Marine Fish Keeping Books

Your First Marine Aquarium A Complete Pet Owner's Manual
Information and advice to help you maintain your first marine aquarium.

The typical marine aquarium: how to set it up and keep it in top condition.

Expert Advice: maintaining temperature and correct chemistry for a balanced aquarium.

Understanding Marine Life: advice on caring for salt-water fish, coral, plants, and other marine creatures.
Price: £6.99

The Simple Guide to Marine Aquariums
The fundamental beliefs about keeping marine aquariums have changed. Once thought to be far to difficult for mere mortals, a successful marine aquarium is now well within the grasp of any interested hobbyist. One of the biggest reasons for the increased emphasis on saltwater fishes and invertebrates in aquarium hobby is that technological advances in aquarium equipment, coupled with advances in knowledge about marine biology, have made the keeping of marine animals of all types easier than it has ever been before. The tanks themselves are better, synthetic sea salts are better, filtration equipment is better, and lighting systems are better. These improvements add up to making it much simpler than it once was for aquarium hobbyists to reap the rewards that the marine end of the aquarium hobby can bring---including actually being able to set up a miniature coral reef and enjoy its fascinating, colorful diversity of life forms.

Price: £11.95

Corals A Complete Pet Owner's Manual
Information and advice to help you maintain corals in your marine aquarium.

Varietes of coral: their origins, life cycle, and more

Expert Advice: purchase, feeding, compatibility, and general care.
Price: £6.99

PocketExpert Guide: Marine Fishes:Michael
Like a field guide to marine aquarium fishes, this first PocketExpert Guide offers a quick but authoritative reference for identifying, buying, and keeping more than 500 popular saltwater species. Designed by a team of marine enthusiasts and aquarium professionals, this information-packed handbook covers all of the fishes most often seen by hobbyists. "One species per page" listing offers concise, clear advice and data on: scientific and common names, maximum length, range, minimum aquarium size, foods and feeding, aquarium suitability, reef aquarium compatibility, behavior, and captive care advice. Included are all 29 major families and groups of marine aquarium fishes, ranging from angelfishes, butterflyfishes, and cardinalfishes to surgeonfishes, triggerfishes, and wrasses.

Price: £21.95

PocketExpert Guide: Marine Invertebrates: Shimek
PROFILING SOME OF THE MOST BEAUTIFUL and bizarre animals that make their way into marine aquariums, this second entry into the bestselling PocketExpert Series covers more than 500 species and groups of special interst to reef aquarists.

Written by an invertebrate zoologist and avid marine aquarist More than 500 world-class color identifying photgraphs Includes: Scientifc and Common Names; Maximum Size; Range; Natural Habitat; Lighting; Fooda and Feeding; Reef Aquarium Compatibility; and Captive Care advice Covers: crustaceans (shrimps, crabs lobsters); corals (soft and stony); anemones; echonoderms (crinoids, sea star, brittle stars, urchins, sea cucumbers); mollusks (clams, snails, nudibranchs); sponges; bryozoans; worms; and many others Easy-to-use field guide format

Price: £21.95

The Successful Reef Aquarium: Knop
Reef tanks have a reputation for being complicated and expensive. This book shows that such a reputaion is not neccessarily deserved. As an easy-to-understand guide for the beginning aquarist, the book provides the reader with the basic knowledge needed to establish a fascinating and cost-effective reef tank, requiring little technical equipment.
Price: £19.95

The New Marine Aquarium: Paletta
Creating a beautiful, thriving first saltwater aquarium has never been easier, using the natural, simplified methods learned and practiced by the world’s leading reef hobbyists. By helping newcomers avoid the pitfalls of outdated, high-maintenance filtration techniques, the author offers an easy-to-follow route to long-term success with live rock, appropriate equipment, aquascaping, disease prevention, and essential husbandry techniques. Includes a photographic guide to selecting fishes, with dozens of hardy choices that are highly recommended for beginning hobbyists or others wanting beautiful, interesting, and long-lived marine species.

Price: £15.95

Corals: A Quick Reference Guide: By Julian Sprung
A comprehensive field guide for aquarists, divers and naturalists. Nearly 700 beautiful photos with descriptions, range, and the correct pronunciation of the scientific names. Helpful charts offer information about food, light, and water motion requirements, aggressiveness, hardiness and proper positioning in the aquarium. 240 pages, hardcover.

"The most practical and accurate reference in a single affordable volume".

Price: £36.00

Natural Reef Aquariums: Tullock
Debunking the myth that reef aquariums need to be wildly expensive and technologically complex, John Tullock offers a new, radically simple approach to producing beautiful, captive microcosms. Using live rock and live sand as part of a natural filtration system, the home aquarist can now create vibrant reef tanks that are biologically stable and simple to maintain. With Tullock's suggestions, the reefkeeper can now mimic natural habitats such as a Florida Keys Lagoon, a Caribbean Turtle Grass Flat, an Indo-Pacific Deep Cave, or a Red Sea Patch Reef. With more than 200 color photographs and illustrations, Natural Reef Aquariums provides inspiration for both beginning and expert marine reef hobbyists.

Price: £32.95

The Conscientious Marine Aquarist: Fenner
Drawing upon a lifetime of aquatic experience, marine biologist Bob Fenner demystifies the process of planning, setting up, stocking, and managing a beautiful, thriving slice of the tropical ocean. A leading advocate for the responsible collection and care of wild-caught specimens, Fenner starts with the basics and proceeds to give the reader the scientific background and expert-level secrets to being a smarter consumer, better reef steward, and more successful marine aquarium keeper
Price: £29.95

Ultimate Reef Aquariums: Paletta
Glorious insider profiles of 50 world-class marine aquariums,with priceless advice on how they were planned and set up, and how they are kept healthy and vibrant. this book includes more tham 150 full color photographs of reef aquariums, fish only tanks and a wide range of approaches to creating a state of the artmarine system, ranging from simplified natural systems to high tech designs.

Price: £29.95

Invertebrates: A Quick Reference Guide: By Julian Sprung
A NEW beautiful and comprehensive reference for aquarists, divers and naturalists, with more than 650 full color photographs identifying more than 500 species of marine invertebrates.This book is the essential guide for all aquarists who want to make the right choices when stocking an aquarium with invertebrates or purchasing invertebrates for a reef aquarium. 240 pages, hardcover.
Price: £36.00

Reef Notes 4 Revisited and Revised, Reef Notes: Julian Sprung

The latest questions and answers.

With this series Julian Sprung looks back at the advice he's given in his "Reef Notes" columns in FAMA magazine, offers new suggestions and revises the points where he was in error. By reviewing and revising this little bit of history, he shows the progression of opinion regarding the proper ways to manage a reef aquarium.
Price: £19.95

Surgeonfishes, Rabbitfishes and Their Relatives - A Comprehensive Guide to Acanthuroidei: by Rudie H Kuiter and Helmut Debelius
The acanthuroids comprise several large and important tropical reef fish families which are mostly herbivorous. They include the fishes popularly known as surgeonfishes or tangs, unicorns, sawtails, the Moorish Idol, and rabbitfishes.

Most groups and species are variously distributed in tropical to subtropical seas of the Indo-Pacific, but surgeonfishes and sawtails have representatives world-wide.

Many members of these groups help to keep in check the fast growing algae that does especially well on sunny, shallow reefs. Their occurrence in great numbers keeps coral reefs from becoming overgrown and also makes certain that other vegetation, such as seagrasses, is regularly cleaned, especially by juvenile rabbitfishes, ensuring good light capture and healthy beds.

This 208 page book includes detailed information on families, genera and more than 100 known species of the world. Illustrated with hundreds of spectacular underwater photographs and containing information on behaviour, habitats and details of aquarium set ups for the various groups. Picture index pages and a comprehensive index ensure information is quick and easy to find.
Price: £19.95

Butterflyfishes, Bannerfishes and Their Relatives - A Comprehensive Guide to Chaetodontidae and Microcanthidae: by Rudie H Kuiter
This is the third book in the Marine Fish Families Series from TMC and includes detailed information on the families, genera and more than 100 known species of the world.

Illustrated with hundreds of spectacular underwater photographs, it contains information on behaviour, habitats and details of aquarium requirements for the various groups.

There are picture index pages for visual quick-find of genera and a comprehensive index of common and scientific names of families, genera and species.
Price: £19.95

Butterflyfishes, Bannerfishes and Their Relatives - A Comprehensive Guide to Chaetodontidae and Microcanthidae: by Rudie H Kuiter
This is the fourth book in the Marine Fish Families Series of books from TMC.

The members of the family Chaetodontidae (butterflyfish) are amongst the most conspicuous and admired fishes on coral reefs. Their deep disk-like bodies are often boldly coloured, as if to advertise their presence, and catch the eye of a snorkeler or diver as these fish usually swim openly about on the reefs. They are popularly known as butterflyfishes, coralfishes and bannerfishes.

There are about 130 species of butterflyfish, variously distributed in all tropical to subtropical seas, placed in 11 genera, some of which comprise subgenera that may undergo revisionary work in the near future.

Most species live at shallow depths, mainly on reef crests and slopes, but some occur on deep outer reef walls and are rarely seen by amateur divers. Several species have been photographed at depths of about 200m from submersibles in recent years.
Price: £19.95

Angelfishes - A Comprehensive Guide to Pomacanthidae: by Helmut Debelius, Hiroyuki Tanaka & Rudie H Kuiter
This is the fifth book in the Marine Fish Families Series from TMC Publishing.

Amongst aquarium reef-fishes, few could compete with the beauty of angelfishes. Many species remain small in size, around the 10 cm mark, and combined with their beauty, and often rarity, are sought after in the aquarium trade.

At present 8 genera and at least 88 species of angelfish are known, some still undescribed, and all are included in this book with stunning colour photographs, including those species that live in deep water.

In addition, many new colour morphs are shown.
Price: £19.95

Basslets, Hamlets and Their Relatives - A Comprehensive Guide to Selected Serranidae and Plesiopidae: Rudie H Kuiter
This is the 6th volume in TMC Publishing's "Marine Fish Families Series".

Some of the most colourful reef fishes are small, rarely noticed or extremely secretive. Best known are the fairy basslets, schooling planktivores that may cloud the water above reefs when feeding. Others live in the back of dark caves and disappear with the slightest disturbance. About 60 genera are presented here, covering several hundreds of species, including most species called Bass or Basslets, Hamlets and the related Soapfishes and Seaperch, as well as related familes that include the Grammas, Longfins, Blue Devils, Hulafishes and Scissortails.

Comprehensively illustrated with hundreds of spectacular underwater photographs, the majority of which are published here for the first time.

Information on behaviour, habitats, colour morphs and basic aquarium requirements for the various groups or species.

Introduction to genera and subgenera and picture index pages for visual quick-find of genera, subgenera and species.

Full index of common and scientific names of genera and species.
Price: £19.95

Reef Fishes Vol 1: Michael
Covering 68 families and thousands of species, Reef Fishes is an authoritative guide designed to be a lifelong reference for saltwater aquarists, divers, and amateur reef naturalists. This volume covers coral reef habitats and fish families, with detailed information on major groups.

Price: £55.00

Reef Fishes Vol 2: Michael
The next installment of the Reef Fishes Series, Basslets, Dottybacks & Hawkfishes.
Price: £29.95

Aquarium Corals: Borneman
Beautiful, bizarre, and among nature’s most colorful creations, living corals are now being successfully kept and grown in a rapidly growing number of home reef aquariums. Designed to help new and experienced aquarists to select the most appropriate corals for their systems and to provide guidance in keeping them healthy for the long term, this all-new book is packed with the advice of a seasoned coral keeper. More than 700 world-class photographs and text reviewed by leading coral biologists and reef aquarists guide the reader through the selection and husbandry of hundreds of species. Included are: soft corals, corallimorpharians (mushroom corals), gorgonians, zoanthids, large-polyp stony corals, and small-polyp stony corals - all illustrated with hundreds of brilliant new identifying photographs
Price: £32.95

Clownfishes: Wilkerson
Perhaps the most endearing of all reef creatures, the droll and exotically pigmented clownfish is a favorite of marine aquarists, divers, and amateur naturalists the world over. Now, one of the pioneers in the captive breeding of clownfishes in home aquariums has written the first in-depth hobbyists handbook on the husbandry of these fascinating marine species. Chapters include: Clownfishes in the Wild, Fish and Anemone Species with Photographic Identification Guides, Anemone Preservation, Selecting Breeding Stock, Orchestrating the Spawn, Larval Rearing, Propagation as a Cottage Industry.

Price: £24.95

Reef Life: Tacketts
From the fantastic (tiny fish that live within the anal cavity of sea cucumbers) to the astonishingly beautiful (rare corals and other invertebrates in a kaleidoscope of colors), the animals of the coral reef almost never fail to elicit a ""Wow!"" from those fortunate enough to see them alive and at close range. Based on more than a decade of painstaking, close-up observations and brilliant underwater photography, Reef Life offers an unforgettably illustrated, clearly explained introduction to the biology and organisms of the coral reef. Technical advisors to this project include several leading marine biologists, ichthyologists, zoologists, and reef aquarists.

Price: £22.95

Reef Secrets: Nilsen & Fossa
Reef Secrets joins the other titles in the TFH -Microcosm Professional Series that have been described as some of the most important books ever published in the field of marine fishes. This is a fresh easy to follow approach to setting up and stocking a reef aquarium, filled with simple but authoritative advice from two of the most respected pioneers of the modern marine hobby. Readers will learn how to select fishes, corals and other invertabrates; the secrets of good water quality : aquascaping; reef maintenance;suggestions for unique biotope reef systems and much more. There are over 100 pages of encyclopedic listings of fishes and invertabrates commonly available to the marine aquarist-all in full color.

Price: £29.95

The Saltwater Aquarium Handbook
The information you need to set up and maintain a marine aquarium.

Facts, advice, and fascinating insights tell you all you need to know about:

Tanks & Equipment

Water Chemistry

Water Temperature

Selecting Fish and Other Marine Species
Price: £8.99