Product Description

A week-by-week practical guide to setting up and maintaining a superb living environment

As fishkeeping continues to grow in popularity, hobbyists are looking for authoritative advice and more sophisticated results.

Setting Up a Tropical Aquarium Week-by-Week is an encyclopedic reference that takes a fresh look at setting up and maintaining a tropical freshwater aquarium. New hobbyists are quite often impatient to set up their aquarium and want to add their expensive fish as soon as possible. This common misstep can have disastrous results that may discourage beginners from ever trying again.

To curb such enthusiastic impatience, this book presents clear step-by-step practical advice in a convenient week-by-week progression. The book uses detailed photographic sequences to follow each stage of setting up a warm water freshwater tropical aquarium in real-time over a period of ten weeks.

The set-up procedure starts with the first day, when the substrate and life-support systems are installed and progresses to the point at which the first fish are added - two weeks later. The book then follows the aquarium's development during the next eight weeks as the tank turns from an artificial environment into a living eco-system.

Alongside the main aquarium set-up sequence are photographs that show how to create two different aquascape designs based on a cube and a bow-front tank.

Profile sections show fifty aquarium plants and one hundred popular warm water freshwater aquarium fish at relevant stages of the set-up process. Throughout, the book explains the natural processes that occur so that fishkeepers can ensure ongoing success.

Combining clear text and simple-to-follow illustrations, Setting Up a Tropical Aquarium Week-by-Week is a crucial reference for tropical freshwater fish hobbyists.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #81619 in Books
• Published on: 2004-10-02
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 208 pages

About the Author
Stuart Thraves is an internationally respected authority in fishkeeping.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Introduction

We are constantly fascinated with other worlds. Apart from outer space, the only other domain we have yet to completely explore is the underwater world. It is a world of sumptuous variety from the swirling sun-drenched waters of a coral reef to the tranquil shadows of an Amazon stream trickling slowly beneath a canopy of heavy-leaved tropical trees. These are just two examples of many thriving habitats in which plants, fish and invertebrates live together in aquatic harmony.

Since the great age of discovery and invention in Victorian times, we have tried to bring this fascinating spectacle into our homes. The first aquariums were simple boxes with glass fronts in which temperate fish species were kept. With little appreciation of their needs, the fish soon expired and had to be replaced regularly. This approach would be totally unacceptable today with our regard for animal welfare. A greater understanding of how natural cycles work and the technology to sustain them now offers fishkeepers the exciting opportunity to create and maintain aquariums that will thrive for many years.

This book follows the sequence of setting up and running a tropical freshwater aquarium for the first twelve weeks of its life. At logical points along the timeline of practical progress there are profile sections that feature extended selections of suitable plants and fish. Throughout, the emphasis is on explaining how vital life-support systems work, including the basic science behind the processes they depend on. Unlike many hobbies, where learning can be phased and levels of difficulty matched with emerging ability, fishkeeping requires the immediate grasp of a crucial technique -- how to turn a transparent box of water into an environment that will sustain life from day one and beyond. Fishkeepers are pet owners, with all the responsibilities that title entails. How you control that environment dictates whether your display will thrive or deteriorate into an unsightly mess. This book will give you a head start in the quest to be successful.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Introduction

We are constantly fascinated with other worlds. Apart from outer space, the only other domain we have yet to completely explore is the underwater world. It is a world of sumptuous variety from the swirling sun-drenched waters of a coral reef to the tranquil shadows of an Amazon stream trickling slowly beneath a canopy of heavy-leaved tropical trees. These are just two examples of many thriving habitats in which plants, fish and invertebrates live together in aquatic harmony.

Since the great age of discovery and invention in Victorian times, we have tried to bring this fascinating spectacle into our homes. The first aquariums were simple boxes with glass fronts in which temperate fish species were kept. With little appreciation of their needs, the fish soon expired and had to be replaced regularly. This approach would be totally unacceptable today with our regard for animal welfare. A greater understanding of how natural cycles work and the technology to sustain them now offers fishkeepers the exciting opportunity to create and maintain aquariums that will thrive for many years.

This book follows the sequence of setting up and running a tropical freshwater aquarium for the first twelve weeks of its life. At logical points along the timeline of practical progress there are profile sections that feature extended selections of suitable plants and fish. Throughout, the emphasis is on explaining how vital life-support systems work, including the basic science behind the processes they depend on. Unlike many hobbies, where learning can be phased and levels of difficulty matched with emerging ability, fishkeeping requires the immediate grasp of a crucial technique -- how to turn a transparent box of water into an environment that will sustain life from day one and beyond. Fishkeepers are pet owners, with all the responsibilities that title entails. How you control that environment dictates whether your display will thrive or deteriorate into an unsightly mess. This book will give you a head start in the quest to be successful.

Customer Reviews

A Great Beginners Guide
Wow, I wish they had a book like this when I started fish keeping. I think there would be fewer fish in heaven if I had a book this informative. From tank choice to maintenance, the 12 weeks this book covers is jam packed with practical information. This book includes helpful information on plants, filters, fish choice, fish diseases and much more. The step-by-step photos are great and extremely easy to follow. The information is timeless and very well done.
This is a great gift for anyone who has or wants to get a fish tank.

THE best general freshwater aquarium reference I've read.
This is a great and complete reference for the beginning to experienced aquarist. Excellent photos demonstrate what the text explains. The author not only introduces the more difficult technical procedures for keeping an aquarium, but clearly explains how to implement them and the natural processes they affect. I also particularly enjoyed that the author frequently discusses the latest innovations and equipment for the home aquarium. If there was one book for the aquarist that I would recommend, it would be this one.

Lighting systems, cleaning and filtering systems, fish choice and feeding plants
There are plenty of books on the market which discuss the home tropical aquarium, from choosing fish to maintenance: so what makes Stuart Thraves' Setting Up A Tropical Aquarium Week By Week so special? It's his weekly focus on the project, from day one to week 12, which offers step-by-step clear instructions on how to correctly set up a tropical freshwater aquarium. Lighting systems, cleaning and filtering systems, fish choice and feeding plants: all are given photo embellishments and very clear direction.