Good books for Eartheaters, Crenicichla, and Central American Cichlids

[tjnelson44]

I am interested in finding some good books on these topics. Any recomendations?
Trevor

 

[aspen]

this is a really good book on the eartheaters.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0966825519/104-2078854-2109566?v=glance&n=283155

hth, rick

 

[tjudy]

That's the one you want... Widener's book.

 

[Mike Wise]

Widener's book "Eartheaters" is quite good, but it only covers one of the groups of fish in which you are interested. Undoubtedly the most comprehensive & best that I've seen are volumes 1 & 3 of Die Buntbarsche Amerikas. Volume 1 covers the cichlasomines of South America & the Central American cichlids. Volume 3 covers the pike cichlids & eartheaters. Unfortunately it is only available in German.

 

[HaakonH]

It's strange in my opinion that those books Mike mentions hasn't been translated to English. Surely there must be a great sales potential there? And how hard can it really be to find someone to do the translation if they paid for it? Is it because the publisher simply don't think it's worth the effort?I wouldn't mind helping, and I'm sure there are plenty of other enthusiasts who wouldn't mind either

 

[Mike Wise]

Their publisher, Eugen Ulmer GmbH & Co., is a well respected publisher of all kinds of books & magazines on natural history. Among their publications is the magazine DATZ. The new DATZ dwarf cichlid book is the first book they published in anything other than German. Ingo Koslowski & I (only in a minor way - I translated it for free!) encouraged this publication, hoping that many of their other excellent books would be published in English, too.

I always laugh at the "sales potential" of hobby books. Go to the average aquarium store in the USA. How much space is allotted to aquarium books & magazines? 1%? 2%? If it is that much, you are lucky. Do you know whyTetra Verlag has not published the 1997, 2001, 2003 editions of Linke & Staeck into English? Simple, the 1994 English edition took almost 10 years to sell out. After publishing Römer's Cichlid Atlas in German, why did it take Mergus 2 years to produce the English edition? Simple. It took that long before there were enough pre-orders to make it profitable to publish an English edition. They learned from their very popular Aquarium Atlas series that books don't move as fast here as in Germany. Specialty books, like those on dwarf cichlids, move even more slowly! Let's face it, the average hobbyist does not read books. Otherwise, why does this forum get so many questions that can be answered in most dwarf cichlid books?

Do not expect that the books like "Die Buntbarsche Amerikas" volumes to be translated commercially. There just is not sufficient demand for them to warrent the cost of translating them. I translated the DATZ book for free. It was fairly short and simple to do. Do you expect anyone to do the same for the 3 "Die Buntbarsche Amerikas" volumes (v. 1 = 540 pages; v. 2 = 318 pages; v. 3 = 478 pages)? Additionally the books are not inexpensive. How many of you have paid $75+ for a fish book? I have finished a rough draft of Koslowski's book in English. I have authorization from both the author & publisher to sell the translation. I think they are interested to see if it sells at all!

That being said, Rainer Stawikowski - editor for DATZ & many of the DATZ books - is willing to publish some of his more popular books in a bi-lingual format. His problem now is finding large distributors willing to wharehouse & distribute these books. I cannot find any. Do any of you have suggestions?

 

[HaakonH]

Well this sure cleared things up a bit, thank you Mike I think sometimes we get so carried away by our own enthusiasm (well at least I do) that we forget what we are interested in is actually a very narrow niche in the aquarium hobby itself! So yes obviously the publishers are reluctant to press their products in 2 languages. In fact it would be very interesting to know the sales figures for the Mergus-, Aqualog,- and Ulmer series, but I don't suppose we will ever see them.

The hobby is bigger in Germany than in any other country it seems, and I guess noone can deny that Germany is truly the heart of the Aquarium hobby today. Would we be right to assume the Germans are simply more willing to spend money and time on books, is it more of a tradition there? I have been working in a LFS for 13 years, and I honestly don't think I've sold even 20 books yet in those years! I aggree with Mike; people just don't buy (enough) litterature. I guess I was just a bit surprised to hear it's like that everywhere else too (except in Germany:biggrin: ) All respect to you for finding the time to do the translation for free Mike. If anybody asked me I'd surely do the same.

 

[Mike Wise]

The hobby is bigger in Germany than in any other country it seems, and I guess noone can deny that Germany is truly the heart of the Aquarium hobby today.

The German people have always had an interest in natural history. The English were probably the first to keep ornamental fish in Europe (mostly local marine species) - if we rule out the Romans who kept fish in pots for food. Of course the Chinese have kept cold water ornamental fish for millenia. The Germans started the tropical fish hobby, not only in Germany but in the USA, too. German immigrants formed the first US aquarium clubs.

Would we be right to assume the Germans are simply more willing to spend money and time on books, is it more of a tradition there?

The hobbyists in Asia seem much more willing to spend money on fish. That is why we see so many more different species available commercially in Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore, etc. The Germans, on the other hand, get these species first. They seem more interested in their natural history, collecting them & reading about them. This is why most of the major fish suppliers are in Germany. Just my opinion.

 

[aspen]

if you ask my lfs guy, he'll tell you that canadians would always spend their money on fish and NEVER on books. i suspect the same would be true about the average north american hobbiest.

i think we here have made the effort to actually learn what we are doing, by doing the research, rather than continue to kill fish after fish.

rick

 

[tjnelson44]

Thanks for letting me know about the eartheater book. I have just finished placing my order for it. That is a bummer that there are no english versions available of the other fine books discussed. Now if I can just find some more good books on some of my other fish interests: Loricarids, killifish, wild type live bearers, labyrinth fish (especially Betta spp.), and south american catfish in gerneral. Any more good suggestions?
Trevor

 

[Mike Wise]

In German, yes; in English, not really. "The Germans have all of the good fish ... I mean books.":wink:

 

[fishboy20]

Ingo Seidel has his Loricariidae books being published now. I believe there will be 3 volumes with the first two being out now. Only the 1st edition is in english so far though. The second has most of the pleco species I believe, took a glance at it at the OCA Extravaganza last November. Looks like I really nice book, can't wait for the english addition.

Here is a link to the 1st Edition, I do not know the seller personally but wanted to show what book to look out for.

http://www.aquabid.com/cgi-bin/auction/auction.cgi?books&1137054904