Customer Reviews

Aquariums for Dummies

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(9)

 

 

Too many inaccuracies to mention them all, but I will cite a few that stood out to me and how a beginning aquarist can find themselves burned out from this hobby after spending lots of money on equipment and fish only to see them die because they followed advice/assumptions made by this book.

The book tries to cover freshwater, brackish and marine (saltwater) aquariums simultaneously, but seems to be more focused on freshwater than anything else. I am a saltwater aquarist and I know very little about brackish or freshwater fishkeeping, but based on the misinformation on saltwater aquariums and fish, I would never follow any advice from this book - while there are many true/factual statements, I am not willing to roll the dice to see which ones are correct or incorrect.

There is a color photo of a yellow-bellied damselfish in the book w/ the caption "Fiji Blue Devil." Blue Devils, aka "Blue Damsels" are intense blue all over and do not have yellow scales. The text concerning blue devils say that they are just called 'devils' but don't act that way. That is simply untrue. I've had 3 blue devils and and each one behaved wonderfully until they went through their growth spurt. They became very aggressive and bit fins and scales off of other fish. Full adults don't get any bigger than an adult's thumb, but they can harass and irreperably damage other fish, stressing them out and shortening their lives. Blue devils are beautiful fish and very inexpensive - but not worth it if they are destroying your other fish. There is a saying in the aquarium trade - "if damsels were as big as sharks, sharks would hide behind rocks." Not all damsels are that aggressive. Some like the yellow tailed damsel can get along very peacably with other inhabitants. This misinformation in just a couple of paragraphs can cost you a lot of heartache and money.

There is also a mention of a Green Mandarin Goby and a photo of one... just stating that it's a beautiful fish. Mandarins (green or spotted variety) should NEVER be bought by beginners. In my opinion, they are one of the most beautiful fish in the trade, but 99% of the time, they die of starvation within 7 days of purchase. They are slow fish and they do not eat prepared foods. They eat bristle worms and other very tiny lifeforms that live in the substrate (they are bottom feeders). These fish are not only beautful, but expensive. I made these mistakes the hard way, following the advice of salespeople in aquarium stores who care more about getting your money than the welfare of your pets. A book that is supposed to be for beginners should not repeat the same misinformation.

One of the foods they cite as good for marine fish is brine shrimp. This is only partially true. Brine shrimp are appetizing to fish, but have almost no nutrional value by themselves. Hobbyists should only get spirulina-enriched brine shrimp instead of brine shrip alone - and this is not mentioned.

The information on live food is too brief and misleading. Live feeder guppies (freshwater) should NEVER be fed to marine fish... how would marine fish ever encounter fresh waterfish in the wild?! Freshwater fish are too fatty and too much feeding of freshwater fish to marine animals will lead to fatty liver disease which results in death. This is not mentioned. Also not mentioned is that feeding live food will increase the hunting instincts of your fish and make them more aggressive towards each other. Keeping your fish on prepared/frozen foods in lieu of live is the way to go.

The authors also say that you can periodically give your fish strips of cooked lean meat and potatoes. What!?!?! Find me a fish that can hunt down a cow and dig up a potato and cook them both - and I'll change my level of disgust with this information. Just because a particular species of fish might be an omnivore does not mean that ANY type of meat will suffice. This also gives the impression that cooked shrimp could be given. No one should be cooking for their fish. Fish eat aquatic plants and/or animals and fish do not cook. They also do not eat land mammals or spuds. Cooked foods such as these will also greatly foul the water.

The chapter on water sources doesn't even mention Reverse Osmosis or Deionization. Their advice is to get the "inexpensive" bottled water. Even cheap bottled water can get pricey when you're talking about filling up a 55 gal tank, not to mention water changes each month. A one time cost of getting an RO or RO/DI filter can make water cost you about 6 cents a gallon instead of paying upwards of a dollar a gallon.

More than half of new aquarists get out of the hobby within the first year because they blow too much money on garbage because they followed really bad advice and suffered through dying fish, algae blooms and bad pumps & filters. There are some good aquarium books out there, but this is surely not one of them.

I own a LOT of dummies books! I love most of them but, unfortunately, it looks like the company is getting a little too focused on quickly cranking out funny books while allowing their overall content to suffer. This I believe is one of the most basic problems with this book. It is VERY redundant, contains many editing mistakes, is missing the most basic description of the nitrogen cycle and takes several hundreds of pages to get to the point. The book does contain vital reference information, but tends to scatter it in several different chapters, instead of neatly organizing it in one appendix. I have found, in several cases, MORE useful information from the book titled "Aquarium FISH" published by DK. This is a reference book not intended to teach you on how to setup an aquarium, and it does a better job of providing the essential information you need to start an aquarium. By the way... this book makes a big mistake in trying to cover both freshwater and saltwater aquariums. Because of this the book become more of a mess and more confusing... Given all the negatives I have typed, if you intend on starting a freshwater system, this book does contain most of the pieces, it just takes way to long to get to the point (like this review), and completely misses the vital nitrogen cycle!

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...

I have been in the hobby for many years. I am a fan of other "idiot's" and "dummies" titles, so I picked up this one, thinking it would be a good starter book for my brother-in-law. While there is much good information in this book, I cannot give it a thumbs up. Here's why:

1. The bad offsets the good. There is too much bad information in this book. Some of it very bad. For example, discus are NOT brackish water fish! (7th page of color photos)

2. Spelling and grammatical errors abound in this book. In several places, there are duplicate paragraphs. The editors must have been on vacation.

3. In the small, cheesy, color photo section, a black ruby barb is identified as a tiger barb and sea squirts are labeled as corals. If the authors cannot identify an animal, they probably should not write about it.

4. Also in the photo section, the "reef" tank has an undergravel filter in it. Any reef hobbyist will tell you that such is a mortal sin for a reef. It probably explains why most of the corals in the photo are either dead skeletons or artificial!

5. This book is filled with attempts at humor. Attempts.

6. There are many unanswered questions. Example: "Check your peat moss carefully because peat moss that has not been aged can drastically change your pH..." Check it how? (p.94) Besides, isn't the point of using peat to alter pH?

7. One thing that irritated me in this book was the CONSTANT theme to do things simply to "impress your friends." CONTSTANT! This comment opens nearly every chapter and permeates the text. Why buy live rock? "...so that other serious hobbyists will think you're cool for having it." (p.46) Why buy bacteria in a box? "to impress your fish buddies... the packages look cool." Heck, on page 214, there's a whole section titled "Impressing people." I am not impressed. I would rather have substance.

8. Another big problem with this book is that it mixes freshwater and saltwater topics. The result is an overly vanilla treatment of both and lots of confusion as the two intermingle. Do I really want to treat a saltwater fish's popeye problem by adding salt? (p. 200)

Readers, pass this book up. It is fluff.

At 34 years of age, I decided to put together my first aquarium. While I could understand the basics, the concepts such as nitrogen cycles, what foods to feed, etc. were mysteries to me. Of course going into the pet store and asking the 18 year old clerk for help would be my last option (hey, I'm a man, asking for help, well, you know) So I turned to Aquariums for Dummies!

Let me say that I was VERY pleased with the purchase. The book takes you through tank setup, explains the nitrogen, PH, ammonia tests in layman's turns and give practical advice. There is a little humor thrown in and even got me to laugh out loud a few times.

The book also contains sections on various diseases, which type of fish to get, what type of tank etc. If you're new to keeping fish, I don't think you can go wrong with this book. It covers, freshwater, brackish, and marine.

What keeps it from being 5 stars? I would have liked some more descriptios of recommended fish, but that's just being greedy.

That someone decided to publish. Maybe all of the "Dummies" books are like this. I sat down and read it from cover to cover a couple of times. It wouldn't have taken all that much more work to make it into a finished book.

If you buy this book, buy a red marker, too, so you can mark up the book and submit it back to the publisher for corrections... : ' |

Overall, the information is solid, though you have to filter through some fluff to get it. The best chapter was one detailing the author's preferred method for setting up a new aquarium. The color photos looked somewhat cheesy, perhaps illustrations would have been a better way to go.

Worthwhile, but it really is more like leafing through somebody's rough draft instead of a finished book. If you're going to buy one book, I'd look for another one other than this title.

I have a B.S. in marine science, and I decided I wanted to bring my work home with me. Someone bought me this book and I read through most of the sections. I was very disappointed. The author doesn't discuss cleaning of the tank in any detail, such as how often you need to clean the gravel, plants and other decorations; they also missed out on describing common problems such as bacterial or algal blooms and what to do. I found some of the information very helpful, but overall, this is far from a complete reference book for the beginner aquarist.

There is some good information buried in this book but it is too hard to get to and has so many inaccuracies that unles you already know something you will be mis-informed. Using the author's calculations in the book my 30" x 12" x 18" (29 gal) tank holds over 4,000 gallons of water and can support 30 plants!
The author talks down to the reader in the worst possible ways, with sentences such as "Actually, there are a lot of other good reasons to keep live plants, but looking cool in front of your friends and family is the most important one.", and by mindless repetition. I'm sorry I spent my money on this one.

I picked up this book at a local bookstore and paid full price. This was a mistake. I would have felt ripped off even if it was in the bargain bin for a buck. About the only thing I would use this book for is a firestarter.

I as of yet own no aquarium, and even I could see that this book was sorely lacking in useful information. As others have pointed out, the most important topic of all, aquarium maintenance, receives scant coverage. Their coverage of fish species overall is spotty, and there is little to no information on acceptable Ph values, temperature, compatibility with other species, diets, common diseases, or suitability for beginners. IMHO, a book for beginners should contain pretty much everything a beginner needs to know to get started. This book is woefully lacking. I have no ability to know how accurate the information in this book is, but I can say that I would not rely on it for a second.

The copy I have was the 12th printing of the book, yet the quality of the text is something I would expect from a rough draft. Most glaring are the same sentences or facts repeated in two separate close-together sections. In one case, I saw the same thing phrased two different ways in successive paragraphs. Even the most blind and incompetent editor would have spotted this in a casual reading.

Given the major style issues, I have absolutely no confidence in the accuracy of the information presented in this book. If this book never went through a copy-editor, I doubt it was reviewed properly for factual content either. If you have the misfortune of owning this book, try and get your money back.

I bought this book as a freshwater aquarist returning to the hobby after a 12-year hiatus. For beginners, it's a great book - the writing is funny, the information is useful, and it covers a good range of topics. Topics include: step-by-step instructions for setting up an aquarium, basic fish anatomy, water chemistry information, information on the nitrogen cycle (i.e., how a tank's ecosystem gets started), and a basic description of most fish diseases & parasites, along with frequently-used cures. It also includes a list of fish that *aren't* for beginners, which is helpful, as many stores that stock fish don't have knowledgeable staff on-hand when you go to buy your fish. The writing also makes light of some of the more frustrating problems aquarists encounter (i.e., fish jumping out of the tank, etc.), which is bound to make any beginner feel less incompetent when these things almost inevitably happen.

As with most Dummies books, you will need to add other books to your library, but this is a good one to start with.