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Rating: 
Summary: Better than D&S vol 1&2 but different...
Review: I have read both of these book series (vol 1 and 2), and both are "the benchmark" books. You can't get bad data from either, but I think the D&S books (especially volume 2) are are a little disorganized, a little more "wanna be" marine biology journal articles (very stiff prose for a hobby book), and just a little less useful content. IMHO. :-) (please no flame wars).Then again; I am an engineer and appreciate straight facts, well organized and plainly presented. The "Modern Coral Reef Aquarium" books are going to be very tough to top in this regard. I can look in the index and find just what I want in a momet, and the prose is a "good read" if you want to read them front to back (which I did). Buy these books first and then the D&S series.
Rating: 
Summary: Good resource but hard to follow
Review: If you want a good read that takes you from how to set up a reef tank to what you can put in it, I'd recommend a different series: Delbeek and Sprung's "The Reef Aquarium" first. A brief flip through the pages of this 3 volume series by Fossa and Nilsen wows you with its vast amount of information. But try to sit down and read it through or find anything on a specific topic and you can easily get lost. On the plus side: lots of material on things you don't find elsewhere from what sort of things you might find on your live rock, particularly the often over looked microfauna, to a huge amount on crustaceans, with of course lots on hard and soft corals. The advice is sound and practical. On the minus side: What is it with European aquarium books? Like most, the layout is cluttered and busy, busy, busy. It is often hard to follow the linear thread of topics, especially on the species factsheets which are tossed into the middle of multi-column text. That and other organizational issues made it hard for me to find information on specific topics. You are lost without the index and even then, the book is so comphrensive that you'll need to wade through 6 or 8 index references on most topics to find the information you want. Comprehensive, is all in all, a good thing but I find this book frustrating. I'm a voracious reader and when it comes to reef aquarium books, I'll gladly read them 4 or 5 times to extract every last bit of information out of them. But this series left me disappointed. I only give it 4 stars because the information is vast and the authors are clearly knowledgable. I was tempted to give it less.
Rating:
Summary: Good resource but hard to follow
Review: If you want a good read that takes you from how to set up a reef tank to what you can put in it, I'd recommend a different series: Delbeek and Sprung's "The Reef Aquarium" first. A brief flip through the pages of this 3 volume series by Fossa and Nilsen wows you with its vast amount of information. But try to sit down and read it through or find anything on a specific topic and you can easily get lost. On the plus side: lots of material on things you don't find elsewhere from what sort of things you might find on your live rock, particularly the often over looked microfauna, to a huge amount on crustaceans, with of course lots on hard and soft corals. The advice is sound and practical. On the minus side: What is it with European aquarium books? Like most, the layout is cluttered and busy, busy, busy. It is often hard to follow the linear thread of topics, especially on the species factsheets which are tossed into the middle of multi-column text. That and other organizational issues made it hard for me to find information on specific topics. You are lost without the index and even then, the book is so comphrensive that you'll need to wade through 6 or 8 index references on most topics to find the information you want. Comprehensive, is all in all, a good thing but I find this book frustrating. I'm a voracious reader and when it comes to reef aquarium books, I'll gladly read them 4 or 5 times to extract every last bit of information out of them. But this series left me disappointed. I only give it 4 stars because the information is vast and the authors are clearly knowledgable. I was tempted to give it less.
Rating:
Summary: MagnÃfico
Review: This book is a great guide to those who approach the coral reef aquarium and are specially interested in knowing why things happen such a way. Try to read it and you'll get delighted for sure.
Finally, I should mention it's full of magnificient photos, both from aquariums and nature.
Rating:
Summary: The state-of-the-art reef aquarium book
Review: This book is an excellent guide to reef tank organisms and their upkeep. I bought this book after buying Delbeek & Sprung's and feel it is equal in quality. It goes into detail in areas such as water chemistry, algae, and ecosystems providing insight into valuable areas not covered in as much detail in D&S's book. A must have for serious reef aquarists.
Rating:
Summary: It`s fantastic!
Review: This book is what I have always been looking for. A great reference on cnidarians that is not to complicated. The price is very high,but indeed,it is worth the money as it deals with 500+ species of corals and other cnidarians,some of which I have seen in no other of my fantastic fish/invertebrate books. It includes descriptions of more than 40 species of horn corals as well as a lot of sea anemones,which are very beautifull. This book is actually an updated,english edition of the norwegian 1992 book "Korallrevsakvariet Band 4". The authors are very experienced and they truly show that with all advices they give about keeping a saltwater aquarium in this book. It is definitly magnificent. Unfortunatley,I do not keep living cnidarians my self. I am just studying about them as wild animals. But the book was worth it and it made me discover a series of books that may be the best survey ever made on marine life,although more species would have been a good idea (1000 or more would be able to cover a book of this dimensions)I will soon buy the other ones. I`ll highly recommend it!
Rating:
Summary: Australian reader
Review: This is a very good book covering a comprehensive range of genera and includes a section on algae which was my main reason for buying . Like every other text it can not cover everything. One of the things I would have appreciated was specific requirements by family / species and more information regarding phosphate and calcium levels . The authors claim extraordinary growth rates for corals and corraline algae which do not match my experience nor those of Aquarium shops in Brisbane Australia. Worth having as a reference .
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