Dr. Axelrod's Mini-Atlas of Freshwater Aquarium Fishes

Rating:
Summary: Great for serious hobbyists
Review: A priceless acurate reference that should be brought with you on every trip to the pet/fish store. The atlas features pictures of just about every freshwater fish you will ever come across. It provides each fishes feeding habits (dry food, live worms, live fish, or vegetarian) and reproduction type (egglaying or livebearer), recommenced aquarium lighting, recommended aquarium setup (planted aquarium, rocks; no plants, only gravel, rocks-plants-and driftwood), its swimming habits (bottom dweller, top swimmer, etc) and its temperament. The fish are ordered and only listed using the fish's scientific Latin name. For the common name you must look in the index in the back of the book. All measurements and temperatures are only given in metric. Beginners looking for a similar book with all measurements in standard US measurements would be better off with Aquarium Fish, by Dick Mills (Amazon ISBN#1564582930.)

Rating:
Summary: thorough listings of your favorite fish
Review: does not goe in depth about care of individual fish species

Rating:
Summary: You can't get a better reference for the money!
Review: Dr. Axelrod's Mini-Atlas is by far the best pictoral reference book for freshwater fish. With more than 1800 photos of fish from every area of the world, you're sure to find what your looking for. Each fish is accompanied by a pictoral reference of its feeding habits, reproduction type, lighting requirements, temperament, tank setup and swimming habits. This is a great book to start your research into fish that you are interested in keeping.

Rating:
Summary: You can't get a better reference for the money!
Review: Dr. Axelrod's Mini-Atlas is by far the best pictoral reference book for freshwater fish. With more than 1800 photos of fish from every area of the world, you're sure to find what your looking for. Each fish is accompanied by a pictoral reference of its feeding habits, reproduction type, lighting requirements, temperament, tank setup and swimming habits. This is a great book to start your research into fish that you are interested in keeping.

Rating:
Summary: this is the book to have in your home library!
Review: excellent reference book. clearly tells the beginner to the advanced fishkeeper parameters on every fresh water fish. comparability, type of food, ph rating and many other items are mentioned. if you want a guide or reference as what a specific type of fish looks like, then this is the guide. is not only a must have, but the price is excellent compared to b&n. if you want more detailed info like a short narrative of each fish, then i would recommend this book: i don't remember the title, but is part of axelrod's work. the isbn number is: 0793804930.

Rating:
Summary: A disappointment.
Review: From the reviews, I expected alot from this book. I know that it is old, but I was really disappointed. The information is not consistent and incomplete. Here are my issues:

(1) All the pictures are grouped (i.e. Ciclids, etc.) together followed by the complete text instead of a picture with text of each kind of fish.
(2) Everything is ordered by scientific name instead of common name. This makes the book less usefull to those who are new to freshwater fish.
(3) Compared to other books, the photographs are not that good. In fact, some of them are out of focus.
(4) The fact guide is totally useless as the information on how to intepret the what the legend means is not clear. For example, you see a temparature guide but not the upper or lower temperature.
(5) With that many pictures the book, I expected the book to focus on different species but instead there are multiple pictures of the same kinds of certain fish just because they have different color scheme.
(6) The biggest complaint that I have is that the information is not consistent and some are missing. Some pictures have both scientific and common names while others have just one name. Some have complete information, while others have partial (i.e. tank size, compatibility, etc.) or NO information at all.

If you are buying this book because you just want something to read, go ahead and buy it. However, if you are buying this book because you are new to the freshwater fish keeping and need information about different kinds of fish to choose from...this book is totally useless. Useless, I say because there are more books out there with more complete information. If you look at the index and can't find the names of the fishes that you commonly see in aquarium fish shops, then the book is useless.

Rating:
Summary: Superb.
Review: I found just about every freshwater fish I've ever kept in here, and that's been a lot. The pictures are plentiful and beautiful. Check out the one with the tank full of brightly colored plants...the office room with two side-by-side, giant aquariums...oh, and of course, the fish photos. There is tons of information in this huge book, everything any fishkeeper would want to know. My personal favorite chapter is the catfishes...they're fascinating. Not even my book specifically about catfishes has this many catfishes in it! Some I've never even seen before! Check out the two "twin" plecos...one's black with a blue eye and one's striped black and white with a red eye, but they look like the same fish! This book is really cute. I recommend it.

Rating:
Summary: Mainly pictures
Review: If you want tons of pictures this is the book for you. My main problem with it was that it did not have any individual information on the fish other than than a small picture guide of temperature, size, ph, etc. I think it would be 5 star if it just had a few sentences on each fish for a little more information.

Rating:
Summary: Mainly pictures
Review: If you want tons of pictures this is the book for you. My main problem with it was that it did not have any individual information on the fish other than than a small picture guide of temperature, size, ph, etc. I think it would be 5 star if it just had a few sentences on each fish for a little more information.

Rating:
Summary: As good as it gets...
Review: If you were allowed to have only one aquarium book, this would be the book to buy. The first 672 pages contain more than 1800 excellent photos of fish (3 per page), followed by brief care info. Next is a 300 page section with all the basic info you need to setup and maintain a freshwater tank. And all this for an affordable price. Dr. Axelrod is probably the most emminent authority in the fishkeeping hobby.