Customer Reviews

Bettas: A Complete Introduction (Guide to Owning A...)

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

 

 

I found this book easy to understand, but as a beginner with bettas it didn't answer all my questions. It mostly covers aspects of breeding bettas with more general info interspersed. It did make me want to try breeding bettas however! I would suggest another more beginner book if you've never had bettas or are not going to breed them. I can't recommend any though, as this is the only one I have so far. I bought this one at the recommendation of the guy in the fish store.

Perhaps this book should have been titled My Life Raising Bettas to Sell to Pet Shops. It is more interesting as autobiography than a reference. There are only seven pages of basic betta care. The majority of the chapters are related to breeding and raising bettas for a pet shop market. The section on fin forms and colors and color variations would make a handy basic reference---if it had pictures to illustrate the descriptions. It does have a lot of color pictures and the captions provide some of the most concise and interesting information. If you have an interest in economical fish raising and selling, this book has information for you. Don't buy it as your basic reference, do buy it for the pictures.

This was the first book I purchased on bettas and was a live saver on many occasions. It covers the diseases and prevention for the various betta species using household ingredients which is great. The pictures of the spawnings are beautiful and it is the one book that describes the different color patterns of bettas, so you can tell the difference between a butterfly pattern verse a cambodian. Although it doesn't delve deeply into genetics, it gives a nice overview of the general dominant-recessive characteristics. Easy enough to read for a beginner, and involved enough to peak the interest on an experienced betta breeder.

This book has some bits of information on basic betta care and it provides plenty of advice on the breeding of bettas (environmental conditions that encourage spawning and possible deviations that can occur during the spawning process) and the raising of the fry (first foods, water maintenance and jarring). It is recommended for those who are interested in the challenge of going into the mass production and sale of bettas for fun and for profit.

This book is an excellent source of information on fishkeeping in general, and on keeping Bettas specifically. It provides good details with regard to feeding, maintaining, and breeding your Bettas. Although it does not provide enough information on identifying and treating common fish diseases, it is still an excellent book.

The chapters are:
Introduction
What is a betta?
Keeping bettas
Spawning bettas
Raising the fry
Buying bettas
Raising bettas for fun and profit

So as you can see, it's mostly about breeding and selling betta fish. It would definetely be good if you're planning on doing that, but otherwise I wouldn't bother buying it. While it does have some helpful information (diagram of different parts and fins of the betta, information on housing, and foods) it would be much more helpful if there were a section on health (diseases and treating them) and diagrams of the different kinds of betta fish (since this is a book about breeding them!).

I liked the book, it helped me out. This was my first betta. I only didn't like it because I was looking for information on caring and such, and most of the bood covers breeding.

The title of this book is very misleading. There is actually very little information on how to care for bettas, and the entire focus of the book seems to be breeding. If you are looking for tips on how to breed bettas and how to create color combinations, this is a great book. However, I just wanted a betta care guide, and was very disappointed in this book.

If you are just looking for a book about basic betta care, this book is not for you. Most of the book is about how to breed bettas. Myself, being interested in breeding bettas, found this book somewhat useful. Unfortunately there is not enough in-depth information about the breeding process and I had to refer to the internet on many occasions. The breeding information is useful, but if you want to really try to raise bettas read some other sources first. This book is an alright introduction to breeding. The only up side to this book are the color pictures, about one a page. The overview about "genetics" was rather confusing.
The author's first language was definitely not English. Most of the book is well written, but there are a few strange sentences here and there. A goodly portion of the book is stories the author had about breeding bettas. These stories were interesting, but not entirely useful.
I would not waste my time buying this book unless it was a last resort. If you can get it for free, it would be worth reading.

The inaccuracies in this book were too numerous to count. What's more, very little practical information is given on good fish husbandry; instead, the author seems to focus more on "bettas for profit."

At one point, Mr. Maurus remarks that bettas are short-lived, and as a result it is best "...not to get too attached." What kind of advice is this for serious pet owners?

Very poor, other than the pictures. Otherwise I would have rated it a 0.