,the second volume should have included other fish,but instead,here comes the missed invertebrates. It begins with a lot of sponges.
   Although care advices are beeing given,sponges are NOT recommended as aquarium animals,due to their feeding habits. Therefore,all of them has a high difficult grade. But if you shall go diving in the caribbean or something,it could be valueable as a marine life identification guide.
   The next chapter are treating the missing cnidarians from the first book,with stony corals and soft corals,and even some jellyfish!This section is taking up almost the half of the book,but as the corals is a rather dominating group of marine animals,that is completley understandable. Practical advice are beeing given for all of them. After reading it,I would mostly recommend the leather corals as suitable aquarium animals. Forget the jellyfish. The stony corals often have beautifull shapes but they`re not very colourfull. After this huge chapter,the next animal group dealt with are the flatworms. We often think of worms as disgusting animals,but these are very beutifull,but difficult too keep in an aquarium as they eat sponges. They are often mistaken for sea snails,but they have no gills on their back. Also included are the comb jellyfishes,a rare group of pelagic sea animals related to jellyfishes.
   The final chapter are dealing with the molluscs,a very diverse group of marine animals. Here,we can see mostly shells of different kinds,and they are very beautifull and varied. Especially the small,but incredible section for nudibranchs. Some of these shells,altough not the cowries,can be kept in a marine aquarium very easily. So far,this book has been a valueable resource for me,as it has so many species included. Do not forget to buy the first and third volume,while volume 4-7 are additional species introduced. I do not own volume 5,but I`ll get that some time too. But so far,volume 1,2,3,4,6 & 7 are the BEST marine life identification guides available!



3. I was quite pleased with the content of this volume. The information is very concise, informative, and accurate. The location information as to where you could locate the various species could not be surpassed. This is a must for any diver, or marine biologist.

5 comments about Aquarium Filtration (Complete Authoritative Guide).

1. I wish now that I did not buy this book, the information is just too general. Basic design and filter sizing are topics that I expected to find in this book.



2. Before you can become an expert at anything you need to know the basics. What this book does well is explain aquarium filtration and the equipment involved to those who may have little or no knowledge on this matter. Many aquarist books explain filtration very briefly, often leaving the reader with questions and incomplete information about the process. This book will tell you how and why filtration occurs, and explain various filter products and how they work. Includes filtration suggestions for different tank set-ups, but could have included more. Marine tanks are covered, but I would say that freshwater tanks are more the focus of this book.



3. This book describes good filtration systems, some may be considered as old, others too bulky, but what surprised me the most was to find in page 6 referring to nitrite as NO3 and nitrate NO2 (it is nitrite NO2 and nitrate NO3)! After that I took all information with care and check in other book for confirmation. How is it possible for the author to miss this? If you want to see nice photos, fine, but be ware some pages stick together and seem they are going to break, so be careful.



4. If you are looking for a book to help you understand new filtration methods for your marine aquarium. Do not buy this book. It might work for fresh water tanks.



5. This book helps alot for beginners. Filtration is a complex subject for a beginner but with this book you can manage lots of diffucult things. Articles and photos are fine. I recomend this book.

No comments about Livebearers (KW-049).

4 comments about Mollies: Keeping & Breeding Them in Captivity.

1. I found this book to be very helpful being that I am new to keeping Mollies. Since reading this my fish seem much healthier.



2. This book lacks specifity such as not giving exact parameters
   for water/breeding conditions, i.e the book states "mollies in general prefer their ph on the alkaline side of the ph scale."
   No exact figure is given & for the beginner in particular this could present a problem. This book appears to be old but I cannot confirm this as there is no publishing date listed.
   There are also too many photos which would be wonderful if this were an aquarium picture gallery but the photo space could have been better used to supply more detailed info.



3. This book has excellent photos of different types of mollies. The pictures were bold and beautiful. Some of the best I have seen of fish. The text is very large and with all of the photos this does not leave a whole lot of room for information. The information it gave was helpful but I was looking for more.



4. For my birthday several months ago I recieved a 20 gallon aquarium. After looking at fish from several stores I decided to buy several different kinds of mollies. I would like to breed them eventually. I looked all over for a book specifically about Mollies. Most books give you general information about all kinds of fish. I read many books, but did not feel like I was getting all the information needed. Finally, I found this book! It has given me so much valuable information on these beautiful and fun fish. For Example, Mollies like a warmer tank and a bit of salt to keep them healthy and because of this it is better to keep them in a dedicated tank. Information from setting up a tank they like, disease and how to treat it naturally, breeding, raising fry, and other extremely valuable information. All on Mollies! And the pictures. OOOHHH ! ! ! They show beautiful pictures of Sailfins, Lyretails, Balloons in variations of colors. The pictures are high quality close-ups, no fuzzies ! They are absolutely beautiful. I even discovered a few new colors I want to get like the Chocolate and Red-Splash. I could go on, but let's just say if you want a book to give you the information you need on Mollies, THIS IS IT!

1 comments about Majestic Discus (AQUALOG Special).

1. All of the Aqualog books are excellent value, although they are not particularly cheap. They are full to the brim with first class colour photographs and to reproduce these in a book is an expensive process. Whether they are about the beautiful L Number now coming into the aquarist trade or in this case arguably the most beautiful freshwater tropical fish species, they are the most comprehensive identification books you can buy. They never become dated because as new fish become available to the aquarist trade the books are updated. There is not a lot of literature on Discus so this book is invaluable.
   
   They do not deal with the basics of fish keeping, there are many and varied books that do that. They are in the main a fish identification encyclopaedia and not a lot more. But for those aquarists who are particularly interested in a single species they are indispensable.

No comments about Popular Pond Plants (Pond & Aquatic S.).

No comments about Guide to Koi (Fishkeeper's Guides).