[GrampsGrunge]

I found out our library has this on it's shelves..

Your Home Aquarium: Dr. Jorg Vierke

Your Home Aquarium: Jorg Vierke: 0018214207559: Amazon.com: Books

It's a bit of an annotated, more Americanized version of his 1986 book Vierke's Aquarium Book.

( This also was the book I kept thinking was called "The Natural Aquarium". Which I believe was written by an author from Japan that was in the same field as Amano's early planted show tank experiments.)

Vierke's Aquarium Book was really prophetic about the upcoming planted aquarium hobby. Although in Europe and other countries, naturalist care of aquarium fishes and heavily planted tanks had already been in practice for some time. Jorg also covers planted nano tanks and alternate lighting solutions to fluorescent and incandescent lighting that were common at the time. He also provided ideas for setting up Biotypical tanks with fish and plants from the same country if not continent, and some were from a specific region/river.

Like some of the books of their time his stocking suggestions are a bit on the crowded side, but he covers the maintenance end by thoroughly recommending water changes if not weekly at least twice every month.

I credit this book for it's bringing me more seriously into fish and planted tank keeping. His style in the translation is easily understandable, cordial, witty and human.

Dr. Vierke is a naturalist first and foremost, and shares his love of bringing into your home, a small part the Amazon or SE Asian blackwater streams our prized fish live in and replicating it effectively by sharing what the environment of the fish are like, how to best replicate it.

He's also one of the first to talk about including the high CEC dust from natural gravels as an underlayer to the top layers of gravel, this recommended plant gravel grain size he recommends is pretty spot on.

I also really enjoy reading his magazine articles on Dwarf Ciclids from the time.

Any aquarium books you consider to be timeless, well written, or very good reads?

 

[Darkblade48]

Walstad's Ecology of the Planted Aquarium is an excellent read.
Amano's Nature Aquarium World (all three volumes) or the compiled Complete Works (which has a bit of everything including a few new aquascapes) serve as excellent inspirational books.

 

[Diana]

I like the Baensch series for the fish information. Originally published in German, available in English translation.
Walstad's Ecology... is at the top of the list for me.

I also have quite a few other books about aquariums and ponds, but they are less informative.

 

[GrampsGrunge]

There's also this book that the Booth's used as their 'primer' for their first big planted tanks.

The Optimum Aquarium: Kaspar Horst, Horst E. Kipper: 9783925916021: Amazon.com: Books

I remember seeing this at our LFS for over $40 years back.

 

[houseofcards]

Do those books still hold up after all these years.

 

[GrampsGrunge]

I don't know, it's sort of a subjective question.

I think they do, the principles I applied to my tanks back in 91~94 worked, but I was told by PlantBrain-Barr that they couldn't possibly work.

Good tank husbandry is still good tank husbandry, unless of course the Matrix has suddenly reset itself.. :wink2:

My concern about EI is what about evaporation creep? Does EI work in the long run if you're not removing all the macros and such with your 50% changes, when on top of that you're losing 20 percent of your water to evaporation and using tap water as the top up?

https://www.amazon.com/Naturalists-guide-fresh-water-aquarium-fish/dp/080693722X?ie=UTF8&*Version*=1&*entries*=0

J.J. Hoedeman's book pretty much kicked off the base principles that started the Dutch Tank revolution, no-one does Dutch tanks anymore but Walstadt's tanks are based on these very same ideas

 

[houseofcards]

My concern about EI is what about evaporation creep? Does EI work in the long run if you're not removing all the macros and such with your 50% changes, when on top of that you're losing 20 percent of your water to evaporation and using tap water as the top up?

Well your changing on average 50% of the water weekly so there's really not much evaporation or not enough to really worry about. The dosing of EI is obviously estimate in excess so even if you were topping off with tap it should be within range.

The addition of pressurized co2 really changed the hobby. More species of plants can be grown with less light and the myth of NPK causing algae to start has pretty much been proven in my book (pun intended)

 

[bereninga]

Encyclopedia of Aquarium Plants by Peter Hiscook - basic knowledge and understanding for beginners
Nature Aquarium World by Takashi Amano - collection of photos of Amano's tanks

These two have been helpful in the past, but most of the knowledge I've learned, especially about more recent technologies, is actually from this forum or just reading online.

I would be very interested in more recent publications that talk about more in detail about the science behind planted tanks, fertilization, CO2 injection, ID'ing deficiencies, cellular makeup of different plants, etc.

I also would be interested in seeing books about aquascaping concepts: style, plant combinations, design theories and design foundations, design techniques, history of aquascaping, etc.

Planted tanks is a great hobby because it mixes science and art, but there is a lack of publications out there for it.