Best fish identification book

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Openbrain

Aquarium Advice Activist
Joined
May 9, 2012
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156
I would like to have a great library for my knowledge but need your input on which manuals to get.

I'd like to be able to look at pictures of the fish and have a decent page on there food, disease and habitats.

If i have to buy two or three thats fine. This is important so money is no issue i will just have to save up:)
 
Online resources is your best bet because you can find the info faster than searching through a book. Best of all, its free and the info is collected from hobbyists over the decades. Their info is more updated than the aging info you find in books.

I have never picked up a fish/aquarium book before. All my knowledge collected from the hobbyist who are experts in their respective field. These experts are found in forums that specialize in different aspects of fish keeping. There are cichlid forum, puffer forum, goldfish forum, coral forums, plant forums, etc.

I think the only good thing about books are for IDing fish, coral, and plants. Sorry I do not know of any good books. I would get a puffer book, but I get good IDs from the experts on my puffer forum.
 
There is a pretty small book I have called Marine Fishes by Scott W. Michael. That may be what you are looking for. :)
 
There are a number of books out there, but most cover specific regions or families of fishes, or only include a spattering of species. Fishbase (Search FishBase) is a reasonable online resource to use, but it is not without it's share of misidentified photos and is not comprehensive for many groups. It's a good starting place though - in particular, I find it useful to use the "information by family" facility, then click on "list of pictures" to get thumbnails of each species in the family (or at least those species where images are available). I have a reasonable library of books and journal articles (several thousand all up) that I call on to identify fish as part of my job as a fish taxonomist and museum curator, and am happy to give you my 2c worth if you post photos to this forum.

Tony
 
Best fish identification database is google. Its amazing what you find there, just google image search a basic description of the fish and BAM, may have to browse photos but it's cheaper than a book. Another good resource is liveaquaria.com
 
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