Simon and Schuster\’s
The very last fish book off my shelf. It\’s a field guide. On fish and other aquatic life (plants, amphibia, reptiles and invertebrates) you might keep in an aquarium. For a book of its age, the photographs are really excellent and the care/biology information in the introduction seems pretty solid. Although I blinked at an image caption that stated: The ideal aquarium is a reconstruction of a self-sufficient natural habitat, in which plants and animals rely on one another for nourishment. When such a state of balance is reached, there is no need to change the water or feed the animals. I was baffled by this. I don\’t think you can every get to that point. Maybe you can have the enclosed ecosystem balanced well enough to go long periods without a water change, and for the animals to support the plants- but surely the fishes and other aquatic life must still be fed? Unless it\’s an outdoor pond, I suppose. Someone please do correct me if I\’m wrong. The photo showed an indoor aquarium. I\’m pretty sure it still needs input of food.
Well, it was another book I more or less browsed through. Enjoyed the gorgeous photos. The book was brief enough on listing numerous closely-related freshwater species (only one platy, a few barbs, two kinds of small catfish as samples) that the saltwater section was almost equal in length, and the pages on invertebrates, amphibians and other living things (like hydra, water fleas, mollusks- not all critters you\’d want in your aquarium I\’m thinking) rounded it out nicely. I never saw turtles, newts, frogs or the axolotl featured in an aquarium book before.
Rating: 3/5 337 pages, 1976