Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #24707 in Books
• Published on: 2001-07-15
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 80 pages

Customer Reviews

A must for informaton on selecting marine fish.
This book made an interesting and informative read. I do belive that it is more for the begginer, rathur than the experianced hobbiest.
It had colourful pictures and quick, easy to read and remember tips and facts for each of the species mentioned. The only fault I could find was the lack of information for when you wish to progres beond the 'begginer' stage.
However, It is a must for all new to keeping marine fish a it sticks to important information with no jargon!

Informative introduction to approx 60 species
Yes this is a book for beginners- but an extremely useful one. However you do tend to go I WANT THAT FISH! and then notice that it grows to 18"/ 45cm (So that cute looking yellow horned cowfish will be out then!).

You get a species to a page. A nice picture of the fish. A globe to show you the rough distribution. There's a description of the fish and it's eventual size. There's also a panel of fishkeeping data which tells you:
The number per aquarium
The community it fits in
Its swimming zone
Food
Compatibility (whether it eats other tankmates)
Availability (including whether it's tank bred or live caught)
Captive breeding possibilities.

Frankly as the data is well laid out and succinctly informative I feel that this is a very good planning guide which could prevent costly mistakes in the brightly coloured world of marine fishkeeping.

Information, what information?
When I bought this book I was looking for something a little more "complete" let's say. There is no information of any use in this book. I am looking for information like - what size of tank minimum should you have before purchasing a particular fish; will they be peaceful if you add another type of wrasse/tang/grouper/etc; is it prone to any diseases; how should it be introduced to a new tank; is there a specific acclimation process, how long should it be acclimated for; and such like.

It's a very pretty book, with pretty pictures but it tells me nothing that I need to know about introducing this fish to my tank and how to keep it alive!!

It gets one star for the pretty pictures.