I felt that this book was particularly promising, as it contained many color photographs of various fish diseases, a comprehensive listing of various medications, and diagnostic flow-charts. It is unfortunately cumbersome to use, however, and offers advise impractical to the casual fishkeeper. For example, although you can use a flowchart to reach a diagnosis and recommended treatment, the lack of a clear index or organization order makes finding the one paragraph you need difficult. The book also frequently recommends taking samples from your fish and analyzing them under a microscope. Although this may be useful to someone who knows how to handle fish without hurting them and has a laboratory at their disposal, it doesn't do a lot of good for the average person.

The book does contain useful information about fish disease, even though its practical application to the casual fishkeeper is limited.

32 of 35 found the following review helpful:


Good but not great  Apr 13, 2000 By G. Hoeppner
This book does have a lot of information on fish disease, including information on how to diagnose and cure infected fish. The first 20 or so pages make up a giant flow chart to help you determine what is wrong with your fish. Something like, "does the fish have white spots if yes go to step 2 otherwise continue to step 3." This flow chart is hard to beat...it is excellent. The author seems to target this book more toward the advanced user. It has sections on how to perform an autopsy on your fish, and how to determine what is causing the problem with a microscope; a little more in depth than most people probably want or need. I'm a bit disappointed in the pictures. There is a fair amount of pictures, but not as many as I would have liked to seen. It's easy to read some of the symptoms for a particular disease and think, "gee, my fish might have that," but without a picture to let you know for sure, there's a little guesswork involved. The book is probably worth picking up, but I think it would be best used as a compliment to another, similar book.

15 of 17 found the following review helpful:


Good, but not great.....  Dec 02, 2002 By Morley Dotes "morleydotes"
I bought this book thinking it would give me a better idea of diagnosing and treating fish diseases for my African Cichlids. I did not find the descriptions very helpful, nor did I find the lay out of the book very user friendly. I wish I knew of a better one out there to recommend to you, but I cannot. I did find a website out there that does have an excellent interface, with careful searches you should be able to find it easily.
This book is better than nothing, but there has to be better out there.

Peace,

Morley

7 of 7 found the following review helpful:


Best fish disease book  May 25, 2004 By Stephanie Settlemyre
This is the most helpful book on fish diseases I have ever owned. It has helped me understand what ogranisms have infected my fish and helped me to find treatments for them. The various charts help narrow down all the possiblities of disease that a fish may have. I recomend this book to any fish hobbist that is interested in finding cures for the diseases that have effected their fish, beginners and advanced. However a basic understanding of biology and microbiology might be helpful while reading this book.

8 of 10 found the following review helpful:


All I can say is WOW!  Jun 16, 1998
This book covers it all and has it all in my opinion. I enjoyed the amount detail and information given in this book. The charts are VERY useful in helping to diagnose fish and the treatments given are wonderful. The detail Mr. Untergasser went into concerning the different kinds of things that can effect your fish was another positive to this book. A five star book hands down in my opinion!

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