In light of the recent popularity of such movies as Finding Nemo and Shark Tale, and aquariums as elements of interior decor, home aquariums have become all the rage. Since there are so many ways you can design an aquarium today, a little guidance is definitely needed. The Inspired Aquarium is a key tool to use while searching for ideas to help inspire your own home-aquarium design. This complete handbook acts as both an inspirational and factual guide. It shows you the most compatible choices in aquatic creatures, plants, lighting, and more for your chosen setup.

CUSTOMER REVIEWS (Average Customer Rating: 4.5 based on 10 reviews)

outstanding aquariums

"Inspired Aquariums" was a joy to read and look at, the photographs of each aquarium was amazing. I found many ideas for aquariums to use for my own aquarium. Instructions were good but was more for the advanced aquarist, which I'm not. All in all it was a good reference book for my
library.
June 24, 2008

Awesome general overview.

This book is an awesome general overview for those that are researching a big budget build.
It is not a reference guide for someone researching specific reef, planted,community fish aquaria info.
There are many other books that serve that purpose.
You will see many aspects of aquaria installed in some very unique situations by a great team who do this everyday from their facility in Houston.

April 20, 2008

Not exactly what I wanted

I thought this was more of a book about building aquariums.
It is a book with very nice photos, of very fancy aquariums in expensive places.
Not much help for the average homeowner.

February 09, 2008

Beautiful

When I first started to read this book, I thought that it was only for the wealthy, since it deals largely with huge custom-made tanks in built-in cabinetry, or how to work an aquarium into your blueprints. It even refers to a 72-gallon aquarium as "small". But the principles of design and maintenance can apply to the more modest sizes of aquaria too.

If you are new to the hobby, it'll help you decide between freshwater and marine, and then whether you want live plants or live coral. It'll help you choose an aesthetically pleasing location for your aquarium and help you aquascape the interior.

I found the plant section to be especially helpful, even though it was a brief overview. In its description of the major plant groups, it mentioned which ones can get by with less light, or without a CO2 system, or with little pruning. And it didn't put me to sleep like the plant sections of other aquarium books.

The last section, entitled "Case Studies", is really cool. There they take some of the tanks pictured in previous sections and give you all the stats on aquarium size, exactly what filtration was used, lighting, livestock, etc. They also give tips on coordinating the aquarium with the surrounding interior design.

The only negative things I can say about the book are about some misplaced and repeated captions. Also, I would have liked to have seen some aerial-view sketches of aquascaping floor plans, showing plant and rock placement.

P.S. If you are not going to hire an aquarium installation and maintenance service, then you need to complete your fish education with one of the Complete Idiot's Guides by Mike Wickham.

November 21, 2007

Great pictures but awkward content

This book contains many high quality pictures of various aquariums fixture designs. It covers all types of aquarium ranging from fresh water, marine, planted to coral tanks. The knowlege this book provided is broad but scattered and simply not comprehensive enough for advanced aquarist. It is equally confusing and incomplete for the beginner aquarist. It describes VERY LITTLE on everything ranging from the fixtures, filtration system, lighting, the livestocks on both marine and fresh water aquariums. To some extent this book is a disappointment and a waste of paper. For example, one clearly can not depend on the 4 pages information provided by this book on choosing marine fish. This book could have some values to interior designers or architects who wish to incorporate an aquarium in his/her design.
June 11, 2007

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Nature Aquarium World Volume 2
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Nature Aquarium World: Book 3 (Nature Aquarium World)
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The Reef Aquarium: Science, Art, and Technology, Vol. 3
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