The Biotope Aquarium: An Authentic Imitation of Nature in Your Home : Setting Up Natural-Looking Aquariums (A Save-Our-Planet Book) by Rainer Stawikowski isbn: 0866225196 208 pages, Hardcover Publication date: 1993-04 Publisher: TFH Publications Buy this @amazon.com List price: $17.95(USD) Price : $17.95(USD)

Customer reviews from amazon.com

A very useful book for the novice adding plants

"The ultra-experts may not like this book but I found it very useful in setting up my first complex freshwater aquariums with plants. Of course my goal was not to reproduce the exact conditions of Lake Whatchamacallit. But I ended up with very stable, amusing, and good looking tank that was easy to care for."

A good overview of biotope aquariums, but lacking details

"This highly glossy book is divided into chapters regarding not geographical areas but types of biotope namely:

-Clear Water Rivers of the Central American Landbridge -Belly Sliders and Bottom Hoppers: Fish from River Rapids -River bank with Fallen Foliage -A Lot of Wood: An Aquarium for "Antenna" or Tentacled Fish -Overgrown Bank -Rocky shore or Beach Zone: Careful Fish Among Large Stones -Rubble or Scree Zone in Lake Tanganyka -Underwater Deserts: Life in the Sand

The descriptions and suggestions are somewhat biased towards the Central-Southern American Region, except (obviously) for the last three chapters which focus on the African lakes Malawi and Tanganyka. Asia and other parts of Africa are not given much coverage while Europe and North America don't feature at all. The author seems also to be very fond of cichlids of all types and origins and I believe this book could prove quite useful to someone considering getting into these and making their first, general choices. Personally, I find that this book has taught me some about the way different kinds of fish live but not enough of any particular kind to make a serious attempt at creating a biotope aquarium. The many photographs are mostly of fish in aquariums. Moreover, although the book does still contain some 60-odd photographs of field photographs, these are mostly landscape, above-water pictures of rivers, ponds, etc. Only a few pictures actually correspond to actual underwater scenes from nature and most of these are of the lakes Malawi and Tanganyka. Overall, I find that this book is good introduction to biotope aquariums, and would be useful for people trying to make choices about biotope types and those who would like to know what their fish are now missing in their home aquariums. It is not, however, provide enough information to attempt to recreate a real biotope with a reasonable degree of faithfulness, and does not take into account regional variations (gouramis from India-Sri Lanka are thrown in with the Thai, Malay,! etc, for example). -A good coffe-table book!"