"Atlas of Marine Aquarium Fishes" by Dr Burgess?

[clutchcargo]

Does anyone have this book?
I looked at the Mini version and was disappointed that there is no text and only symbols under the photographs. Also, the index needs much to be desired with page numbers only under the scientific names with a cross index to common names. You have to look the name up twice if you don't know the scientific name. Is the big book set up in the same way?
What are your thoughts and how does it compare to the mini version.
Thanks
C

 

[Chucker]

If you want a quality fish book, I'd highly suggest Scott Michael's Pocket Guide. 90% of the info in Burgess is out of date.

 

[Mustang]

I have the book It soundslike it the same as the mini. I have not seen the mini version
but the full size only has symbols and such.

I was a bit disapointed with it.
On the plus side it has a whole lot of fish.

And I know you really cannot go by common names but it would be nice to have a refrence to some of the common names under the pic.

 

[Anonymous]

I'm not impressed with the book at all - the symbols stink and are way off and it's a pain to find out the scientific name half the time.

 

[gazpep]

I have the mini Atlas, but to be honest it is very dated now. More a relic of the late '80's in terms of the general advice content. The fish section isn't too bad but pretty superficial.

 

[FMarini]

Hi:
The big book is no different than the small book, just symbols and alot of fish pictures. This book is really for identification purposes as there are 1000's of fish photos.
What i was always curous about was the fact that i never saw 99% of the fish he had pictured-where are they?.
AS far as outdated....its certainly old, but his general terms like" food, compatability , animal size , tank size are still useful.

Scott michaels pocketguide is far more useful now-aday but i still reference the burgess manual just to ID werid fish
my opinion
frank

 

[davelin315]

I have the big book, too. The scientific names are all crossreferenced in the index with common names, but, just as in the hobby, one fish can have 20 different common names, so you may not get a name you're familiar with. As far as information it provides on fish, it is very superficial, but that's not what it's about, it's an atlas, which is not supposed to give you information, but merely delineate the different species. As far as how useful it is in identification, it's a wonderful book that has more pictures of fish than any book I've ever seen. It's very comprehensive, and I think it's really cool to browse through (I used to do that and then go to my LFS and ask them if they could get me certain fish, some of which have come into the trade recently). Obviously, it doesn't have every fish in there, but it has a lot.