Tropical Fish Keeping Journal Book Edition One: Tropical Fish Keeping Journals, #1

By Alastair R Agutter

The "Tropical Fish Keeping Journal Book Edition One" for every tropical Fish Hobbyist and Dedicated Aquarist from around the World. Each edition covers a series of special features on the hobby, for a successful tropical fish keeping experience. 

In this issue of the “Tropical Fish Keeping Journal” book edition one, we cover; the history of tropical fish keeping and the unmistakable contribution made by our Victorian Ancestors. Helping new aquarists get started. Choosing the correct themes and styles for the aquarist’s planned aquarium(s). Choosing the right sized fish tank, including the supporting stand required for the job and the importance of positioning the aquarium in the right place.

CONTENTS INSIDE THIS JOURNAL:

INTRODUCTION - Authors introduction to the Tropical Fish Keeping Journal Book Editions, SHORT HISTORY OF THE PASTIME - A brief History of the hobby and the unmistakable contributions made by our Victorian Ancestors, GETTING STARTED IN THE HOBBY - Helping new aquarists to get started in the hobby and becoming familiar with the products, AQUARIUM STYLES - Choosing the correct themes and styles for the Aquarists planned aquarium(s), AQUARIUM SIZES AND STANDS - Choosing the right sized fish tank, including the supporting stand requirements, AQUARIUM LOCATIONS - A guide to ensuring your aquarium is positioned in a safe and appropriate location, TROPICAL FISH SPECIES - Editors choice featuring a selection of tropical fish species accompanied with fact files, AQUATIC PLANT SPECIES - Editors choice featuring a selection of aquatic plant species accompanied with fact files, BREEDING LIVEBEARER GUPPIES - The Aquarists quick guide to successfully breeding and rearing livebearer Guppies, AQUARISTS PRODUCTS GUIDE - Featuring essential star aquatic products of note for today's tropical fish hobbyist, AQUARISTS REFERENCE TABLES - Sets of essential reference tables for aquarists including Gallons, Litres, Aquarium Sizes, Filtration and more in every journal edition, plus mathematical formulas, AQUARISTS BOOK GUIDE - Essential books and magazines worth reading and acquiring covering the hobby and AQUARISTS DIRECTORY - Useful web sites and web addresses for aquarists in relation to the pastime.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Alastair Agutter Digital Publications
• Release date: Dec 4, 2016
• ISBN: 9781540674012

Alastair R Agutter

Alastair R Agutter was born in Farnborough, Kent, England in 1958. He is a Best Selling Author of more than 30 specialist books. He is a Philosopher, Logistician, Theoretical Physicist, Writer, Publisher, Naturalist, Environmentalist, Computer Scientist, Creative Digital Artist and Proud Father of Five Children. His first specialist book was published in 1989 and writing on the South American Marine species the symphysodon that he managed to breed successfully in captivity after a great deal of heartache. In the book introduction over 25 years ago, he wrote about climate change concerns and with warnings. From the age of just 6 years, Alastair took up Gardening, being taught by his Grand Father, William Agutter. At 9 years of age, and as a young boy, Alastair also took up the hobby and past time of Tropical Fish Keeping, and became a very successful Aquarist , breeding countless species of cichlids and other tropical fish for over 46 plus years. Still today Alastair remains one of a select few in the world to breed Wild Discus (symphysodon) in captivity, and remains an authority on the subject ,and also as an accomplished author. As a writer of over 25 years today, Alastair never knew he would become a specialist books author. But then on reflection of his life's journey today, such a path does now make absolute sense!

Book preview

Introduction

Dear Reader and Aquarist,

Firstly, a very big welcome to the Tropical Fish Keeping Journal and a special thank you for acquiring this copy of the publication edition one in the series, and hopefully through God’s good graces, many more book editions to come in future years.

A Sense of History

In fact talking of time, next year in 2017, I celebrate 50 years as an aquarist from when I first took up our time honoured and noble pastime of tropical fish keeping as a hobbyist back in 1967. And here’s a strange thing, I still remember with great clarity that very special moment in my life when I visited a friend’s home, and in the hallway proudly stood, a magnificent bow front angled iron aquarium in gold. And from that day, the magic of tropical fish keeping weaved its spell.

The first three fish species I ever kept and bred were livebearers, these included; Guppies, Platies and Swordtails. Still to this day, I find these tropical fish species, being three of my very favourite, and in truth, I think they symbolise our hobby in the minds of every young boy and girl around the world joining our wonderful pastime. Today in fact, I still keep Platies, Guppies and Swordtails, finding them always active and interesting to view, and complimented with their fabulous array of colours. I therefore felt it would be fitting to place on the front cover of this first edition of the Tropical Fish Keeping Journal a Swordtail (Xiphophorus), to hopefully capture the imagination of more boys and girls, drawing them to the hobby.

Google Social Media Community

Just over two years ago, I set up with friends at Google a Social Media Community for Tropical Fish Keeping, to help expand the interest of our pastime. In one of my short social media posts, I promised followers and readers, that I would endeavour to write more articles and books on tropical fish keeping, so I could share my hands-on experience and knowledge now spanning 50 years. So folk could acquire advice and information on some of the most common problems to the more complex, regarding our pastime, so the hobby becomes a positive and enjoyable journey experience, lasting many years, and where the aquarist is rewarded with priceless moments and memories to last a life time.

New Tropical Fish Book

I was always determined to write a tropical fish book one day that encompassed all aspects of the hobby for folk starting out for the very first-time. And in the past few years, I have been mentally planning out such a project, and at the beginning of 2016 (strange year), I started finally writing this book titled My First Aquarium that in all honesty, I expected to be of a sensible size, around 150 to 160 pages, covering the do’s and don’ts of the hobby, for anyone starting out for the very first time. So far so good I thought, but as I continued to write more information surrounding this subject, the chapters and pages continued to grow in size, as I kept reasoning with myself, that this information is important and must be included in the book. As a result, the book continued to grow larger in size by the day, as if I was feeding the monster on beef heart, a home-made fish food I use to grow my Discus, and for bringing them into breeding condition. The humble 150 page book for beginners in the end has turned into over 500 plus pages, and over 95,000 words, along with nearly 300 photo’s, illustrations and diagrams. Phew! So now I had a problem, for regarding specialist books, their production runs are very low, yet production costs still remain high, regardless of the small number of books produced. It is only after several hundred thousand books are sold, do costs come down substantially.

So producing a five hundred pages plus tropical fish book in full colour, that will only sell several hundred a year, caused me great concern. For the objective of the book was to reach as many folk as possible and every budget, especially our young millennials, as they will be tasked with saving the planet from climate change in the coming years, and such marine biology and life skills will greatly help.

Compromise, that word has very often over history been a nemesis to so many, when trying to do the right thing. One of the features in the book I wanted to ensure, was a sensible sized type face, so all folk of all ages, could read and enjoy the book, including folk like myself losing their sight these days and the visibly impaired. So I opted for the typeface called times new roman in 12 pts and as a result of such a decision, the book’s appearance and style looked fine. But, and this was the big but, the book now consisted of over 500 pages.

So to try and reduce the size of the book in the way of the number of pages, I reduced the book’s typeface down to 10 pts in size. However, this only reduced the book down to around 450 pages. Well eventually, to cut a long story short, I had the book produced in two editions, a full colour version of the book and a classic retro edition of the book, to hopefully meet all budgets and tastes world-wide.

So through my faith, as I am a strong believer in fate, and always endeavouring to travel down the right path in life to learn, this experience with the set-backs from writing My First Aquarium along with the costs and production issues, has served to be a positive, and the pre-cursor and answer to developing the Tropical Fish Keeping Journal, where I can write these detailed and fascinating topics of interest in tropical fish keeping, and where this is achieved by producing further issues and editions of the Tropical Fish Keeping Journal in full colour, and at an affordable price for all internationally.

Now my humble endeavours here, with the Tropical Fish Keeping Journal editions could never compete, or replace, the continued thankless work and dedication of Dr Herbert Axelrod’s team at TFH Publications (Tropical Fish Hobbyist), but can hopefully compliment such a fine magazine, that has existed since September 1952, and still remains today, the only tropical fish keeping magazine, that is worth any acclaim and note, to be acquired, for its informative and balanced articles.

So, at the time of writing this introduction, you may be pleased to know, I have been working extremely hard, devoting my time to the pastime, where I have in fact managed to compile six book editions of the Tropical Fish Keeping Journal, covering all aspects of the hobby and pastime. And over the Christmas holiday, I plan to write more editions moving into next year, and also a new book I have promised patrons that I would write for some years titled; The Advanced Discus Book, that will include fish behaviour and genealogy, mentioning just two of the subjects.

Tropical Fish Keeping Journal Book Edition One

In this issue of the Tropical Fish Keeping Journal book edition one, we cover; the history of tropical fish keeping and the unmistakable contribution made by our Victorian Ancestors. Helping new aquarists get started. Choosing the correct themes and styles for the aquarist’s planned aquarium(s). Choosing the right sized fish tank, including the supporting stand required for the job and the importance of positioning the aquarium in the right place.

Tropical Fish Keeping Journal Book Edition Two

In book edition two of the Tropical Fish Keeping Journal we cover; the choice of aquarium substrates and their advantages. Successfully growing and keeping