Giant Clams in the Sea and the Aquarium provides comprehensive coverage of the biology and aquarium care of the unique and intriguing tridacnid clams, commonly called giants by aquarists and divers around the world. The book is an 8 x 9 hardback, printed on high-quality gloss paper, and includes over 300 color photographs and illustrations.
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...James Fatherree has brought together the most up-to-date literature and anecdotal information on the biology and care of tridacnid clams for the hobbyist available, along with his stunning photos. Using his distinctive, conversational and light-hearted writing style, James has written a book for every hobbyist, be they absolute beginners or seasoned veterans. --From the Foreword by J. Charles Delbeek, co-author of The Reef Aquarium: Volumes 1-3.
About the Author
James Fatherree has been an aquarium hobbyist since childhood, has been keeping marine aquariums for well over a decade, and has spent many days diving in Florida, Hawaii, the Bahamas, Japan, and Indonesia. He also managed a large retail aquarium store, owned and operated an aquarium design, installation, and maintenance business for several years, and spent a summer working as a diver/collector for an aquarium livestock wholesaler in Florida. James has also published over 125 articles in various aquarium magazines in the U.S. and Europe, and has written and illustrated five books on the topics of reef organisms and marine aquariums, too.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Your Clam Insists That You Purchase This Book,
This review is from: Giant Clams in the Sea and the Aquarium (Hardcover)
Put simply, if you are interested in purchasing a clam, buy and read this book first. You will more than likely save money in the long-run. In any event, you will have the go-to book on hand when problems and questions arise. The book is written in clear language and with a wry sense of humor. Recommended without qualification.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A necessity for tridachnid care,
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: Giant Clams in the Sea and the Aquarium (Hardcover)
As someone who finds the online reef aquarium forums a bit troll-ish, and a potluck type of information source, this book is a refreshing find. Mr. Fatherree reminds me of one of my "cool" teachers from grad school (which were few and far between.) He has a down to earth writing style and is an excellent teacher. Important concepts are stated and re-stated, in order to reinforce long term memory. There are many beautiful, full color, full page photos in this book as well. It looks like and is setup like a textbook, but reads very quickly. All the information is relevant and due to the writing style, I finished it in 2 days. Plus you will never find a textbook that has this type of voice to it.
While an excellent resource, text books can be outdated quickly. This book was written around 5 years ago, and therefore I'm sure the author would have things he would like to add or change. One specific example for me was LED based lighting. As would've been everyone's opinion circa 2006, metal halide was the "go to" lighting setup for reef tanks or any creatures with high lighting demands, with additional PC bulbs as accessory lighting. My crocea seems to be doing great under my retro fitted LED hood in my 24 g reeftank, but LED based lighting systems were probably experimental (at best) at the time of publishing. Also, the author tends to discourage keeping tridachnids in smaller tanks, due to the high difficulty level. I believe there have been enough breakthroughs in "nano reef" technology since this book was written, that tridachnid care in a 24 gallon nano or larger, should be no problem for an experienced reefer. Those are nitpicky things that can't be helped due to the age of the text. The other 99% of the book is excellent, dealing with common sense ways for tridachnid ID, care, troubleshooting pathology, etc. I honestly never knew that I would need to be concerned about my crocea spawning and causing a death-star like calamity to my tank. Mr. Fatherree discusses aquarists like myself who tend to be biased toward beauty, rather than hardiness. I shamefully may fall into that category, but I also don't mind a little challenge. I did, however, choose my crocea for its beauty over the more hardy squamosa, but that was before I read his book. He also tends to advocate a philosophy that I have gravitated toward over my 6 years of reef keeping. It is that of "benign neglect." It has everything to do with good husbandry, meaning frequent water changes, high quality sea salt, and a good buffering compound. But nothing to do with constantly adding random nutrients, chemicals to your tank that the industry is so keen on selling everyone. In regard to tridachnid care, he seems to advocate that due to the specialized bacteria in clams, called zooxanthellae, they can get most of their food from photosynthesis and can filter feed nitrogen (and what little else they may need) from the waste of its fish neighbors. This fell right in line with my thinking as I did not want to add the phytoplankton additives, etc, that the local fish store wanted to sell me with my clam. One disclaimer: you may be labelled a marine biology nerd after reading this. When my wife asked me about a particular clam in a commercial aquarium recently, the first thing I said was, "well, it's obviously not a hippopus or gigas, since it has tentacles surrounding its inhalant siphon." The looks on some of the people's faces in our group ranged from appalled to disturbed. ;) In you're interested in keeping clams in your reef tank, you simply can not go wrong with this book.
7 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
EXCELLENT tridacnid clams book,
By
This review is from: Giant Clams in the Sea and the Aquarium (Hardcover)
This is the best and most updated book about tridacnid clams you can get today, including excellent photos as well.
I bought my copy at MACNA 2006 (Houston), from James himself. Chapters are: 1. Tridacnid Biology Basics 2. Tridacnid Nutrition 3. The Tridacnid Species 4. Collecting, Farming, and Shipping Tridacnids 5. The Acquisition and Care of Tridacnids 6. Tridacnid Troubles
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