The Modern Coral Reef Aquarium, Vol. 1 (Hardcover)

by Svein A. Fossa (Author), Alf Jacob Nilsen (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
This book provides a fascinating look at the natural history and evolution of coral reefs that forms the foundation for understanding reef ecology and its practical application in closed system aquaria. Beginners and experienced hobbyists will appreciate the wealth of information and beautiful illustrations. Special emphasis on reef construction, zoogeography, marine algae, and microbiology affords and invaluable tool for designing an ecologically responsible system. 650 high quality color photographs, numerous maps, tables, drawings, and diagrams. It is the bible of reef books in Europe!

Product Details

• Hardcover: 368 pages
• Publisher: Birgit Schmettkamp Verlag (October 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 3928819291
• ISBN-13: 978-3928819299
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.8 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #908,476 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

35 of 37 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good resource but hard to follow, September 24, 2000

By	"fourhands" (Beaverton, Oregon USA) - See all my reviews

If you want a good read that takes you from how to set up a reef tank to what you can put in it, I'd recommend a different series: Delbeek and Sprung's "The Reef Aquarium" first.

A brief flip through the pages of this 3 volume series by Fossa and Nilsen wows you with its vast amount of information. But try to sit down and read it through or find anything on a specific topic and you can easily get lost.

On the plus side: lots of material on things you don't find elsewhere from what sort of things you might find on your live rock, particularly the often over looked microfauna, to a huge amount on crustaceans, with of course lots on hard and soft corals. The advice is sound and practical.

On the minus side: What is it with European aquarium books? Like most, the layout is cluttered and busy, busy, busy. It is often hard to follow the linear thread of topics, especially on the species factsheets which are tossed into the middle of multi-column text. That and other organizational issues made it hard for me to find information on specific topics. You are lost without the index and even then, the book is so comphrensive that you'll need to wade through 6 or 8 index references on most topics to find the information you want. Comprehensive, is all in all, a good thing but I find this book frustrating.

I'm a voracious reader and when it comes to reef aquarium books, I'll gladly read them 4 or 5 times to extract every last bit of information out of them. But this series left me disappointed. I only give it 4 stars because the information is vast and the authors are clearly knowledgable. I was tempted to give it less.

21 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Modern Coral Reef #3, July 5, 2000

By	"crystalmarine" (Colorado Springs, CO USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Modern Coral Reef Aquarium Vol # 3 (Hardcover)

I currently own the first and second volumes, and this newest addition is excellent also. I am impressed that the authors described some of the lesser known, but by no means unimportant, creatures in the marine hobby. Some of the organisms included are: Single-celled organisms (Ciliates, ets), Spongs, Marine worms (even bristles), crabs (including Horseshoes), Lobsters, Shrimp (ornamental and otherwise), and other miscellaneous creatures. No other single aquarium book has offered all these organisms before in one book, a very impressive feat!

18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Better than D&S vol 1&2 but different..., June 6, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Modern Coral Reef Aquarium, Vol. 2 (v. 2) (Hardcover)

I have read both of these book series (vol 1 and 2), and both are "the benchmark" books. You can't get bad data from either, but I think the D&S books (especially volume 2) are are a little disorganized, a little more "wanna be" marine biology journal articles (very stiff prose for a hobby book), and just a little less useful content. IMHO. :-) (please no flame wars).

Then again; I am an engineer and appreciate straight facts, well organized and plainly presented. The "Modern Coral Reef Aquarium" books are going to be very tough to top in this regard. I can look in the index and find just what I want in a momet, and the prose is a "good read" if you want to read them front to back (which I did).

Buy these books first and then the D&S series.