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The Guide to Owning Discus Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)I've read several Discus books, some really good ones from Bernd Degen, and I really didn't like this one. It doesn't focus on anything at all and it has no hints about keeping them (despite the sub-title in the front page) beside temperature. Some average pictures after all, from the TFH archive.

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Setting up a Tropical Aquarium Week by Week Review

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(More customer reviews)Wow, I wish they had a book like this when I started fish keeping. I think there would be fewer fish in heaven if I had a book this informative. From tank choice to maintenance, the 12 weeks this book covers is jam packed with practical information. This book includes helpful information on plants, filters, fish choice, fish diseases and much more. The step-by-step photos are great and extremely easy to follow. The information is timeless and very well done.
This is a great gift for anyone who has or wants to get a fish tank.

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A week-by-week practical guide to setting up and maintaining a superb living environment

As fishkeeping continues to grow in popularity, hobbyists are looking for authoritative advice and more sophisticated results.

Setting Up a Tropical Aquarium Week-by-Week is an encyclopedic reference that takes a fresh look at setting up and maintaining a tropical freshwater aquarium. New hobbyists are quite often impatient to set up their aquarium and want to add their expensive fish as soon as possible. This common misstep can have disastrous results that may discourage beginners from ever trying again.

To curb such enthusiastic impatience, this book presents clear step-by-step practical advice in a convenient week-by-week progression. The book uses detailed photographic sequences to follow each stage of setting up a warm water freshwater tropical aquarium in real-time over a period of ten weeks.

The set-up procedure starts with the first day, when the substrate and life-support systems are installed and progresses to the point at which the first fish are added - two weeks later. The book then follows the aquarium's development during the next eight weeks as the tank turns from an artificial environment into a living eco-system.

Alongside the main aquarium set-up sequence are photographs that show how to create two different aquascape designs based on a cube and a bow-front tank.

Profile sections show fifty aquarium plants and one hundred popular warm water freshwater aquarium fish at relevant stages of the set-up process. Throughout, the book explains the natural processes that occur so that fishkeepers can ensure ongoing success.

Combining clear text and simple-to-follow illustrations, Setting Up a Tropical Aquarium Week-by-Week is a crucial reference for tropical freshwater fish hobbyists.

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Aquarium Atlas (Volume 1) Review

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(More customer reviews)Everything about this book is complete, concise, and colorful. All volumes contain useful information. Vol 1 is the more common aquarium fish, Vol 2 is rarer fish (cichlids and brackish) and Vol 3 is exotics and also more common fish. Each one contains both plants, fish, diseases, tank set-up and more. Each fish is discussed, not just some pictorial symbols as to their care. Pictures are large and colorful (great quality!). The layout is superb and the information is quite accurate. I highly recommend all of these books, but #1 is best for beginning aquarists.

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The Baensch Atlases are found in the personal and professional libraries of aquarium keepers throughout the world. Lavishly illustrated in color with information from leading biologists and aquarium experts, these fact-filled volumes will provide years of inspiration and reference for the beginning to advanced aquarist.--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Encyclopedia of Aquarium and Pond Fish Review

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(More customer reviews)The jacket of this beautifully illustrated book claims that it is "the definitive guide to choosing and keeping freshwater or marine fish, for aquariums and ponds." In addition to a color photographic rendition of each fish, information is provided about origins, size, diet, water preferences, and temperament. For example, on page 272, we learn that the Shy Hamlet, a six-inch blue, green, and yellow fish native to the Caribbean region, needs "nooks and crannies in the aquarium where they can hide." This fish obviously has an appropriate name! (summary by South Texas Library System)
At 400 pages, aquarium enthusiasts get a lot of information. DK is known for their high quality, colorful books. You can't go wrong with this one.

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A lavishly illustrated reference covering all aspects of keeping fish, the Encyclopedia of Aquarium & Pond Fish is the first book on the market to provide care and identification information on all types of fish for every possible environment, from indoor aquariums to outdoor ponds. The book contains a directory of over 800 of the most popular fish freshwater, saltwater, coldwater, and tropical‹showing not only what each fish looks like, but what food they eat, which species they can cohabit with, how big they grow, and much more.

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The Coral Reef Aquarium: An Owner's Guide toa Happy Healthy Fish (Happy Healthy Pet) Review

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(More customer reviews)The Coral Reef Aquarium is a key-fact oriented primer on modern reef system dynamics. Main sections include "Understanding the Coral Reef," "The Environment," and "The Organisms." The concentration on equipping the aquarist with a conceptual framework from which to base their pursuit rather than the more typical emphasis on equipment renders the book valuable for readers at any level. I especially liked chapters on "An Artificial Ecosystem" (where life on the reef is contrasted with life in the tank) and "Material and Energy Flow" (which traces events from the food through all plant and critter life).
Dr. Ron Shimek's style is blunt, to the point, and hard hitting. Where most "beginner" books are written by well studied practitioners, Shimek's book is written for beginners by a biology instructor / scientist. The facts are behind a few unconventional recommendations that liven the well presented material further. Clearly Shimek is on a mission to remove our hobby from the erroneous recommendations earlier books for beginners served up generously. For it's brevity (only 126 pages) and low price it's a 5 star book. I'm rating it 4 stars not because the work isn't excellent, it is, but because I feel the beginner's needs are incredibly broad and it's simply impossible answer the myriad of questions and concerns in 125 pages. Then again, I have yet to see a beginner's book that does.

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The number of corals imported into the U.S. rose 249 percent between 1995 and 1996, an indication the coral reef hobby is booming. Concerned hobbyists have begun growing corals domestically so that people can enjoy reef tanks without destroying natural reefs. This book combines information on setting up and maintaining a reef, as well as ecological concerns.

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The Ultimate Guide to Raising Healthy Koi: How to Keep Your Koi Fish Happy and Healthy, Without Spending a Fortune Review

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(More customer reviews)My husband and I are planning on getting a few koi very, very soon, and we've found this book to be very helpful in the planning process. It covers all the bassic areas one would expect (how to feed them, how to keep them disease-free, even how to pick out the right kind for you), and it does so in a very clear, well-explained manner. I can't comment on some aspects of the process, because our koi pond isn't done yet, but so far this book has been very helpful throughout the planning process. If you're planning on raising koi yourself, this book is an excellent primer on the subject.

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If you've always wanted to enjoy the beauty of your own koi fish, but didn't know how to get started, then "The Ultimate Guide to Raising Healthy Koi" is exactly the book you're looking for.By raising your own koi, you will experience immense satisfaction, possess something of true beauty, and become part of a world-wide community that loves this elegant and beautiful fish as much as you do.In "The Ultimate Guide to Raising Healthy Koi", Arthur Flynn takes you by the hand and leads you through the process of raising healthy, happy koi, step by step, with absolutely nothing left out.All of the advice is simple and practical, and covers all the major areas of this wonderful pursuit, including...- How to determine which type of koi is right for you.- 3 things you should never do when raising koi.- Optimal nutrition secrets for raising the healthiest koi possible.- How to identify possible koi fish diseases.- A pennies on the dollar approach to setting up and maintaining a koi pond....and much more!"The Ultimate Guide to Raising Healthy Koi" is written in plain, easy to understand English (you won't find any complicated technical jargon here), and covers every aspect of owning and raising koi, so you can get started right away, no matter what your current level of experience may be.So if you've always admired the beauty of koi, and want to finally learn how to raise your own, then "The Ultimate Guide to Raising Healthy Koi" is the perfect book to get you started!Get your copy today!

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Encyclopedia Of Exotic Tropical Fishes For Freshwater Aquariums Review

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(More customer reviews)I've been keeping freshwater fish (and just about everything else that ever tooled about the freshwater environment at one time or another) for a long, LONG time, and I've found this text to be as authoritative and reader-friendly as books can get. Simply stated, the novice can learn all he or she needs to about a species or genera of fish in order to successfully keep that species in captivity, while the advanced hobbyist has at his or her fingers an unparalleled resource text in this book. As an expert whose knowledge is certainly limited, I've found this book to be a sort of catch-all text that answers most any question I might have about the freshwater species of fishes. More so even than that, I consider this book a reference text in that when I go to the local fish shop and I see something I've never seen before, I can come home, reference my Encyclopedia of Freshwater Fishes, and come away with a solid understanding of the species that I just encountered for the first time; I don't have to rely on the "guess and pray" information given me by the pet shop's clerk, I can simply rely on this book to fill in the gaps and bridge the information-gulfs that stand between me and my chosen species of captive fish.
While the above information is simply my amateur opinion on the information the text provides, the following is my professional take on the book as published work. My name is Phil Purser, and many of you may have read my books on Moray Eels, Green Treefrogs, or Garter & Ribbon Snakes. I've been writing on fish & reptiles/amphibians for over a half-decade, and I know what is good and what sucks when it comes to the pet trade. I've read myriad books by "authors" who couldn't find their noses in the dark, and I've read authoritative books by the leading minds of the field, and I can honestly say that, after reading this book from the front cover to the back, this text is one book that will stay one my personal shelves for years and years to come. The information in it is up-to-date, accurate, and timeless (of course nomenclature can change, but the care of each species is pretty well fixed). When you've got all the information you'll ever need in one book, why would you ever reach for another?
The authors of this book are some of the best in the field...better even than myself. Despite my decades of experience studying and writing about fishes, I still defer my questions and inquiries to men such as Glen Axelrod and Brian Scott. Any hobbyist who keeps his or her fingers on the pulse of the freshwater aquarium hobby will attest to the expertise of these scholars; they know their stuff!
I guess what I'm saying is that if an old expert like me can enjoy and reference a book so much as I have this text, then ANYONE who is even remotely interested in the keeping and understanding of freshwater fishes can certianly learn from and relish a book like this one. I honestly believe that a book to rival this one in scope and depth of knowledge will be written for a long, long time to come.

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The Encyclopedia of Exotic Tropical Fishes for Freshwater Aquariums is an inspiring resource. The book is separated into two sections, with the first part encompassing six chapters of both general and specific fishkeeping information and the second part offering detailed profiles of 1000 freshwater species. All fish enthusiasts will appreciate the down-to-earth writing style and superb images by some of the world's top photographers. This practical reference also features anatomical drawings, multiple tip boxes, and over 2800 full-color photographs.

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A Practical Guide to Creating and Maintaining Water Quality (Tankmaster (Interpet Publishing)) Review

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(More customer reviews)This is a well-written pamphlet providing elementary information on water and aquarium chemistry. If that is what you are looking for, this book should probably be a 5* book. I was looking for more detailed and more in-depth information than this book provides and was a bit disappointed.

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Controlling water quality is the single most important aspect of aquarium maintenance. Here is detailed information on filtration, temperature control, water chemistry, and the accessories required to maintain water quality. The brilliantly illustrated Tankmaster Books are for serious aquarium hobbyists, as well as beginners who want to know more about keeping an aquarium. Tankmaster books show rather than merely tell the details of aquarium maintenance with pages filled with full-color photos and diagrams. Written instruction takes the form of enlightening picture captions and labels that explain all details in each illustration. More than 200 illustrations in every volume.--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Tetras and Barbs: The Complete Guide to the Successful Care and Breeding of Two of the Most Popular Groups of Aquarium Fish (Aquarium Success) Review

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(More customer reviews)This long awaited book on Tetras and Barbs, the so-called "scatterers", is an excellent addition to any fishkeeper's library and I've proudly added it to mine. It covers every aspect of these amazing animals from an introduction and discussion of their relationship in the overall scheme of life to their habitats in the wild, setting up an aquarium designed for them, giving them proper care, breeding them, and raising their young if you desire to do so. None of the book is canned text - everything is fresh and new. Even the section on setting up an aquarium for them is not wasted by repeating things discussed ad nauseum in every beginner text ever produced, but rather it addresses how to set up an aquarium specifically for tetras and barbs.
This is not an encyclopedic work, either. That is to say that it does not contain a detailed description of each species, which can also be found elsewhere in atlas and encyclopedia type works. Don't get me wrong! There are many excellent photos throughout illustrating many of the common and the not-so-common species. But instead of wasting space describing fish a hobbyist might never encounter (for those who want information on the bread-and-butter fish) or spending all of the time on fish that can be found in any pet store (for those who want information on the rare stuff), the author spends his allotment of pages on a detailed look at all of the known groupings of tetras and barbs and their close relatives and what makes them unique and of special interest to hobbyists the world over.
The author has an interesting approach to keeping and breeding these fish that is a distillation of methods passed down from earlier generations of hobbyists combined with some of the latest thinking in the aquarium hobby. I especially liked the author's discussion of the various species' occupation of microhabitats in the wild which leads directly to satisfying each individual species' special needs and caring for the fish in home aquaria.
In the author's own words, "fishkeeping is both an art and a science". This book helps to explain the science of keeping and breeding tetras and barbs without becoming bogged down in complex terminology, and demistify the art without becoming too esoteric. Both the author's writing style and the topics covered in the book make this volume useful to both the beginning aquarist working with these fish for the first time, and for the seasoned advanced hobbyist looking for advanced information on these groups of fish.
I highly recommend this book for anyone even remotely interested in tetras, barbs, and other allied groups of fish. Of course, I have to mention the caveat that the author has been a good friend for many years, but if I didn't think this book was worthwhile, I would have politely declined the opportunity to write a review.

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Tetras and barbs are among the most popular community fish, with dozens of species readily available in pet and aquarium stores. Written by one of the leading experts on these groups of fish, this comprehensive guide features five important fish groups spanning hundreds of species and covers topics essential to aquarists interested in tetras and barbs such as feeding, water requirements, species, diseases, and breeding. Full-color photos, sidebars, charts, and tip boxes illustrate key points and nicely complement the informative text.

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Dr Axelrods Mini Atlas of Freshwater Aquarium Fishes (Dr. Axelrod's Atlas of Freshwater Aquarium Fishes) Review

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(More customer reviews)A priceless acurate reference that should be brought with you on every trip to the pet/fish store. The atlas features pictures of just about every freshwater fish you will ever come across. It provides each fishes feeding habits (dry food, live worms, live fish, or vegetarian) and reproduction type (egglaying or livebearer), recommenced aquarium lighting, recommended aquarium setup (planted aquarium, rocks; no plants, only gravel, rocks-plants-and driftwood), its swimming habits (bottom dweller, top swimmer, etc) and its temperament. The fish are ordered and only listed using the fish's scientific Latin name. For the common name you must look in the index in the back of the book. All measurements and temperatures are only given in metric. Beginners looking for a similar book with all measurements in standard US measurements would be better off with Aquarium Fish, by Dick Mills (Amazon ISBN#1564582930.)

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Encyclopedia of Aquarium & Pond Fish Review

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(More customer reviews)This book is also very helpful, we have three tanks & an outdoor pond the information covered everything we need to know, thanks

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A lavishly illustrated reference covering all aspects of keeping fish, the Encyclopedia of Aquarium & Pond Fish is the first book on the market to provide care and identification information on all types of fish for every possible environment, from indoor aquariums to outdoor ponds. The book contains a directory of over 800 of the most popular fish-freshwater, saltwater, coldwater, and tropical-showing not only what each fish looks like, but what food they eat, which species they can cohabit with, how big they grow, and much more.

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The Simple Guide To Planted Aquariums Review

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(More customer reviews)I've kept planted aquariums for a number of years, but was intrigued by this book because one of the co-authors is a well-known advocate of low-tech planted tanks.
The format of this book is VERY nice. The writing is friendly and inviting, and there are lots of pretty full color photos. Personally, I didn't learn a whole lot of new information, but it was a pleasant read nonetheless. I would certainly recommend it to someone just entering the hobby, or someone looking for an overview on planted tanks, especially if they're seeking some guidance on what type of planted tank is the best fit for them - high tech, low tech, biotope, etc. All around, a very good presentation, and an excellent invitation to exploring planted aquariums!

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Gardeners and fishkeepers alike are enthralled by the intricate beauty of planted aquariums. Today's aquarium technology is making more and more complicated arrangements easier than ever to maintain. An aquarium of beauty and diversity is yours with the "simple" but thorough instructions outlines in The Simple Guide to Planted Aquariums. In it you'll discover:-Which plants are suitable for which types of arrangements.-How to plan and cultivate your sunken garden.-Whether to introduce fish- and which kinds.-How to identify and solve common problems with minimal disruption.

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The New Marine Aquarium: Step-By-Step Setup & Stocking Guide Review

The New Marine Aquarium: Step-By-Step Setup and Stocking Guide

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(More customer reviews)I had already looked at many marine aquarium books before I found this one. I already have a freshwater tank, but really had no idea how to go about setting up a saltwater tank. I mean, I didn't know anything!
This book misses nothing. Other books may start off well, but tend to get skimpy on the things you really need to know and then focus too much on things that, at the moment, you don't need to know, such as page after page on various species of fish. That's important, but not particulary helpful if you don't know what you are doing.
The first part of the book goes into tank selection & setup. It goes over among other things, protein skimmers, power filters, & powerheads along with the other more rudimentary stuff such as heater, thermometer, etc. It goes into instructions on how to correctly mix the salt water and put in the substrate.
After that, a considerable amount of time is spent discussing live rock, what it is, how to choose it, how to take care of it, where to place it in the tank, etc. It even gives sample layouts - very helpful! The last part regarding tank setup walks you step by step through setting up the tank and live rock. If you follow the checklists, you won't miss anything or do anything out of order.
The second half of the book is on selecting fish and taking care of them. In the section showing the various species of fish, it also tells what suitable tank mates could go with the fish. Lastly it goes into feeding and maintaining the tank along with a section on fish diseases and how to treat them.
If you are interested in starting a saltwater tank, then this is an excellent book to begin with.

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Creating a beautiful, thriving first saltwater aquarium has never been easier, using the natural, simplified methods learned and practiced by the world's leading reef hobbyists.By helping newcomers avoid the pitfalls of outdated, high-maintenance filtration techniques, the author offers an easy-to-follow route to long-term success with live rock, appropriate equipment, aquascaping, disease prevention, and essential husbandry techniques.Includes a photographic guide to selecting fishes, with dozens of hardy choices that are highly recommended for beginning hobbyists or others wanting beautiful, interesting, and long-lived marine species.

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