Customer Reviews

The Complete Book of the Freshwater Aquarium: A Comprehensive Reference Guide to More Than 600 Freshwater Fish and Plants

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

 

 

Some good work has gone into the production of this book, and there are plenty of helpful hints for the beginning aquarist, especially on the simple to read section on setting up your aquarium. There is a section on plants as well as a large section on some common fish breeds. However, in order to make the fish and plant sections include more species, the detail becomes a little lacking, so for specifics, get another more specialised book. For generalities, get this one.

I am currently 58 years young and have been into tropical fish ever since I was in the 5th grade. I occasionally purchase tropical fish books, enjoying looking at the various species and reading about them, even though I do not have most of them. I was very delighted with this particular book. Excellent illustrations of many breeds, with some good summary material with each one. Great information for beginners at the front of the book; and a lot of plants covered, with very helpful tips regarding them. Even the illustrations for the plants were excellent! One really gets one's money's worth with this book; it seems that it should cost a lot more than it actually does... a rarity in this day and age! Not a lot of specific information on temperature ranges for each species was provided, but you can easily get that in other books or on the web.

...for beginners and advanced alike. This book offers basic information on a wide variety of plant and fish species. Even has a small section about mormyrids which are rarely talked about in other books. The photographs are beautiful and very detailed.
Previous poster may do well to actually take a look at the book instead of getting caught up in wording of other reviews.
Highly recommend this book to anyone interested in freshwater aquariums.

Really? I have to say I'm a little surprised at the higher ratings this book has received. Where to begin?

Pros:
- Hardcover.
- Full colour, decent sized, [mostly] high quality photos.
- The plant section (about 64 pages) has some good photos and descriptions.
- The fish are sorted by family, with a colour coded bar across the top of each page for quick scanning.

Get ready - here are the Cons:
- The disease section is really lacking; about 3 pages with ONE photo- a Neon Tetra with dropsy (as if there's ever confusion as to what a bloated belly might look like- why not pictures showing the difference between ich and velvet?)
- Fish choices. Understandably (for space constraints), not all freshwater fish are represented. However, the choices in fish represented seem extraordinarily inconsistent. I have to wonder if the author was going for more of the "wow" factor than a reasonable array of creatures. Arowanas, for instance, receive a full page unto themselves. Frankly, somebody who is set up to be housing an Arowana is far beyond needing a book like this. Tetraodontidae (Puffer fish) gets three pages. Yes, it's a remarkable fish- but three pages is not enough information to work off of alone, and in the meantime takes away space that could have been used more wisely.
- The invertebrates section. Why bother? 12 pages, not enough information, sorely lacking in pictures, and a lot of fluff.
- Breeding. 5 pages. Again- why bother? Not enough to work off of; just enough to let you know that you're going to have to purchase another book.
- Fish "stats". These are REALLY lacking, and the inexcusable dealbreaker in my opinion. No water specifications (temperatures, acidity, hardness, etc). Sometimes you can go to the beginning of the section and read the blurb about the family to sleuth out temperature, etc. This proves to be inconsistent and inconvenient though.
- Fish descriptions. Inconsistent! Terribly so. One description includes breeding information, the next does not. One description mentions the fish as having a personality in addition to it's physical characteristics, the next focuses only on colouration. Crucial bits of knowledge are left out- not one Loach description mentions the need for a tank cover.

I haven't actually gone and counted how many fish/plants are shown in this book (so I may be incorrect) - but I have a feeling that the claim of "A comprehensive reference guide to more than 600 freshwater fish and plants" is backed up NOT by 600 individual descriptions, but by maybe 300-400 descriptions; the other 200-300 species being counted from classification lists with no descriptions or photos.

This guide had a lot of possibility, but it seems that the author was so caught up in filler material trying to make it "complete" that a lot of important detail was neglected or left out completely. I'm not saying it's awful, but the title is very misleading - it's not complete, and I certainly wouldn't recommend it as a first book for someone looking to get started in aquariums. I get so frustrated when I need to refer to my books and find this one - my most recent purchase. The fact that I always turn to my 1988, technologically outdated library-book-sale guide and find more complete, concise, easy to find information EVERY time is a definite red flag. Save yourself the let down and skip this one!

I did buy this book for my partner who is new to the tropical fish hobby and I'm not ready to put it back on his bookshelf. The book provides more than an adequate introduction to the overall tropical fish hobby. I found this book to be very helpful as it provides insight to many aspects of the hobby! No it is not a comprehensive manual of tropical fish species, disease, breeding, and etc. There are other books if you're seeking complete information on those subjects.

The photos of the fish are very good and its easy to identify what a fish really looks like. I find the notation of a series of bubbles in the upper right corner of the picture very very helpful in easily seeing if the pictured organism is easy or difficult to maintain. This book also lists the binomial and common name in a common index. It also includes fresh water mollusks, which I haven't seen very often in other fish books.

I've had tropical fish for 15+ yrs and have reviewed many fish books over the years. I'm very happy to 'include' this reference book in my collection of 20+ yr old fish books. Again, if you're seeking specifics on breeding, disease, comprehensive species listing you'll need more than just one book.

I recently purchased this book and I am quite pleased with the visual reference to both tropical freshwater fish and plants. I was a bit disappointed in the aquarium setup guide in the beginning of the book in reference to such small weekly water changes and the use of charcoal ( I do 40-50% water changes on my moderate planted aquariums and my fish thrive - larger water chances bring out breeding behavior and other natural interactions among my fish) In addition, charcoal is not necessary and active charcoal's tendency to clear water is only good for approximately a week, not months...

However, I would purchase this book again just for the visual and descriptive (lacking water parameters) accounts of so many classes of fish and plants. It is a large book and looks good on a coffee table, etc..

I liked this book. It helped me in being able to pick out plants and fish for a new tank I am setting up. The pictures could be a little better but for the price this book is an excellent buy.

The best thing about this book is that it does have a lot of content, it covers a lot of fish and plants with photos of almost all common, and some not so common. I saw another review that noted the absence of goldfish, this is true. The book's main downfall is that it is lacking detail, it is lacking things like ideal water parameters. I am glad I have it as a reference, but I am still looking for a good book that has more detailed info on the care of the fish, plants and aquarium in general.

Being new to aquariums and tropical fish, I found this book to be very helpful in all the basics. It is wonderfully illustrated and covers the major points. I wish it would give more suggestions for possible compatible communities of fish.

This book is inteneded in my opinion for beginners. It is too generalistic and does not provided with the details of the hobby. Could have been more detailed in the fish and plants section.