As i said just wondering if anyone can suggest a really good tropical fish book? I would idealy like one that has a fish identifying part, were you can look up what fish you want/have... thanks!

there are many books that claim to do that but very few that are worth buying personaly i think the best on the market are the baensch aquarium atlas i have found them to be very informative with good photos & good information an care maintanance & also a good section on plants

i agree with clunkster in that most books are not as good as they claim to be and usualy dont have the partcicular fish that u realy want to know about.

personaly i'd rather spend my money on fish and equipment and if i need to ID a fish i just look it up online OR ask forum members to help if i cant pin it down (thank guiness for the internet).

It'll come down to how wide of scope you want. And you will outgrow any book within a year or two anyway. If it's small and general, you'll end up with fish not in that book. If it's huge book of many fish, you end up getting 'specialized', and that book won't have that extra bit of detail!

Also think about if you are going to specialise. Then you need only buy a book about Discus, or S.E.Asian Catfish, or Corydoras, or African Cichlids, rather than a book that tries to cover everything.

And my tip - flick through all the books at the Aquariums (I know you're up woop-woop), then order or buy it through a regular bookshop, like Dymocks, Borders, McGills, Angus & Robertson. It'll likely be MUCH cheaper.

If you are after a small general book, including the more popular & well known fish, plus a bit of 'Aquarium Lore', here's a few, each roughly 280 pages.

Aquarium Fish by Dick Mills, Dorling Kindersly, Aus $30.

You & Your Aquarium by Dick Mills, Dorling Kindersly, Aus $25.

Aquarium Owners Manual by Gina Sanford, Dorling Kindersly, Aus $40.


Tetra Press, and Salamander, have a series of small books titled 'A Fishkeepers Guide to ...' Some of these are good, some are a bit general (for new fishkeepers). I have several including South American Catfish, SA Cichlids, Corydoras, Live bearers, and a reasonable 'Healthy Aquarium'. These are good books to help you select fish of a type you don't have. Not so much to ID a fish you already have. And these are horrendously priced! Aus $30 - 40 (115 pages).

In the mid range you'd have what Clunkster mentioned.

Now if you really want to go stupid... Dr Axelrod's Atlas of Freshwater Aquarium Fishes. I bought mine about 12 years back (6th ed). Aus $130. I think it's up around $190 now. Hard cover, 1150 pages, over 7000 color photos, all the base Fish specs. Grouped by Geographical regions. Quite a good book for ID'ing, and if it's not there, it'd give you enough to do a fairly targeted internet search.

i was thinking or mentioning - Dr Axelrod's Atlas of Freshwater Aquarium Fishes. i saw it cheep on ebay recently but didnt get round to bidding on it. i then checked it out in my LFS, it doesnt look too bad. not as dear here as it is in Aus it seems. plus there is also a soft backed version if the hardbacked version is too costly.

I agree with fishypaw. I have an old atlas, but its still a great book.

I've had the Dr Axelrod's Atlas of Freshwater Aquarium Fishes, and the complete version which you could kill someone with and Baensch Vol 1-3 since they we're the only ones in english at the time but they all have one huge problem in my opinion anyways - they go out of date, and in some bits very quickly. But they are nice to look through and the baensch aren't bad on price if you get the softback versions and come with a pretty decent bit of info on running and setting up aquarium in the front as well as other fishy type reading material.

The best fish ID place I've found and it should be the most complete and up to date is

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. Bare with it though, it can be a bit slow sometimes.

Well we got the Baensch aquarium atlas photo index. We are happy with it too. The reason i wanted it and i may have mentioned this before is the aquarium shops around here hardley ever have the names of the fish they are selling. Well one does but the other local one doesnt so at least i can look them up. Anyway thanks for all the suggestions i will be sure to keep an eye out for some of the others...

Fishy & Monkeh hit on my method.

Lots of Google hours - TONS of bookmarks & good forums like this one. I would bet that I (and a lot of these people here) have more current info bookmarked than most expensive store-bought books offer.

Plus - the forums give you feedback which you can't get from books.

Good luck.