General book on SA Cichlids - recommendations?

[Mol_PMB]

I would quite like to buy a book about South American Cichlids. I know there's a lot of information online but sometimes it's nice to have a reference book to browse through.

There seems to be a range of books focusing on Apistogrammas, of which the more comprehensive and recent can be very expensive. However, I'd prefer a more general book to start with, something that would include Rams, Dicrossus, Angels, Discus, Geophagus etc as well as the Apistos. I'm not after massive detail on how to keep them all, but am interested in their natural environment and behaviour, and the sort of fish they would live with.

Can anyone recommend a book for me?

Many thanks,
Paul

 

[Mike Wise]

I know of no recent book (last 25 years) that covers all of the cichlids you're interested in. The closest would be the 3 volume set "Die Buntbarsche Amerikas" published by Ulmer Verlag (publisher of DATZ). It's a wonderful compilation of all of the New World cichlids known up to about 2004. Nothing IMHO comes close to this set. There are 2 problems, of course. It's 10 years old. Many new species of cichlids have been discovered since then. It's only published in German, so if you can't read German, you're out of luck. For dwarf cichlids, I suggest you do a search here on recommended books. There have been many discussions on the topic.

 

[Mol_PMB]

Many thanks, Mike. I had spent a bit of time googling and failed to come up with anything that really fitted my desires, and it sounds like that's because there isn't anything recent in English. Thanks for taking the time to reply. I'll have a look at the threads on here for some more recommendations on the dwarf cichlid literature.

 

[regani]

As a very broad book covering cichlids in general, including the African cichlids, I quite like the book 'The Cichlid Aquarium' by P.V. Loiselle (published by Tetra, the edition I have is from 1994).
It contains a lot of excellent general information that help to keep various cichlids under close to natural conditions. It also deals with behaviours, water values etc. It is, however, not so great on detailed information on individual species as it deals with the fish more in terms of genus and sometimes locations. But the information about specific genera I often found quite useful and there is some more detail scattered throughout the book as well.

I have the American Cichlids I and American Cichlids II by Staeck and Linke - well, I got the German version, but there is an English edition with that title available. There is a lot of useful information sorted by species in there. The edition I have is from 2006. I am not sure if that is the same book Mike was thinking of?

 

[Mol_PMB]

Many thanks I'll look those up.

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,
Have a look here: <http://dwarfcichlid.com/Book_reviews.php>. Bob Wiltshire is a member of "Apistogramma forums", and his site is full of good advice.

cheers Darrel