Aquariums: The Complete Guide to Freshwater and Saltwater Aquariums

Aquariums: The Complete Guide is a great aquarium book, how to manual and what to buy guide including aquarium parts and even fish for both fresh and saltwater tanks. Contents 23/25 Ease of Understanding/Practicality 22/25 Pictures/Illustrations 24/25 Additional Features 24/25 Total 93/100 Aquariums: The Complete Guide to Freshwater and Saltwater Aquariums by Thierry Maitre-Allain and Christian Piednoir is a fantastic guide and how to for setting up and maintaining a fresh and saltwater aquarium. The Complete Guide gives you first steps from how an aquarium works to the problems any aquarium hobbyist may face in both frsh and saltwater setups. Aquariums: The Complete Guide starts you out not with how to set up an aquarium but the basics of aquariums and water so you know the whole process. The first chapter titled Water goes through what water is chemically and all the various things that happen while using it for an aquarium. Once you understand water, the chemical process of adding living fish and plants into an aquarium and the effects their waste, breathing and just being in the water have you can better handle your own aquarium. Once you understand the cycle of using live fish and plants in an aquarium and what their waste products can do you will know how to correct things when they do go wrong and exactly what is happening. Testing water for various pollutants and even how to start water out for your aquarium by allowing it to set is all covered so you can maintain your own aquarium correctly. Once you know how to keep that perfect balance of water from salinity to hardness and all the various testing your well on your way to maintaining your tank and keeping those fish alive. Setting up the tank goes further with the size you need for various tanks and all the other parts of the tank from substrate, pumps and filters to plants and a good variety of fish. They also have two main divisions of the book with fresh and saltwater fish so you can setup and maintain either type correctly. A large section of the book is naturally the choice you have in fish and they group them into main species and a few oddballs so you have a good variety to read up about. The fish and even plant section is a nice addition and gives you a glimpse into a variety of fish that might be appropriate to your aquarium. The saltwater goes more into depth with invertebrates such as crabs, shrimp and corals to help you decide if you want to foray into these other types of inhabitants for your aquarium. The book really helps you understand the possible difficulties with all the types of fish and other additions to a tank to help you decide and know what you want and don't want to bother with. Many of the fish in the book can be found at local fish shops and even stores like Wal-Mart to help guide your species purchase when it is time to buy that first fish for your aquarium. Each species section covers not only how to keep the fish alive but breeding and spec