Product Description

Keeping an aquarium adds beauty and grace to your life. That elegant little world in a glass box can be your respite from the cares of the day and even can lower your blood pressure. It can be a great outlet for your artistic impulses, and educational for your kids. And when it comes to pets, you can’t go wrong with fish. They eat little, require minimal space, and need no training. They never stray, bay at the moon, or leave surprises on your lawn. They’re not prone to rude sniffing, and they won’t chase your letter carrier. And fish never get hairballs or scratch your furniture.

Aquariums For Dummies answers all your fishy questions about keeping an aquarium and makes it easy to get into the swim of things with your own freshwater, brackish, or marine aquarium. You’ll discover how to:

• Choose the right aquarium for you
• Select the best fish
• Create and maintain a healthy aquarium
• Locate good deals on equipment
• Design a dazzling underwater environment

With humor and without a lot of jargon, expert Maddy and Mic Hargrove cover all the bases. They give you step–by–step instructions on how to select equipment and set up your aquarium. And they explore an array of important and fun topics, including:

• Tanks, water sources, substrates and decorations, and water testing
• Live plants for freshwater and brackish aquariums and invertebrates for marine aquariums
• Fish anatomy and physiology (plus a guide to dozens of freshwater coldwater, tropical marine, and brackish fish)
• Choosing a quality dealer and developing a good relationship with them
• Deciding what the right species for you and selecting fish
• Fish diet and nutrition
• Diagnosing and treating diseases in fish
• Breeding fish for fun and profit

A fun and easy guide to creating and maintaining a beautiful aquarium, Aquariums For Dummies is your entrée to the fascinating and rewarding world of fishkeeping.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #432489 in Books
• Published on: 1999-08-05
• Format: Illustrated
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 376 pages

From the Back Cover
"Get this book. Your fish will thank you!" Robert Rice, President, National Fish Conservancy

Step–by–step instructions help you set up your aquarium

The fun and easy guide to creating and maintaining a beautiful aquarium Setting up your first aquarium can be a daunting task. Not only do you need to choose the right fish, but you also have to maintain the right environment for them to flourish. This friendly guide answers all your "fishy" questions — and makes it easy to get into the swim of things!

Discover how to: Choose the right aquarium for you Select the best fish Create and maintain a healthy aquarium Locate good deals on equipment Design a dazzling underwater environment

The Dummies Way^™ Explanations in plain English "Get in, get out" information Icons and other navigational aids Tear–out cheat sheet Top ten lists A dash of humor and fun

Get smart! www.dummies.com Register to win cool prizes Attention pet owners! Get free Dummies Daily^™ e–mail newsletters Sign up for tips on dogs, cats, or birds Keep your pet healthy and content—the Dummies Way^™

About the Author
Maddy Hargrove writes regularly for every major fishkeeping magazine, including Marine Monthly. Mic Hargrove, an expert technical advisor on aquarium equipment and water chemistry, writes for tropical fish magazines.

Customer Reviews

Not quite ready for prime time
If you're a beginner, do yourself a favor and buy a copy of "The Complete Idiot's Guide to Freshwater Aquariums" instead of this book.

This one was second to market, and it appears as though it was rushed in an attempt to get it out. It is filled with factual errors ("length x width x height = capacity in gallons" page 26), meaningless advice (the discussion on substrate size uses "large" and "medium" without quantifying those terms, then goes on to recommend 1/8" particles as "best for most setups" without discussing what the fish or plants may prefer), editing errors (the same phrase is occasionally repeated, as on the page 86-87 break), and disorganized information (pH and the nitrogen cycle are discussed well before these terms are explained).

The examples I've listed above are not the only ones I've found. But perhaps the biggest complaint I have with this book is that it tries to cover too much. Beginners shouldn't be setting up a saltwater aquarium as their introduction to the hobby, and since this book covers both fresh and saltwater setups it is filled with excess information that is useless to a beginner.

The people that publish the "Idiots Guide" series, which are in direct competition with the "Dummies" guides, have wisely separated these two subjects into distinct books, and in doing so they have produced a superior product with better organization and more useful information.

BTW, it's interesting to note that the only other review of this book (at this time) was submitted 4 months before it was published. And while it's a positive review, it still only gives the book 4 stars...

Broad description
As all dummies book I like this one too, but found it that it covers a to broad subject. The book should have divided in two: fresh and saltwater, as they are two different subjects. This book mixes them together far to much.

A bit fishy
This book is great for beginners... would have liked a few more pictures though.

If your looking to start an aquarium than you can't go far wrong with this, it gives good infomation about bactiria levels, chemicals and problems.