Review on Simple Guide Fresh Water Aquariums by Heather Wagner

My wife and I bought this book at a pet store along with a 29 gallon starter kit. It might have been better to read the book first, but I was lucky my kit (all glass kit with Tetra components) was fine. I like the For Dummies books, I looked through the For Dummies book, but this one won me over with its colorful photographs, but written in almost the same style as For Dummies: cartoons at the beginning of the chapters, legends in the margins, writing in a friendly way. style etc. If you are new to this hobby I don't know what you might need that this book doesn't cover. I think the most valuable unique selling point is the last chapter, which contains about a dozen expertly designed sock patterns. Compatible fish are selected for your tank size (29 or 50 gallons) and numbered to ensure success. We follow the Asian biotope with white clouds, danios, golden barbs and dwarf cucumbers. Perhaps the most disturbing thing about the book is that images of fish are scattered throughout the book. The beauty is that while you read about more mundane topics, a photo of a fish will remind you of your findings. I see that as an advantage, but if you want to see what a pygmy gourami looks like, you have to look in the book. The index lists the fish but no links to photos! It would be nice to have a separate index of photos, or at least list the photos in a regular index. The author strongly recommends starting with a 50 or 55 gallon aquarium. That's not a bad recommendation. But he understands that this is not practical for all households. 29 gallons is his second choice. He advocates regular water changes, don't overfeed and don't overfill the tank. Boruchowitz suggests placing the tank next to a floor drain where the hose is easily accessible. I suspect this is not possible for most people who like us want an aquarium to add atmosphere to your living area. To do justice to his suggestions, we would place the tank outside on the patio or on the bathroom sink! This is the main disadvantage of a large aquarium - water changes must be carried out in buckets. Although he tells you the correct pronunciation of Cichlid, I want him to discuss other pronunciations so you don't feel like an idiot in this situation. fish shop. (Gouramis: Gore-a-meez or GORE-a-miss?). Half a page on Latin pronunciation would be a great addition. There seems to be a wide range of advice on what to do when cycling. Some experts recommend 10-15% water changes weekly with or without cycling. They claim that increasing ammonia encourages the development of nitrifying bacteria (that's good - we're trying that) and you don't have to do anything out of the ordinary. At the other end of the spectrum are those who make large and frequent water changes while switching to lower ammonia levels for the benefit of the fish, and claim that bacteria will still thrive. Mr. Borukhovits is mostly in the second camp, which also encourages frequent water checks while cycling. I think my point is to be aware that there are many opinions on the subject and you may find that with less work than what is presented you can be successful. (My fellow aquarist advised me not to bother testing water or doing anything heroic with water changes.) Other reviewers complained that the author didn't pay much attention to the fish. More than 1000 pages have been written about freshwater aquarium fish and I believe that is beyond the scope of this book. There is enough discussion about fish to avoid problems and if you follow the suggested stocking schemes you will be successful. This book is for beginners. After successfully implementing the scheme in this book, you can spend your whole life studying other fish that could be saved. This book also clears up many misconceptions, such as that fish only grow to the size of an aquarium (they grow until the aquarium is full). too small to carry and they die!) and that the aquarium should have an algae eater (the problem is that people use the algae eater as an excuse for not doing proper maintenance or not considering its load on the aquarium ). Aquarium). I would highly recommend this book to anyone new to the aquarium (and would recommend buying the book first, but when we decided to buy an aquarium we were too excited not to buy all the equipment!). I didn't give it five stars just because there is room for improvement, especially when it comes to indexing fish photos.