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Rating: 
Summary: Fascinating and Informative
Review: Almost all aquarists, from novices to experts, would love to have a bigger tank. But the past 20 years have brought so many new techniques and types of equipment to the hobby of "reefkeeping" that it can be very challenging to determine what is truly the BEST way to keep a reef tank. How do the experts keep the inhabitants of their tanks as healthy and happy as possible?
"Ultimate Marine Aquariums" shows what a number of excellent aquarists have done to achieve their success. However, as Mr. Paletta points out, there is no single best approach, and you may find some of your assumptions overturned. Every tank shown in this compendium has excellent water quality, lighting, and circulation. But is it absolutely necessary to have undetectable phosphates or nitrates? Apparently not. Is it essential to have a system circulate all of it's water many times each hour, or to have 10+ watts of light per gallon overhead? Again, apparently not. Is it imperative to add special food for your corals? Actually, no.
What the book does clearly show is trends -- you are more likely to have success if you have more space, more circulation, more light, pristine water quality, and careful maintenance of certain parameters such as calcium levels and pH. You certainly don't need "Ultimate Marine Aquariums" to tell you that. Truly, the reason this book is so interesting is that it shows many approaches that can be used to achieve an excellent result.
The photography, as others have noted, is not first class. But it is adequate to show the scale of these breathtaking tanks, and many times there are also pictures of the equipment set-ups that hobbyists will find very interesting. While some pictures are of lesser quality, there are quite a few that are very fine, including close-ups of some amazing specimens. Also, the text is well written and edited, which, frankly, is more than you can say for quite a few books and magazines in the hobby.
I am not aware of any other book on this subject which has taken this valuable approach of surveying a large number of successful reef tanks and describing the details of their equipment, maintenance, and livestock. For that reason alone, this volume deserves a place on the bookshelf of any marine aquarium hobbyist.
In closing, I'd like to make a point about the hobby in general: the future of reefkeeping lies in aquaculture - the commercial breeding or propagation of the many animals we put in our tanks. Reefs worldwide are suffering from pollution, warming, and disease. The last thing these fragile ecosystems need is to be literally taken apart so that a hobbyist can have some "live rock" or coral specimens for a fishtank. We don't need to destroy the source of our fascination; our hobby has reached the point where the harvesting of live rock and coral is truly no longer necessary. Live rock can be easily created with concrete and aragonite, and seeded with live sand or "grunge" from commercial suppliers. The resulting articifial live rock will support microfauna that is hardier, more effective in metabolising nutrients, and more diverse than what you'd find on live rock from any one part of the ocean. Corals of many types can be propagated, and an increasing number of marine fish & invertebrates (clowns, seahorses, angels, gobies, tridacna, abalone, etc.) are now being tank-bred or tank-raised. I urge you, for the sake of your hobby and the reefs that inspire it, to limit yourself as much as possible to aquacultured specimens. For a wealth of information about creating your own live rock and propagating corals, check out www.garf.org.
Rating: 
Summary: Not bad, not ultimate
Review: I bought this book and thought it ok and interesting. It is not all ultimate aquariums though...
1. Photography only average. Some are very good, some bad and some tanks you don't get a decent whole tank shot. What does tank number 1 from GARF look like - I don't know?
2. Not all tanks especially good. There's no bad tanks, but ultimate? not really. The quality of aquascaping is often poor, many of the tanks have a 'fruit stall look' Some are truly excellent though... Terry Siegels is fantastic, Richard Harkers an inspiration
3. Technical information not complete in my opinion. Lists not always fully revealing of setup.
4. Many tanks very young. Long term stability is questionable
5. All US. Minor point if all the tanks are interesting enough, but often 'here's a jolly nice SPS tank which has been running one year quite well. And it's very big'.
I bought it , and enjoyed it, but there are better books. Fossa and Nilsson's photos of J Sprungs tanks are the best I've seen
Rating:
Summary: Great idea but rotten photography
Review: It's wonderful to read about other successful systems. I enjoyed reading about the set-ups, what additives were used, the salt that was used. I also liked reading about what people liked and disliked about their own tanks. But the photography is awful. I mean, this is a picture book! Some of the photos are downright out of focus. I could take better photos with a throw away camera. My driver's license has better photography. I'm shocked that a book that is a "picture" book has such terrible photos. A lot of time must have been spent compiling all the information about everyone's tank, but no one took the time to send a professional photographer to take pictures. I often read this book to see what someone's set up is, but I never bother to look at it for the photos, which is a real shame, because saltwater tanks are a visual feast.
Rating: 
Summary: Must Have Reef Information
Review: This book is an excellent look at successful marine reef systems and the both similar and different approaches to keeping a successful reef aquarium. All the information that went into the 50 reef aquariums is there and priceless for both novice and expert alike to review. I look forward to future additions and want to thank the author for putting this book together. A MUST HAVE BOOK for all reef aquarium hobbyists.
Rating:
Summary: Wonderful
Review: This book is wonderful. A truely excellent book on how other people have created works of aquatic art. I thoroughly enjoy this book. Although some people complain about the pictures, I find that the photographs are good enough for the book. I take photographs myself, and one may fill several books with the possible photographs that one may take. The advise and the attention to details are truly amazing.
Rating:
Summary: Wonderful
Review: This book is wonderful. A truely excellent book on how other people have created works of aquatic art. I thoroughly enjoy this book. Although some people complain about the pictures, I find that the photographs are good enough for the book. I take photographs myself, and one may fill several books with the possible photographs that one may take. The advise and the attention to details are truly amazing.
Rating:
Summary: How Are they Now?
Review: This is a fun book. I enjoyed reading about the different ways people have succeeded with marine aquaria. We can learn a lot from each other. I sure would love to have access to the 20,000 gallon system described in this book.I do have a couple of issues: 1. This is strictly an American book. Almost all of these tanks are in the USA. More tanks from other countries would have been interesting. 2. The info is rather old for a book just published in 2003. Much of the info is 3 years old or older and some of the tanks were quite young at the time. I'd love to learn how some of these tanks fared later. There was one small tank in particular that was ridiculously overstocked with fish that are not reef safe (most notably several triggers). It was only a few months old. I'll bet it has long since crashed.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent!
Review: This is one of the best aquarium books I own. It is great to see pictures of so many tanks with detailed info about their setup and equipment.
The complaints regarding the quality of the photography are not fair in my opinion. These tanks are not set up in a studio and it must have been a real challenge to take pictures with less than ideal lighting conditions in peoples living rooms. The photography is not as good as in Takashi Amano's books but they are good enough and this book is a pleasure to browse through.
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