Customer Reviews

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

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

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.

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.

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.

This is a very good book. Very informative good pictures may need a few more on the less seen species. Overall Great book

Well written and organized book, great graphics, and loads of information.
Very thorough in listing all the types of brackish fish and their requirements. Worth getting if you are setting up such a tank. Makes the task less challenging.

Knowledgeably compiled and deftly edited by zoologist and aquarium fish expert Neale Monks "Brackish-Water Fishes: An Aquarist's Guide To Identification, Care & Husbandry" is a complete, 384-page, authoritative and 'user friendly' guide to rare, common, and easy-to-obtain species of brackish-water fish species which would prove ideal for the home aquarium. In addition to full color photographically illustrated descriptions of each fish, "Brackish-Water Fishes also features sound recommendations for themed aquarium tank setups, and tankmates for each identified species. Very highly recommended and an indispensable reference, "Brackish-Water Fishes" is a specialized and core addition to any personal, professional, academic, and community library Pets/Wildlife collection in general, and aquarium fish reference shelf in particular.