Re: [APD] LFS books

[David Aiken <daiken at iprimus_com.au>]

On 14/08/2005, at 10:35 PM, Phil Edwards wrote:

> The thing is Planted Aquariums wasn't intended to be another  
> Aquarium Plants.

Well, I've got 'Aquarium Plants' and I consider it short on the kind  
of information I was hoping for about tank processes and maintenance.  
It's an extremely good book on plants which is, after all, its topic.

> Planted Aquariums is meant to be a guidebook for people interested  
> in setting up a planted tank but have a little or no experience.   
> I've read the whole book, you can read my review in the 18-04 issue  
> of TAG, and found it to be a very good guide to setting up an  
> aquarium.  The information is a little out of date, but the book  
> itself is at least five years old.  I remember looking at a copy in  
> the original German four years ago and it had taken some time for  
> my friend to get it here in the US.

I didn't say it was a bad book. I think it does what you say, and  
does it well. I said " It is not as informative as I hoped, and it  
doesn't cover theory anywhere near as well as I hoped given the  
quality of 'Aquarium Plants'. I definitely hoped for more science and  
I am disappointed. It's a good book but I think there's probably a  
much better book she could write" and I still mean that.

> There is plenty of technical information regarding substrates,  
> lighting, and CO2 supplimentation but not as much as in Aquarium  
> Plants and it's written in an easy to digest form.

I disagree as far as the level of information I was looking for is  
concerned. There is enough to help someone set up an aquarium. Both  
books are significantly lacking at the kind of level I was looking for.

> Personally, I think that's a good thing.  Just like Terry said,  
> once you start talking technical to the average aquarist/aquarium  
> store patron their eyes start to glaze over and you've lost them.   
> Once folks have the basics down "Planted Aquariums..." then they're  
> ready for 'Aquarium Plants' and the Nature Aquarium World series.

Perhaps one of the reasons eyes glaze over is that people are getting  
quite used to being given 'how to' recipes which don't require them  
to think or try to understand the processes. I think a lot more  
people are capable of doing that than you seem to think, but without  
the information out there readily available, and some form of graded  
delivery of technical information, it's a hard learning curve.  
Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be anything that really fits all  
that well between fairly basic books for beginners which is where I  
would place 'Planted Aquariums' and the much more solid texts like  
Adey and Loveland's 'Dynamic Aquaria' which I regard as excellent in  
many ways, and the biology/limnology textbooks. I think if that gap  
was filled and the average aquarist had access to several books at  
graduated and increasing levels of technical complexity, you would  
see quite a few people starting to read the 'heavier' stuff and  
getting interested in the more scientific side of things. I think the  
present situation tends to keep people uninterested and, as a result,  
many of them remain a lot more ignorant than they would if there was  
a wider range of information readily available in print.

What I'd like to see is pretty much an equivalent of 'Dynamic  
Aquaria' aimed specifically at planted aquariums of typical hobbyist  
size with in depth coverage of the various substrate choices, high  
and low tech systems, and the processes at work in ecosystems of  
limited size.

> This may sound callous, but Ecology of the Planted Aquarium is  
> about the worst book for an LFS.  Diana's a friend, I like her  
> book, and have a copy of it myself, but would never carry it in a  
> store for one reason.  It does nothing for sales.  It's one thing  
> for a store employee to help customers with the most efficient  
> hardware setup.  Its another to recommend doing away with the  
> hardware all together.  If a planted department doesn't make sales  
> the owner's not going to subsidize it for long.  EoPA is best left  
> for people to find on the net and to buy on Amazon.com.

Sadly, it does take sales for a LFS to keep stocking many products,  
but I think those shops which specialise in planted tanks could  
afford to keep 1 copy in stock at most times, and to recommend it for  
an understanding of some of the processes that go on in a tank.

So that's my view. It's different to yours but, as I said, if you go  
back and read my original post again you will see that I did say that  
I didn't think 'Planted Aquaria' was a bad book. I said it wasn't the  
book I was hoping for which is a very different thing. I'm happy to  
have it, and it's the sort of book I would buy for my library anyway,  
but I'm still looking for a much more substantial text of the sort I  
mentioned above which, as far as I know, has yet to be written.

David Aiken
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