Let's Talk Books...

[sharkweek178]

Not websites. Not Youtubers. Books. Good old analog, turn the page, keep them on a shelf books.

I've gotten the first two volumes of the Baensch Aquarium Atlas. I'm trying to get Volume 3 at a reasonable price.
I was looking at some Byron posts and noticed that he referred a lot to the Manual of Fish Health. So I got a copy. Interesting reading so far.

So what would be some other good books to have for fish keeping. I like knowing that the information I'm getting is coming from actual scientists or qualified professionals and not just some random person on the internet.

 

[GaryE]

The best books are specialized, like Anton Lamboj's west central African Cichlid books. I think every aquarist should time travel to an early edition of William T Innes's book, because it is rich in ideas from a pre-tech world. Plus its age makes it fun to read.

The Baensch books are brilliant.

What fish groups do you really want to learn about? For general books on many species, Baensch is unbeatable, but once it gets specialized, it gets expensive now. I could list my faves from my bookshelf, but they're old and hard to find in many cases.

 

[sharkweek178]

The best books are specialized, like Anton Lamboj's west central African Cichlid books. I think every aquarist should time travel to an early edition of William T Innes's book, because it is rich in ideas from a pre-tech world. Plus its age makes it fun to read.

The Baensch books are brilliant.

What fish groups do you really want to learn about? For general books on many species, Baensch is unbeatable, but once it gets specialized, it gets expensive now. I could list my faves from my bookshelf, but they're old and hard to find in many cases.

Right now, I'm looking for generalized info.
But if I had to pick a species, I think I would say bettas since that's my current project.

 

[Colin_T]

Baensch Atlas of Freshwater Fishes volume 1 has most of what you need in it. There is information on filter cycles, basic plants, diseases and a lot of common fish. The other volumes are either saltwater fishes or uncommon freshwater fishes, and new species of fish and plants.

The Manual of Fish Health is good for diseases.

If you want a good book for identifying species, the TFH Atlas of freshwater fishes is worth grabbing, although they used to cost a lot (about $400 back last century). They also do a saltwater atlas.

When you start to specialise in a particular group of fish, then you start buying books that are specifically about those fish. When I started keeping Australian native fishes, I got any book I could find about natives and then books on rainbowfish, then joined ANGFA and got newsletters and Fishes of SAHUL from them.

I had a few books on Rift Lake cichlids, Labyrinths, Discus and various other groups of fish. Basically whatever interested me at the time is what I bought in the way of fish and books.

I bought a few coral books including a coral identification guide that came in 3 books and they were big and heavy A guy in ANGFA worked at The Aquarium of WA and did a talk at ANGFA about jellyfish or something and he had a lovely book on Invertebrate Zoology. I managed to get a copy of that from Curtain University and it was big, heavy and hideously expensive (over $500). They had some other nice books there too but I could only carry that one book home because it weighed heaps.

I also collected fish magazines, you can get them in digital format now and it's cheaper than paperback.

I did the same thing when I was keeping birds back in the 1970s and 80s. I got a few books on commonly kept birds (most were American or European). Then a magazine called Australian Birdkeeper Magazine came out and I got all of those for 20 years. A number of Australians that kept birds started writing bird books too around that time and there were books specialising in Australian finches, Neophema parrots, Cockatoos, etc. I had a field day back then and bought anything that looked good.

There used to be a secondhand bookshop in America called Seahorse or something like that. they used to have a lot of secondhand fish books and magazines and they were cheap too. I can't find them online but hopefully they are still around.

Currently I view the CSIRO bookshop online

CSIRO PUBLISHING | Books

CSIRO PUBLISHING has an international reputation for quality educational and reference books and CD-ROMs in the subject areas of agriculture, biology, botany, forestry, ornithology, zoology, marine science, freshwater science, plant science, soil science, natural history, ecology, environment...

www.publish.csiro.au

 

[sharkweek178]

Now the book I really want to get my hands on is Culturing Live Foods: A Step-by-Step Guide for Culturing One's Own Food for the Home Aquarium by Mike Hellweg. It's pretty expensive though. Over $100 on Amazon.

 

[Oldspartan]

"If you want a good book for identifying species, the TFH Atlas of freshwater fishes is worth grabbing, although they used to cost a lot (about $400 back last century). "

About 50 bucks on the used book markets.

 

[FranciscoB]

RE the Baensch series.
The photo index 1-5 is a single volume that includes most of the info on vols 1-5, in synthetic form. Much more than just photos, basically mostly the same info, using code conventions. Although of course a number of species have entered the hobby since published, and many name changes, synonymizations, etc., have occurred, it is still an extremely valuable book, covering more than most other general resources in print. Can be found used for under 40 bucks, a great value for its ~1200 pages. Much, much superior than Axelrod’s atlas. Good luck!

 

[GaryE]

The problem is most new books are author published, even if they have proper review procedures. There are very few publishers standing who would touch a fish book. So you have limited print runs, often in the exact numbers ordered to keep costs down. It's a labour of love now.

 

[Ceez]

Bookmarked for future reference.

Also, I miss the 80s growing up reading and learning about my interests. The internet is great, fast and provides instant gratification but...can also steer you in the wrong direction just as easily. I have a couple fish keeping books now but I would love to have a few book shelves full of them in the future.

 

[Back in the fold]

Not to sound like a broken record but . . . . My very favorite book of all time is Dr. William T. Innes’ Exotic Aquarium Fishes . I got this book in the 1960’s when I first started out in this hobby and as an over exuberant grade school kid I devoured it . This book taught me how to pronounce the scientific names with its excellent pronunciation guide and the maps showed me where these fish come from . I learned the basics from this book and now , years later , actually decades later , I enjoy reading it just for the writing style of the author . Dr. Innes was an old school gentleman and very polished in his manner of speaking through his writing . The language in this book has a charm that greatly appeals to me . I have two copies . One is the copyright 1956 version that is a masterpiece of the printers art printed in Dr. Innes’ family print shop and the other is the first reprint done by TFH Publications in 1966 . That one is in my fish room for reference . There was some chicanery on the part of Herbert R. Axelrod and how he got the rights to reprint this book and the forward by Dr. Innes has a very carefully worded and subtle insult to Axelrod .

 

[Colin_T]

"If you want a good book for identifying species, the TFH Atlas of freshwater fishes is worth grabbing, although they used to cost a lot (about $400 back last century). "

About 50 bucks on the used book markets.

Things also cost a lot more in Australia compared to the US

------------------

I found the old website that sells secondhand fish books. They might have something you are interested in.

Index Aquatic Book Shop www.seahorses.com Jim Forshey [email protected] Aquarium Books

The largest selection of Aquarium and Fish books, magazines, videos and supplies for the Aquarium and Fish Hobby

www.seahorses.com

 

[GaryE]

The Complete Aquarium Encyclopedia by Ramshort (editor) was a good one that's cheap on abebooks. Under ten bucks. It's a picture book with good info, but is 50 years old.
The science of fish is very dynamic, as a lot of things have been found, and new techniques have come into play. So you have to roll with old names and misunderstood relationships. The fishkeeping side doesn't change.

Linke and Staeck did some very good books for tetra press, in the early days of the investigation of Bettas (many species are missing as they were unknown then, but again, good info to start with), Apistogramma and West African Cichlids.
Anton Lamboj had the best West and central African Cichlid book.

For habitats, Oliver Lucanus' Amazon Below Water and the new Xingu book are works of art. Ivan Mikolji's book is one I haven't seen, but I've heard good things about it.

The TFH books were generally awful. Herbert Axelrod used a lot of second hand info and hearsay, though he got the books to press quickly and marketed them hard. A lot of our fishlore and misinformation can be traced back to that series.

Back issues of TFH magazine are another story (beyond the fact I was a contributing editor and columnist there). Magazines rolled with the punches and stayed very up to date. I used to go to a library that had TFH almost to its start, and reading through those magazines was a delight. There was so much info. I worked split shifts back then, so my three hour gap wasn't worth going home in. It was great for reading. The same can be said for Aquarium Fish, and more recently Amazonas. There were also good British mags. Don't be put off by the ads in all those magazines. There was really good information.

All in all, I think the print magazines were better than the books, because the market for books was small, even then. There was the Barron's book series for beginners (if you ever see the Breeding Fish one, grab it. Ditto for their killie book. Great info there.) But by now, with their cheap glue bindings, many are falling apart. TFH published a lot of odd little books, and any time I find a thrift store and have time, I take a look for fish books. I still sometimes find weird little ones.

So many of the e-readers were black and white, and image heavy fishbooks didn't make the cut when things were first being digitized.