First off, the physical format is rather cumbersome -- the book is about 20cm x 15cm, and about 10cm thick, making it a heavy, unstable brick that doesn't stack too well with other volumes on a bookshelf.

Secondly, the format of the encyclopaedia -- the fish are listed in alphabetical order, based on their latin name. This makes it *nearly impossible* to find a fish you may have seen in the LFS, but don't know the name of. With other books, even if you only know that you the fish you saw was a tetra or rasbora, you can track it down.

Finally, the entries themselves suffer from the usual "fish book" problem -- 90% of the information relates to the breeding habits of the species. If, like me, you are more interested in the behaviour of the fish, making sure that they are content, and fit in with their tankmates, then the fact that feeding them dungbeetles may induce spawning is neither here nor there. More info on the way the fish behave, where they swim, how they school, etc, etc, would be much more important than what induces them to spawn.
In all, a fairly "average" fish encyclopaedia -- same faults as the others, but the wacky alphabetical organisation spoils it for me. In its defence, there does seem to be a bit more info about the water conditions that each species likes, and Takashi Amano is mentioned in a couple of places (this book is by the same publisher as the Nature Aquarium World series, and is of a similar high quality of production).


Breathtaking - but fish only   July 24, 2003
 7 out of 7 found this review helpful

An incredible 870+ fish described - with a full colour photo of every single one! Gives all of the vital info you need: size, temperature, hard/soft water, ph, compatibility, food, breeding. The only (slight) disappointment was that it does not mention any animals other than fish and mudskippers - no crustaceans, frogs, snails etc. Also does not cover marine fish (which is ok by me, but is not obvious from the title).

If you want to know about freshwater fish and plants, you can't go far wrong with this - the pages are quite small, but absolutely packed with really useful information, and there are a lot of 'em! Makes fascinating reading from an authoratative source (the author discovered quite a few species himself) and is also an excellent reference work. Highly recommended.


Great book!   February 10, 2002
 9 out of 11 found this review helpful

This book is great! It goes on and on about more then 800 species of fishes, telling you about their appetite, water chemistry and with most og them, how too breed. It has a whole chapter about plants, and another one about aquarium management.