Brackish Water Fishes: An Aquarist's Guide to Identification, Care & Husbandry [Hardcover]

Neale Monks (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 1, 2006

What exactly is brackish water? Which fishes are considered brackish water fishes? What kind of tank should brackish water fishes be kept in? What special conditions do these fishes require?

Brackish water, defined as a mix of fresh water and salt water, is becoming an increasingly popular choice for home aquariums. Written with the combined efforts of eight of the leading academic brackish water authorities, this comprehensive book covers over 150 of the most accessible brackish water species and provides complete care and husbandry information for each species covered. Some of the topics given more in-depth coverage are aquarium selection and maintenance, dietary needs, and feeding techniques.

With improved shipping and handling techniques, brackish water fishes are now more available to the hobbyist than ever before. Learn more about this interesting niche in the fishkeeping world and how to keep your own brackish tank by reading Brackish Water Fishes.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Neale Monks is a native Londoner. Neale placed first in his class from the University of Aberdeen, and went on to receive a Ph.D. from the Natural History Museum in London. Today, Neale continues to write books and magazine articles on a regular basis.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 384 pages
• Publisher: TFH Publications; 1 edition (December 1, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0793805643
• ISBN-13: 978-0793805648
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 8.8 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,145,317 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Excellent as ID GUIDE for Brackish Fish, July 20, 2007

By 

Richard B. Williams "rbwno1" (Winter Haven, FL) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Brackish Water Fishes: An Aquarist's Guide to Identification, Care & Husbandry (Hardcover)

Compared to the Aqualog Brackish fish book which focused a lot on brackish water habitats and chemistry this book focused mostly on various brackish water fish. This book will tell you where the fish are from, what type of water conditions they need, and behavior of the species or the whole genus.

So why buy this? As I said it focuses on different types of brackish water fish (and their salinity requirements) listing a lot more species than any other book I have read. This is why this book is a must have for the brackish water enthusiast who wants to know of species beyond the usual stock most books cover or list as brackish.

I give the book 4 stars because I think there could have been more on brackish habitats and on the plants found in them. THis book does tend to focus on what you are mostly like to find in a petshop but I wish it had told of plants and substrates not found easily but could be found for the persistent hobbyist like myself.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Strange Choices of Fish, December 21, 2009

By 

Darlene M. Hall (Perry, OH USA) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Brackish Water Fishes: An Aquarist's Guide to Identification, Care & Husbandry (Hardcover)

This is a beautiful book, and the author tries to be comprehensive for the most part, but there are too many gorgeous pictures and detailed articles about fish that really aren't suitable for brackish aquariums. Far too many of the fish in the book don't live naturally in brackish conditions, and I found the full-page photo of the discus beautiful but badly out of place in this book, even with the caption that it's not suitable for brackish conditions. So why include it at all in this book? I'd been hoping for more information on the many, many North American brackish killis and pupfishes, but other than a brief mention of Florida flagfish, an even briefer mention of sheepshead killis, and a throwaway sentence about all of the others, that was it. There are the lengthy treatments of monos, scats, archerfishes and mudskippers that one would expect, but the articles about most of the cichlids--other than the chromides--and the rainbowfishes and so on made it seem as if the author was trying desperately to fill out the book but equally determined to ignore many genuinely brackish water fish. Why leave out the blue fin killis, rainwaters and so on? They may not be readily obtainable in stores, but you can find them on-line without much trouble, they're easy to maintain in their customary brackish conditions, active and interesting, and they'll spawn happily. Much easier for the average person to keep than say, trying to maintain most of those freshwater fish in a brackish tank. To be honest, as I read the articles about keeping cichlids, rainbowfish and tetras in even minimal brackish conditions, I kept asking myself, why bother? Why not just keep them in freshwater where they belong? While this book does have a great deal of useful information, the major inclusion of non-brackish water fish seemed a strange and potentially misleading choice, and the omission of several easy-to-keep, genuinely brackish water fish was disappointing.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars comment on previous reviews, June 25, 2009

By 

Richard Mleczko "mudskipper man" (Australia) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Brackish Water Fishes: An Aquarist's Guide to Identification, Care & Husbandry (Hardcover)

This is the ultimate book for the brackish water enthusiast.
Covers just about everything. Will satisfy most readers.
Previous reviewers commented that it could have included more on habitat and plants found there. This is unfortunate as the original manuscript did cover more on habitat and plants. In fact there was a whole chapter on mangroves, where to find them and how to keep them. The publisher felt that the book was getting too big and this was edited out.